Grow­ing up I was for­tu­nate to have two men­tors in my life. Although they had vast­ly dif­fer­ent life expe­ri­ences, both my par­ents taught me valu­able lessons, shap­ing me into the per­son I am today. 

My moth­er had a sta­ble upbring­ing in a mid­dle-class fam­i­ly. She went on to become an edu­ca­tor and even­tu­al­ly a pub­lic-school admin­is­tra­tor. My father, on the oth­er hand, expe­ri­enced finan­cial inse­cu­ri­ty when my grand­fa­ther passed away at a young age. Despite sig­nif­i­cant obsta­cles in his life, my father put him­self through col­lege and became a suc­cess­ful retail indus­try exec­u­tive who today owns and oper­ates an inter­na­tion­al health and beau­ty aids business.

My mom taught me the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion and the need to cre­ate good habits. My ​“nev­er quit” atti­tude — I call it per­se­ver­ance, he calls it grit — how­ev­er, is entire­ly from my dad. Col­lec­tive­ly, my par­ents taught me how to build last­ing rela­tion­ships, helped me devel­op a strong work eth­ic, and gave me the tools to achieve finan­cial inde­pen­dence. They each served as the first exam­ple of men­tor­ship in my life and set the bar high for what I would seek in oth­ers. As I quick­ly real­ized, to thrive in my pro­fes­sion­al career I would need to seek oth­er men­tors to build on the foun­da­tion my par­ents pro­vid­ed. I want to acknowl­edge some who have made a sig­nif­i­cant impact. 

Men­tor­ing by Any Oth­er Name

My first men­tor­ship expe­ri­ence in the real world wasn’t a for­mal men­tor­ship. In fact, it wasn’t even called ​“men­tor­ing,” at least not in the sense we know it today. It was one col­league rec­og­niz­ing another’s ambi­tion and believ­ing in work­ing togeth­er to meet shared goals. 

While at work, I iden­ti­fied tenured, suc­cess­ful peo­ple who were accom­plish­ing what I hoped to one day, and I made it my mis­sion to learn from them. I didn’t shy away. I asked ques­tions and I took notes. The first per­son to rec­og­nize that and take me under his wing was a col­league named Bri­an Kelley. 

Although this was a time in which the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try was pre­dom­i­nant­ly male, it didn’t stop a male col­league from teach­ing me some very valu­able lessons that have stood the test of time, across indus­tries, and with­in a myr­i­ad of cir­cum­stances. Just by doing his job, he taught me to: 

• Do my day job bet­ter than any­one else;
• Take care of my team and they will take care of me; and
• Be hum­ble, stay hungry.

Whether he knows it or not, out­side of my par­ents, Bri­an has had the sin­gle great­est impact on my life. 

Seek Some­one You Want to Emulate

Lat­er in life, I fol­lowed in my father’s foot­steps and entered the retail indus­try. I start­ed my career as an indi­vid­ual con­trib­u­tor, learned the busi­ness from the ground up, and through a series of pro­mo­tions I tran­si­tioned into man­age­ment. As a new man­ag­er, I found myself with more respon­si­bil­i­ty and a larg­er team than I prob­a­bly deserved. I was grate­ful the lead­ers in my orga­ni­za­tion trust­ed me and believed in my abil­i­ties. That said, I felt like an imposter, which only added to the immense pres­sure I felt to exceed their expectations. 

Sure, I was self-moti­vat­ed, but I wasn’t sure how to moti­vate oth­ers. Yes, I pro­duced high-qual­i­ty work, but I wasn’t sure how to main­tain qual­i­ty through del­e­ga­tion. And, what about mis­takes? Mak­ing an error as an indi­vid­ual con­trib­u­tor has far less risk than as a leader of an entire team. I wasn’t sure how to ensure my team deliv­ered results. It was clear I wasn’t work­ing with a full tool­box and that had to change.

Dur­ing my tran­si­tion into man­age­ment, I found a leader who exem­pli­fied mas­tery in all the areas where I had inse­cu­ri­ties. She was suc­cess­ful in moti­vat­ing oth­ers, pro­duc­ing qual­i­ty work, and deliv­er­ing con­sis­tent results. Robin Shawver taught me many lessons. The ones I am most grate­ful for and con­tin­ue to rely on today are:

• How to effec­tive­ly set expec­ta­tions at every lev­el of an organization;
• How to plan my work and work my plan; and
• How say­ing yes to the right things makes say­ing no to every­thing else a lot easier.

To her cred­it, Robin was the first female leader who pur­pose­ful­ly spoke with me about the sig­nif­i­cance of know­ing my own worth, some­thing I was doubt­ing up until that point. With­out her, I know the last sev­en years of my life would have been very dif­fer­ent and far less rewarding.

Team­work Is Men­tor­ship Multiplied 

As I set­tled into my role as a data leader inside my own orga­ni­za­tion, it became abun­dant­ly clear that my suc­cess was in large part owed to the well-respect­ed data strate­gists and thought lead­ers who so gra­cious­ly men­tored me. Over the past four years, two peo­ple rise to the top of the list: David Woods and Tina Rosario. They are not only men­tors, but friends, too.

They have been influ­en­tial on my jour­ney to join in their ranks as a thought leader. David instilled in me a les­son that reach­es far beyond the busi­ness of data: Suc­cess is enabled by the pur­suit of progress, not per­fec­tion. He also taught me two oth­er valu­able lessons:

• Know your num­bers and let them tell the sto­ry; and
• Work with what you have; it’s far more impor­tant to start today than wait for the per­fect time or per­fect technology.

Tina rein­forced how impor­tant it is to build and main­tain a pro­fes­sion­al net­work. She is an absolute mas­ter of net­work­ing and does it with com­plete authen­tic­i­ty. Tina has taught me how crit­i­cal it is to nev­er lose sight of the human side of data. This is espe­cial­ly true when you believe in the val­ue of a busi­ness-led, IT-enabled data pro­gram, like I do. Tina is an advo­cate for and has brought three par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant top­ics to the fore­front of our data com­mu­ni­ty. She chal­lenges me to be bet­ter and do bet­ter. Those vital­ly impor­tant top­ics are:

• Ethics, data, and the cus­tomer experience;
• The impact of uncon­scious bias on advanced ana­lyt­ics; and 
• Women’s lead­er­ship in big data.

By work­ing with me, both David and Tina have taught me the impor­tance of teamwork. 

Sup­port Comes in Dif­fer­ent Shades 

When I first began my career, I was told to leave my emo­tions at the door. I received the ​“there’s no cry­ing in base­ball” speech. One time, I remem­ber being told, ​“nev­er check your lug­gage.” Now, for the record, this is a quin­tes­sen­tial road war­rior rule to live by. All those years ago, how­ev­er, the advice I received was because no busi­ness­man would want to wait for me, a woman. 

I con­tin­ued to car­ry so many fool­ish and, quite frankly, anti­quat­ed rules with me through the years. It wasn’t until last year that a man had the courage to tell me that my emo­tion and pas­sion just might be my super­pow­er. That man is Ralph Haf­fend­en. I am not sure that I have the words to express the grat­i­tude I feel for the time and effort he puts into men­tor­ing me. Ralph and I were brought togeth­er though our company’s for­mal men­tor­ship pro­gram. His guid­ance is help­ing me do real­ly tough work — work that goes beyond the bound­aries of my dai­ly job. He believes by being my authen­tic self, I’ll become an effec­tive ser­vant leader.

Admit­ted­ly, I have a long road of self-dis­cov­ery and self-improve­ment ahead of me; it is a jour­ney I know that nev­er ends. As I am tak­ing the first steps on my jour­ney, Ralph is teach­ing me to:

• Unlearn years of neg­a­tive self-talk; and
• Learn how to har­ness and suc­cess­ful­ly use my ​“super­pow­er” in the pur­suit of bring­ing empa­thy to the workplace.

Be a Men­tor: It Will Change Someone’s Life 

I am an avid sup­port­er of men­tor­ing pro­grams. Men­tor­ing has giv­en me new skills (pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly), helped me make con­sis­tent­ly bet­ter deci­sions, and has unlocked oppor­tu­ni­ties that I would have oth­er­wise nev­er received. Men­tor­ing has brought immea­sur­able val­ue to my life, which is why it’s shock­ing to learn that one in three young peo­ple are with­out a men­tor, accord­ing to men​tor​ing​.org. That accounts for 9 mil­lion chil­dren and young adults. As one of today’s lead­ers, my hope is that we feel com­pelled to answer the call to pay it for­ward and close the men­tor­ing gap.

Do you have a men­tor? Do they know how they’ve affect­ed your life or career? Tell them. Jan. 30, 2020 is ​“Thank Your Men­tor Day.” To Bri­an, Robin, David, Tina, and Ralph — thank you. I would not be me with­out you. For all those now think­ing about being men­tors, thank you too.

ASUG Mem­bers can vis­it the ASUG Women Con­nect page to view upcom­ing events and relat­ed con­tent and join our LinkedIn group to con­nect with like-mind­ed women.

Watch the on-demand Women Con­nect web­cast dis­cussing, ​“Life Lessons Learned on the Jour­ney to Find­ing Pur­pose at Work,” host­ed by Kim­ber­ly Sharp.