finding a mentor

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auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

So first off, I want to talk about how to find a mentor. First off, it's got to be in your field, right? It's got to be in your field. And it's got to be somebody who in my perspective, you want to learn from, right? And the biggest thing I want to talk about too is you have to go after mentorship. You have to go after mentorship. I'm sick and tired of people who, you know, I've had a lot of mentees over my career at VACO and I have to constantly reach out to them. That's not how that works. If you are open to mentorship, you need to understand that you need to go after it, that you need to go and find it yourself.

Now, what I would do is I would start connecting with people. Again, we're talking about social media here, connect with people on Twitter, connect with people LinkedIn, that you admire in your field and in your area. And what I would do is I would start following them, commenting, liking, right? Like right now, if there has been a recruiter who has been commenting and liking on my stuff that wants mentorship, yes, I would do that. I would absolutely do that. The thing is though is that what you need to do as an individual who's seeking that mentorship is go after it, is ask good questions, is seek out nothing will ever come to you, you need to go out and find it.

And so again, slide in the DMs, right? Hey, listen, Taylor, I've seen your stuff online. I really appreciate the content you're putting out. I would love to be mentored by you around. Again, we want specifics, around recruiting, around branding, around content creation, right? That is what you need to do. Hey, listen, so and so. I want to learn about this. Can I meet with you once a month? Because I'll send you a virtual coffee, right? Listen, coffee goes a long way. Suites go a long way, right? Hey, I'll send you cookies, whatever. I'm a big cookie fan, by the way. Chocolate chip. Please and thank you at a Louisville.

Best chocolate chip cookies ever. Don't ask me. And so that's what you need to do, right? Hey, listen, I admire you. This is what you're doing with community. I've watched you from afar. You, I love what you say about React. I love what you say about microservices. I really want to learn more about microservice. Can you please help me? So I'm gonna give some comments, some more comments here, Oscar what's going on. Herbert, yes, this is a fantastic topic. Nicklaus goes, this is a great topic. I've been doing Google UX course and just completed the final mentor section. I'd love to find one. This is such a perfect timing.

Thanks, Taylor, for that. Absolutely. Nicklaus, so what I would do, right, is I would get on Twitter, get on LinkedIn and type in UX designers and start following a bunch that you think are good at what they do. And then what you do is you start engaging with them. I can't tell you enough. Slide into somebody DM's cold. I think you can do it. I think if you develop, if you have good wording and you know how to phrase it, I think it is really good. But my thing is, is you have to engage with people. You have to start building community. You have to start building friendships.

Like let's face it, to find a new friend, we usually have a first date. Or a first date is it like we go for coffee, we hang out. Like we go to a hockey game together. Like Andrew Miller, Shawnee, Andrew Miller, Andrew Miller like volunteered his time to help me set up my mic set up at home. Like Andrew Miller offered me something and now I'm grateful for Andrew and I will do whatever I need to for Andrew and the job search. And so that is how you do it. Andrew offered me something. And then now I am in his ecosystem. That is a great way to, to again build relationships with mentorship.

Again, if you have mentor, if you have mentorship success stories, I want to hear it. How did you find a mentor? Again, the whole point of this show is to allow others to know they're not alone in certain situations. So if you have created a great mentorship, a great relationship, post it here, let me know your process. Let me know your steps, et cetera, et cetera. Let's see here moving on. Herbert goes in after it. And I completely agree with you. You need to go after mentorship. Again, I can't stress this enough. I literally like my, my, my mentees I've had at Beiko, they, they like don't reach out to me.

I'm like, hey, do you still want to meet? Like that's not how that works. That's not how that works. Brian, I see you Brian. As saw in great topic, tell you yes, always networking is the key. Hello from Turkey. I love it. We are international this morning. Yeah, networking is key. You can't, you can slide into DM's cold, but it's kind of weird. And you gotta be a little bit like good at it. If you don't feel like you're really good at sliding to DM's from the get, build rapport online. Etc. goes, I had tried to find a mentor and turn it like the company, but it didn't work.

How to find a mentor outside the corporation. Yeah, again, like I said, an incident what I would do is is people like to talk about themselves. I'm just gonna say that. I like to talk about myself. One of the day in reason selfishly I do this. And I talk to you every morning because I love running my mouth every morning. So Ed said what I would say is make sure you're asking good questions. If there is somebody you admire within your company. So for example, unicorn finders, Jake and Dan, I admire what Jake and Dan are doing in unicorn finder in their companies. One of the ways for me to get mentored by them is to do unicorn finders with them.

That was a selfish thing on my part. I wanted to learn from Jake. I wanted to learn from Dan. So what did I do? I was like, hey, we should start a podcast together and booby, you're an half later. I learned so much for them too. But I will tell you this, Edson, to find somebody with an organization, be intentional. Hey, so and so. I wanna learn from you about this. Can you take me on for 30 minutes once a month? Right? Did you ask those pertinent questions? If you go up something like, hey, can you mentor me? People are gonna be like, sure, right?

Be intentional with what you say. Alicia, good morning, Tay heads. I don't, you know, it's a little Jimmy Buffett with, is it Finns, Finnheads? Anyways, I don't like it. Alicia, I think we do better marketing on that perspective. Edson, all right, here we go. Garrett, great topic, here we go. So Casey goes one of the most humbling things. Again, stream yard, can we please put an IT ticket to adjust this? One of the most humbling things about the last year transition has been going from being a mentor to students to now seeking mentorship. I am fortunate to have close local friends who are already seasoned in my tech stack that I meet with.

It's huge, guys. I learned smarter because I learned from them absolutely. In my perspective, if you, if I'm telling you this is, this is the unlock. Like this is it. This is the unlock to learning quicker, to building relationships. Honestly, this idea just came my head. If you are struggling, if you are struggling to network, asking somebody be your mentor in my opinion is the closest thing you can ask somebody to be able to podcast. Because like that is such a great way. Be like, hey, listen, I'm looking for mentorship. Do you have six minutes to talk to me about the state of microservices in today's market?

I really think asking for mentorship is such a good way to slide in people's DMs in network. At least it goes one of the mentees I've had come my way. There's three I've seen. Uh oh, here we go. Here we go. One, the people who know what they want and those who are easiest when it comes to helping. Two, people who don't know what they want but drive the conversation. And three, people who don't know what they want and look for me to drive the conversation. Please don't be a third. Yes, absolutely. So Alicia, of course, Alicia, bringing the heat this morning, don't be three.

Because I will tell you this, us recruiters don't got time, us recruiters. Us mentors don't have time to sit there and engage in conversation with you. We have things to do. We are willing to sit with you. You gotta bring the heat. You gotta bring the questions. You gotta bring the topics. I love that Alicia so, so much. I wish I could post that Mima DJ Khaled for you. I love it Andrew. Thanks Taylor. Time to brush off the old Twitter handle. Yeah, I mean, listen, man. Like the UX community is huge on Twitter. The tech community is huge on Twitter. It's huge. Um, if you go to my YouTube channel, I've done a live show on how to actually use Twitter to network.

I really, really, really think you should do it. Edson, Tiffany, good morning. Alicia, Tae Friends, that's better. I appreciate that. Herbert goes when I studied, Lord, have mercy straight. Me already came to see you. Just see my dang forehead. I got big forehead. When I studied computer science-obaging China, I was connected with a fellow guy in student who my school, but he was pursuing his PhD. I made him my mentor, little at pursuit, every single knowledge he had acquired through the study of computer science. Hey, start a company here in Ghana for graduate with this PhD and now I work for boom. This is it.

This is it. This is it. This is it. Herbert, thank you so much. This is what I'm talking about. Do you guys not understand? Do you not understand that networking, relationship building, mentorship, offering people things? Like this is the unlock. This is how you do it. Herbert props to you, my man. You asked for mentorship. You drove conversation. You were intentional and look at this. You found a job. I could not be more proud of you, Herbert. Thank you so much for giving this information and props to you, my man props to you. Andrew unicorn frienders, Brandon, what's going on, buddy? It's good to see you.

So yeah, I mean, listen, that's, so when he comes to mentorship, seek out, drive conversation, be intentional. If you are scared of slowing the DM's, network with that person over social media, engage with them and ask good questions. I think that's it. I think that's it. Well listen, that's it. I think this is good. I think this is good. Herbert again, thank you so much. Listen, I think you need, oh Lord Alicia, because I got it. What do you got, Alicia? You need mentorship. You need to find people who mentor you. Ask questions, do what Herbert did. Drive conversation. Ask some ass away the mentor.

Taylor is the son. We're in his orbit. We are, we are Taylor fighters. Oh, I, Alicia, you're not here. You're gay in today, man. We need to, let's take a lap. Take a lap. Taylor fighters, Taylor. Brian. Thanks, pleasure. Alicia, I love you, man. You're the best. Join my texting community, 615-235-5-650. One text message to your phone really too. So let you know I have a live and then I give you a job tip. Text me. Orbit or buyers. All right, that makes sense. Could you do like Taylor? Yeah, I also saw I can go to orbitsiggum. Taylordecent.com. My resume template, 10 questions to stop a recruiter when they said you a job.

Questions to ask a hiring manager when you're interviewing with them and my video for egghead on how to build your LinkedIn profile and how to network socially. Michelle goes, so Casey goes, Taylor or, or orbiters, we need a shirt. Tay orbiters, I think that's what he meant. Yolanda's coming in from West Palm. She goes, what the heck are y'all talking about? I read as Taylor bybiders. Yeah, you're the son, not a sandwich. Listen, this is derailleur and just incredibly fast. Yolanda, I'm sorry you had to come into this very late. We've actually been talking about mentorship. So if you were alive, it's a lot more fruitful than talking about the difference than how we're seeing Taylorbiders.

Erica, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. It's good to see you. Listen, go out and find mentorship. It'll change your career. It'll change your life. It'll change your professional setting. Have a great Wednesday. Yol, I'm sure this. I think there are people, there are people who need to hear this. There are people who need to know how to go get mentorship and how I'm supporting this to share this episode. Tomorrow, I'll be live with my boys at Unicorn Finders. And then Friday, Friday, Danny Thompson, be Danny Thompson from Memphis. He's at Google as a developer, advocate. It is going to be an awesome episode on Friday.

So bring your black coffee. We're gonna have a good one because it is going to be off the chain. Love y'all and a death. Thank you so much for the community that we have built. This is not going to, this cannot happen without you. I appreciate y'all time. I gotta go do some work now. Y'all have a good one. Peace.