You want direction, and someone in any of these roles can give it to you. However, each role offers slightly different “brands” of direction that are important to understand before starting a relationship.
Mentor
What they bring to the table: Trusted guidance and advice related to big-picture goals and overarching career concerns.
You might want one of these if:
Tip! A wise saying applies just as much to finding a mentor as it does to many other areas of life: Don’t ask. Don’t get.
Many of your wonderful potential mentors don’t necessarily have “being a mentor” top of mind. A connection request from you might be exactly what makes them realize what a glorious idea it is. In the article, What’s the Right Way to Find a Mentor?, a Harvard Business Review contributor offers this casual template you can swipe for making that first connection:
Dear X,
I’ve been reading about the work you’re doing with Y. I’m interested in building my career in technology and I’d love to hear how you rose from a systems analyst to a technical product manager in five years. Would it be possible for us to have a quick video chat sometime within the next couple of weeks?
Career Coach
What they bring to the table: Targeted support in meeting specific career goals or benchmarks, such as landing a promotion or switching industries.
You might want one of these if:
Life Coach
What they bring to the table: Targeted support in any life area you want to improve.
You might want one of these if:
Gallup’s 2023 State of the Workplace Report found that globally, over half of employees are considering leaving their job, and most are disengaged.
The term “employee engagement” has become a buzzword in corporate circles, yet its true significance is often underestimated or misunderstood.
In this free guide, you’ll learn:
Address the the challenge of employee disengagement and discover solutions that can transform your company into a into winning workplace.
We all have “those days.” You know the kind. You wake up groggy, remember the emails and deadlines waiting in your near future, and snooze your alarm to get just a few more minutes of respite.
Alarms and their snooze buttons didn’t exist during the lifetime of Marcus Aurelius, the famous philosophizing emperor of Rome. Nevertheless, the wisdom he recorded in his Meditations can help with the deeper, and oh-so-human quirk that drives us toward the act of snoozing.
Remember these Aurelius quotes when you need to rekindle your motivation:
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’”
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.”
⚡ Run better meetings with this team meeting agenda template in Figjam.
When you amp up your agendas with action plans, storyboards, and agile roadmaps, you can make every staff meeting—and every moment—count.
We’re not talking about induction cooking, although that’s cool too. We’re talking about induction in the sense of one of Merriam-Webster’s numerous definitions: the act of causing or bringing on or about.
Backward induction is reverse reasoning that starts with a desired future outcome and also reveals how to bring about said outcome.
It’s especially helpful when the desired future outcome is dependent on a preceding sequence of time-sensitive benchmarks.
Backward induction IRL: Most people talk about backward induction in terms of game theory. (We’re not going to worry about that today.) An architecture project offers a glimpse of the practical benefits of backward induction.
Most of us know based on experience or instinct that we should get a good night’s sleep before making that big decision.
We may not all be as clear about why exactly that makes so much sense.
The Stuff You Should Know (SYSK) podcast reveals the science-backed explanation in their Short Stuff: Sleeping On It episode.
Here’s the gist:
Sleeping on it can provide clarity because, during sleep, our brains are busy processing and organizing information, making connections between both old and new knowledge. That’s why, for example, we wake up remembering that we don’t need to start that new-hire search from scratch because Alex from our last job is actually a beyond-perfect fit.
Sleeping on it can provide clarity because our brains are using unconscious instead of conscious thought. Unconscious thought is still thought, but it operates in a different mode—one that tends to reduce overthinking and allows the actually important considerations to rise to the surface.
Sleeping on it can provide clarity because you’re simply taking off the pressure and stress of making a decision, which can cloud judgment and scramble the information you have at your disposal.
Get the free guide that will take you through everything you need to know about creating more resilient, engaged teams today.
Fishbone diagrams are the best way to list out all of the potential causes and effects of a specific event. Get the free template here.
Checking in with your team promotes a healthy work culture — here’s an icebreaker that can help with that.
monday.com is the project management software that powers the world’s top brands — find out what all the buzz is about.
🗓️ Tune into the free Fireside Chat with Chynna Clayton on Monday October 2nd at 2pm EDT. If you didn’t know, Chynna Clayton was Trip Director and Special Assistant to First Lady Michelle Obama!
🤖 If you’re worried about AI taking away your job, give this a read.
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