Welcome back to all hands.
Everyone january is national mentoring month and
many organizations are stressing the importance of helping
the next generation of leaders Janet fan understands
this importance as a first generation american.
She created the nonprofit thriving elements
that connects underrepresented girls in stem
with long term mentors through high school college and early career.
Amazing joining us now is Janet founder of thriving elements and author of Boldly.
You thank you so much for joining us here on all hands.
Why is mentorship so important?
I think mentoring is so important because it allows people to have a guiding light,
someone who is experienced in the area that they are hoping to pursue,
whether it's personal or professional.
Yeah, we mentioned as a first generation american,
you really understand this important so well.
Was there a specific turning point for you when you realized
that this was really needed what you provided at thriving elements?
Yes.
So um being someone who is a daughter of
refugee parents from Vietnam because of the Vietnam war,
my parents didn't know how to best navigate
me through the american education and professional system.
And before I even realized it,
um,
I had a mentor in high school who helped me with college scholarships
and college applications and the next steps of what I needed to do.
And it was um, knowing that I had him,
that was a huge turning point for me as well as when I was in university, I had a,
I thi internship mentor who really empowered me and really
gave me um all of the autonomy to lead I.
T.
Projects and because of that and how it progressed
helped me progress in my career and technology.
I realized you know what
what can I do now to help the next generation of
underserved underrepresented girls who are interested in stem fields to um to
help them get into this area and because I got it through
mentoring I wanted to make sure that I passed that along.
So that's how thriving elements got started.
Yeah.
Can you share a little bit more about how your organization
does pair that next generation of girls and stem with mentors that
can help them to have access to more opportunities to make better
decisions in terms of their careers and also become leaders themselves.
Yes. Absolutely good question.
So what we do is we focus on one on
one stem mentoring so that we make sure it's quality and
as you mentioned in the beginning we it's not just
a six or six months or one year mentoring program.
These girls join
throughout high school or in their high school years
and then they stay in it throughout their university or
college years and then into the process their professional years.
And what we do is we match them up um once they've been
accepted into the program with a stem mentor in their field that they're
interested in or if they are not familiar with what stem field then
we also match them with somebody so that they can explore the different areas
and then they stay with this mentor throughout
the entire life cycle of the mentoring program.
That's great in your book boldly you you
talk about your own experience with mentorship.
What is your advice in addition to of course looking into thriving elements.
But for those out there who are looking for a mentor,
um what's your advice to finding the right fit?
Especially as it can be seen as kind of like transactional in nature?
How do you do that organically?
Yes, So
finding a mentor,
the concept of mentoring can be very frightening
to some people and the topic honestly is
quite taboo because it's not really taught in
schools or talk too well in the workplace.
And so my advice to those who are looking for a mentor
is to just to think about first who it is that inspires you.
What kind of area are you trying to improve in and reach out to that person?
I think too many people put a mental barrier on themselves and reaching out
to someone because oh that person must be busy or why would they even make
time for me and I say be boldly you so that you can reach
out and you never know you could get a response And from my experience,
I have gotten responses all the way up to a ceo of a company by just cold emailing
and letting them know why I want to begin
engaging with them and then to maintain that mentorship,
I would also recommend
to first
uh just have a very informal conversation with them uh in
these days with Covid Times um have that coffee chat,
talk about your weekend, some of your interest and also asked about their interest.
Um but I also have um articles on Harvard Business Review
or even you can visit my ted talk on mentoring,
really appreciate those tips. Lots of good advice there.
That's Janet van, founder of thriving elements and author of Boldly.
You you can preorder her book right now on
amazon or Barnes and Noble thanks so much again.