Mentoring is therapy

2020 was a challenging year, but I never thought that the thing that will help me through it is my Product mentor.

Going into 2020 my spirits were high. I had a big project I was leading, the first project that I actually got total ownership on, I was just returning from a visit to my favorite city in the world, New York City, and was moving in with my partner. It looked like 2020 was going to be a great year.

However, we all know that 2020 ended up being a horrible year, with fires in Australia, COVID-19 and political chaos to name a few. Ever since I was young I showed signs of anxiety while listening to the news. I remember sitting in the car with my parents as a 6 year old covering my ears every time the news started on the radio. Today I don’t cover my ears anymore, but I actively avoid going into news websites, block any mention of politics on Twitter and definitely never watch the news on TV. But when the news started reporting about this new pandemic I was having a really hard time staying in my bubble.

When the first lockdown happened I was having a really hard time mentally, I was sitting at home in front of my computer, forced to work from home although I never really liked working from home, and was unable to do anything. I would stare at my computer and at my tasks and wouldn’t know how to even start. My mood was down, I felt like life as we know it is gone forever, nothing was enjoyable so I couldn’t even distract myself. I have always been a social person, working with people is one of the main reasons why I love being a Product Manager, and all of a sudden I was sitting alone staring at a computer expected to keep working as if nothing has changed. I broke down. I couldn’t filter the news anymore.

The days went by and as the world got used to this new situation, so did I. Slowly I could get an hour of work here and there just to get things done. I got a lot of mental support from my partner and friends, but things were gloomy back then, for everyone.

Wind of change

In February, before any talk of lockdown was in the air, I signed up to participate in Product League, a mentoring program for Product Managers. I signed up because I didn’t know our lives are going to turn upside down soon, and because I needed someone to help me take the next steps in my career. In March, a few weeks after lockdown had started, I got paired with a Berlin-based mentor named Dia. We would meet once every two weeks via Google Hangouts to talk about my career, what I’ve been through and where I wanted to go. Like a therapy session, but for your career. Through the 4 months of mentoring Dia and I actually became real friends, the meetings with her really elevated my mood and really helped me get my motivation back and get work done.

Dia introduced me to a development plan she uses with people she’s mentoring to learn what they really want to achieve. Through this process we discussed my capabilities, skills, values, vision and plan. Every time I would want to rush through something, she would insist that we stay there a few more minutes to really dig deeper into it, which made me deal with the uncomfortable place in my head where I just want to get things done quickly and move on to my next task (classic problem solver struggles).

Through this process Dia helped me understand a lot about myself, about my goals and what direction I want to take my career in. My three main takeaways were:

• I miss creating content, which is something I did a lot in my first role as a PM. I wanted to start writing for so long but kept procrastinating and giving excuses why I shouldn’t.
• I miss teaching and lecturing, I love to stand in front of a crowd and speak, I miss the rush of adrenalin you get when you stand there, and I love seeing that look on people’s faces when I tell them something new that they didn’t realize before.
• I have grown a lot in my current role as a Product Manager, but I’m not challenged enough anymore. I grew but my role hasn’t, which caused my mind to look for other places where I can be challenged. But what I actually wanted was to do the work that I love doing.

Together with Dia I was able to set goals: I want to write a blog, I want to lecture, I want to get more responsibility at work.

Then like magic things just started happening. It seems like because I was able to say it out loud or because I was able to organize my thoughts it made the fog go away and I was able to see clearly.

Achieving goals

Writing has been something I loved doing since I was young, I remember being 10 years old writing short stories and sending them to a kids magazine to win prizes (I didn’t win). I remember being 12 and fantasizing about having my own laptop so I can sit in bed and write all day long (Got my first laptop only at 21). I remember being 16 writing fan-fiction about Harry Potter and sharing it with my friends (I was obsessing over the early days of Tom Riddle as a Hogwarts student). At 17 I even wrote a silly Telenovela with my friends as the stars of the story. But for so many years since I’ve set this hobby aside and was scared of it, scared of failure. After talking to Dia I realized that so what if I fail? At least I wrote something, so many people consume content on the internet but only 1% of them actually create content. I want to be in that 1% that creates content! I published my first blog post in August, and though I’m just getting started, I finally feel that I can do this. Goal number 1 achieved.

In September I saw a call for instructors to join Jolt, a school of the new world, introducing people to tech education in a different learning model than universities and colleges. They recently opened a new course that helps people who lost their jobs when COVID-19 hit to transition to tech positions. I joined Jolt as an instructor in early October, teaching Sojis (Students of Jolt) about Intro to Product Management, which is something I can talk about for hours. Goal number 2 achieved.

The most challenging goal was to get more responsibility at work. Working at a small startup means there’s always a lot to do and not enough people or money to do it, so oftentimes I find myself picking up things that need to be done and there’s no one else that can do them. And while I love helping people this was distracting me from being more focused on my personal growth as a Product Manager. In September I hired a Release manager to take some of my daily load off (and on boarded her while working remote). This helped a lot, but my main goal was to make sure management knows what direction I want to grow in so I can get more responsibility. As a manager myself, I make it a priority to talk to my employees about their career goals. Knowing their goals can help me navigate their tasks and responsibilities in a way that will make them grow and feel accomplished. It was time I would do the same for myself, luckily I was able to talk to all the relevant people above me (another advantage of being at a small startup) and be vocal about my goals and what I wanted. Aligning expectations is critical, especially in organizations that are growing and changing. There’s room for people to grow alongside it, you just need to make sure others know what you want. Goal number 3 achieved.

Having a goal and a sense of purpose is what helped me get out of my COVID blues, it just made my anxiety look smaller, less scary and gave me something new to focus my energy on. Today I’m feeling much better mentally and I’m very excited to start 2021 focused and motivated to keep working on my goals. Looking back I know that Dia’s help and support was the thing that pulled me through 2020, this was definitely the therapy session that I needed.

If you’re feeling stuck, bored or lost in your career development I highly recommend getting a mentor. It might take time to find the right person, but as Sheryl Sandberg says “Mentorship and sponsorship are key drivers of success”. These personal connections can lead to opportunities and promotions that are crucial for career development. Research shows that mentoring relationships make a difference, for example Women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch assignments and pay raises than women without sponsors, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. To learn more about how to find the right mentor I recommend starting from this article or if you’re a Product manager, check out Product League.

Have any questions, thoughts, ideas that you would like to share with me about mentorship? Comment below and I’m happy to hear and assist where I can.