[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's worthwhile? It's a question we all need to answer for ourselves. I'm Ramsay Zimmerman. As for me, it's building mind, body, and spirit wellness. Let's ponder the big questions together as we seek peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: As we grow older, we find out who we are. If you remember back to your teens, that was a tough time for most of us. You know, where you're figuring out what are your real values? What do you stand for? What do you want to be? There was all this uncertainty about the future and of yourself. By the time you hit midlife, you've already developed more secure relationships with individuals. And then we start to realize, wow, I've done a lot. I know a lot.
I have stuff to give back. I'm actually a person who has a lot to offer the world. And so when we start to give and we can see that we've made an impact on somebody or that we've made a mark in the world, it lasts for us. That joy lasts for us.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Hey there. It's Ramsay here. That was Deborah Heiser. Deborah is an applied developmental psychologist, author of the upcoming book the Mentorship Edge, and founder of the Mentor project. We talked a lot about mentorship and how to age well. If you're like me, you may think of mentorship as a one way street from seasoned sage to younger student. But Deborah also describes lateral mentorship as a better way for people to work with and help each other beyond networking, beyond transactional interactions in order to drive value and effectiveness. Debra also brings home the point that the best way to age well and to enjoy retirement is to give back and to pour into other people using the things that you enjoy and that you are good at. After this conversation, I want to approach networking in a whole new way. I hope you will, too. Let's dive in. Hi, Debra. How are you doing today?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: I'm doing so well. Thank you for having me on your show.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I was eager to speak with you on the podcast for a. For a couple different reasons.
First, you're an expert on aging and have a lot of insight on how people can stay healthy, happy, and fulfilled as they age.
And second, you have a particular interest in mentoring, and you match people up through the mentor project which you founded.
It turns out that I myself am aging and also interested both in mentoring and in being mentored. So today I'm hoping that we can talk about those things, and our audience can learn a lot, and I can learn a lot that can help me personally. So, sound good?
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm excited to get started.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Great. Great. Well, let's start with what is the mentor project and why and how did it get started?
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Well, the mentor project is a nonprofit organization.
We bring the top 1% of experts to mentor students around the world for free. In this last year, we're not even finished with the year. We've already given away more than $2 million worth of mentoring hours and all for free to students around the world. So we got started because, you know, most people say, an aging specialist in mentoring, how does that go together?
It started because I was really interested in learning about what we have to look forward to as we age. And when I was looking at that, there were theories and other things that followed the emotional developmental trajectory. So while we all know that we grow older and have a lot of physical decline, most of us don't think of our aging journey as one that offers us wonderful emotional blessings throughout our life. Meaning that I'm in my mid fifties. I don't care that I can not run as fast as people in their twenties.
I don't care if I move a little bit slower. I'm actually really happy where I am. And based on the research that's out there, I can expect to continue being happy and even get happier as I get older. So I was thrilled to find that there is an emotional trajectory that gives us something to look forward to as we age. And within that, in midlife, we hit a stage called generativity. And what that means is that we care for others without expecting anything in return. When you're younger, you can't even conceive of that. But once you hit midlife, you can, because you've checked so many boxes, you've looked at your life, and you've said, okay, I've accumulated all this stuff now. What does any of it matter? Do I matter? Did I make a difference in the world at all? And there's no one who says to themselves, oh, I don't care if I make a difference or not. We all start to reflect in midlife. And the way that we can become generative, and we should all expect to hit this stage is that we can either engage our, engage in mentoring, volunteering, or philanthropy. And I chose to really look at mentoring because it's a way that we give a piece of ourselves to others. So if I have an expertise, maybe I make the best soup. Maybe I'm the best baker. Maybe I have law experience, whatever that might be. I have something that I've become an expert in and can give back to others.
So I wanted to look at that. When I was interviewing some of the top experts, like one of the fathers of the firewall and the guy who patented how we use credit cards on the Internet, they said that they didn't have access to mentees.
So I thought, are you kidding me? What is happening here, that these experts don't have mentees? And all we hear is that people need mentors.
So we decided to found the mentor project to bring top experts to exactly who can use them, which are younger people who are students in school.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: So what is the nature of the fundamental disconnect? Like, why do you need something like the mentor project in order to match people up?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Because people think the disconnect really is that.
And you use the right word, we need to get connected. We're kind of a disconnected society. You know, it used to be when I was young, we had candy stripers and people, there was all this civic engagement. And what we need to do is to connect people. And so if a person, you know, says, hey, I need a mentor, they don't even know where to look. If a person wants to mentor, they don't even know where to look. So there's a disconnect there, and that's just a natural disconnect. However, we're naturally built to connect with others naturally. You know, we like being around others. We like connecting. So when we brought this together, we found it was easy because people naturally want to get connected. There was just, we needed a place to do it.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Okay, so what is it about mentoring that is kind of so helpful for people as they age and as they hit retirement and beyond? Like, what is it about that that is, you know, generative, as you described, and makes it really impactful?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Well, when we hit midlife, we are what a lot of people do. I'll just back it up a little. Is a lot of people have their identity really wrapped up in what I call their business card. And I call it the identity card. Right. They identify with whatever job they've been in, and they think of themselves in that particular way. And I like to think of mentorship as an opportunity for those who are in midlife to take a look at different ways that they can engage with others that is not in just a work related way. So if a person retires and they haven't thought about a new way of looking at themselves and their skills, they might have a hard time navigating. But if a person is already thinking about their skills all the time and what they have to offer. And that usually is not just what you do at work. There's a whole lot that we do outside of work. Our hobbies, the things that we enjoy. If we start to put all those things together, we're able to see ourselves in a more complete way, and that's where we can even get engaged in more mentoring. So it really does help us in midlife to engage in this way, because emotionally, if we don't, we feel like, who are we? What is my identity? What am I doing with myself?
[00:09:59] Speaker A: So how can people go about in their daily lives sort of finding opportunities for mentoring? So for a young person or someone in the first part of their career, how do they find a mentor? And for people who have been in their careers for a long time, and we're a seasoned person, how do they find people that they might be able to mentor?
[00:10:26] Speaker B: We are all mentors. We're all mentoring all the time, and mentors are surrounding us. I want to give an example quickly of what I mean by this. You have a whole contact list of mentors. We just don't realize it. And you have been mentoring people, and you just don't realize it. We don't acknowledge it half the time. So really, you don't have to go looking for mentors. They're everywhere. And here's an example. I'm going to give an example of someone being in space. So it's 2003, and the Columbia space shuttle is reentering Earth's orbit, and it disintegrates. And to the horror of everyone looking around in the world, fast forward to 2005 and imagine yourself being an astronaut. You've always wanted to be an astronaut. You're in space. It's everything you've ever dreamed and more. And here you are, and then you're told that the same thing could happen to your mission that happened to Columbia. All right, so you're in an impossible situation. You can't say, open the door, let me out. Right, I'm done. You're in space, and you're stuck.
So Charlie Camardo, one of our mentors, was the astronaut on STS 114 that followed the Columbia space tragedy. And he was told they weren't clear if he was going to be able to, you know, if they had the same problem or not. So he didn't even know. He wasn't sure even, am I going to get home or not? So what Charlie did was he brought along with him on to space his little black book of all of his closest friends and colleagues and family members and he actually phoned from space, one of his close colleagues who knew the engineering of this mission better than anybody, and he said, hey, am I going to live or am I going to, am I doomed? And he said, you guys will live. If you do a spacewalk, you're going to have to do a spacewalk, because that teeny tiny tile, that was the demise of the other mission.
It also is broken on yours. You have to go fix that teeny tiny tile. They called NASA and said, we're going to do a spacewalk. They did it, and they went home safely. That person that Charlie contacted was a mentor. It's a lateral mentor. It's somebody who guided him through a life and death situation, and he didn't hesitate. He called it a friend of Charlie. All of our friends are usually mentors. We have these people around us. I just told you an example that was one that was extreme. But we often feel that extreme way when we're at work and we have a deadline, we might feel something extreme and, you know, something that we're trying to accomplish, and we always reach out to people to help us, and those are our mentors. So if you're looking to get connected, you already are. Don't look any further. Just look at who you already know.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So it sounds like, to me like you're describing positive use of networking and working with people and helping each other out. And so having peer to peer relationships, that sounds like a really effective way to kind of do mentoring on a day to day basis. It's just that, I don't know that I or other people necessarily think of it that way all the time, but that makes kind of perfect sense.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, when I say it, it sounds like I'm just calling a friend, but there's a difference. There are some key things that you need when you're talking about mentoring. First of all, you have to want to engage in generativity, and generativity is that emotional stage I told you about that we hit in midlife. You can hit it earlier, but you have to want to help somebody without expecting anything in return.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: When Charlie called his friend, his friend wasn't like, give me $5 and I'll tell you the answer. You know, like.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Or a whole lot more than that. I mean.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Right.
But there was no exchange or thought of, I need something else. He was engaging with somebody he cared about, and he wasn't expecting anything in return. And, you know, we do this oftentimes, but there are also times networking is you're expecting something from somebody.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Right. It's much more transactional.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
If you have any carrot dangling, then you are not engaged in generativity. So it has to be that. The other thing we need is to have meaningful connections. That person that Charlie called meant somebody to him. He didn't call some random person. That's why he didn't call NASA. He knew this guy liked him and wanted him to come home.
The other thing is we need an intrinsic motivation.
So an intrinsic motivation is, do you have a hobby? Do you like to put things together? Do you like to build? Do you like to read? Do you like to do crossword puzzles? Those are things that we will often do without getting paid. We do it because we like it. Nobody has to say, have you read today, or have you built something, or have you done your hobby?
It's the difference. The way that I like to put it is who listening would feel really good about donating their time at a soup kitchen?
And if you say, yeah, I would, now, how many of you would feel good about working for free at Starbucks? In both cases, you're giving away food and beverages, but no one ever chooses going to work at Starbucks for free. And that's because there's a different feel when there's an extrinsic motivation, which is money. You feel like a schmuck if you've gone there and you've worked for free, whereas you feel fabulous when you go to a soup kitchen and you're helping others. Same activity, different motivator. And when you are at work and you're being paid to mentor, you are not a mentor because there's an extrinsic motivator there. So when we're looking to engage with someone, we want to make sure we're engaging with somebody who's not getting paid. You know, you don't hang out with friends who are paid to hang out with you. You want to be with people who want to be with you.
And that goes both ways with mentor and mentee. Another thing is trust. You have to trust the person, whoever you're engaging with. You have to be comfortable being vulnerable. And most of us in the workplace don't feel comfortable showing our vulnerability to our boss. We want our boss to think we can do everything that they can give us a task, and we'll get it done. That's why we often go laterally to find our mentors that are going to help us instead of above us, because we can be vulnerable around them. So if you're in a workplace, look for those that you can be vulnerable around, comfortably vulnerable around. And usually we can find people that we can do that. And finally, there has to be a goal. You know, I talked about Charlie. The goal was to see, is he going to get home, or does he need to make some really important phone calls to his family?
What's going to happen there? And in the case of work, you need to have a goal. What's the goal that I'm going to? It could be, hi. I need you to mentor me because I. I want to get the lay of the land at this brand new job I just started. That could be a goal. It could be anything. But those are the components that we really need to embrace to get a mentor and to be a good mentee.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Okay, so those are some really good distinctions. So I guess if I sort of think about that and process it, it sounds like networking in a more traditional sense is much more transactional.
You're looking for potentially finding a new client, or you're looking for someone else is looking for you to be a client, and there's an exchange happening.
But what you're describing more is like going out and making friends in the world and trying to build trusting relationships and then sort of having things that you're interested in and that you're good at and finding what maybe other people are good at. That would be helpful in some way. And then sort of also recognizing what your needs are sort of inside, you know? Then you talked about those as goals. Like, what is it that I need help with? That somebody that I like out there who is my friend might be able to help me with and then also vice versa. What. How can I help other people in ways that I'm good at and that I kind of enjoy doing?
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: So that's all.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's all a really good way to sort of frame it and think about it. You know, for me personally, you know, I'm kind of in my early fifties. I've been a professional person for almost 30 years now or so, and I have lots of skills and experience, and I have lots of people in my network, and, you know, but I recently made a decision to move into a new industry.
And so from that perspective, in many ways, I'm starting over.
So what advice do you have for someone like me who kind of has that thing where they simultaneously feel like they have a lot to give but also just needs, you know, a lot of support in order to learn these new things and. And be successful?
[00:20:13] Speaker B: So you said a good word, support. And there are a lot of people who want to support people and they're not looking for anything other than being generative. So if you find somebody out there who's doing something similar to you, say, you said, hey, I want to level up in a certain way with podcasting. You can reach out to somebody who's, you know, been doing it maybe a decade longer or who has a thousand episodes or whatever. And you can say, I'd love to get mentored, I'm in this new arena, or I'd like to level up one level. And likely the person will say yes, likely they will be there to give you some kind of mentoring or advice. Alternatively, you can look to a group that's lateral to you, right. That you can say, I'd like to meet up with other people who do things that are similar to me. I can really talk freely and openly about whatever it is that I'm doing that's new and then I can talk with them. I do think that a really great way to get out there, especially if you're starting new, is to do some of the things that aren't mentoring, but that can lead to mentoring, networking, you know, you can turn a network into a meaningful connection. If you go to a networking event, maybe there's ten people, and then you meet one that you really like, that you connect with. Well, that person just entered your little black book of, you know, lateral mentors.
So that is a great opportunity. You can go out and find people all over in different areas. It can be in your house of worship, it can be in your community, it can be in professional organizations. All of these places offer an opportunity to find mentors. They're not going to pop right out at you. You actually have to connect with them and talk with them.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Let's talk some more about aging. So, generally speaking, what are some keys to aging? Well, to being happy, healthy, living longer, having a more fulfilling life. What are some of those keys to aging well?
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Well, first of all, we all are doing these things. We just don't realize it. Most of us think of aging as an inverted voodoo where we have a steep incline of abilities that we develop, like walking and talking and running faster and being coordinated, and then there's a slow, steady decline throughout our lifespan. We think of aging as that, but that's only one aspect of aging. So what most of us don't realize is that we have an emotional trajectory that starts at the same time right at birth, and that goes up and never declines to. So that is where we often think our physical and our emotional have to match, and they don't. Like I said earlier, I can't run as fast as I could in my twenties, but I'm happier than I was in my twenties. And that's because as we grow older, we find out who we are. If you remember back to your teens, that was a tough time for most of us, where you're figuring out who you are, what. What are your. What are your real values? What do you stand for? What do you want to be? There was all this uncertainty about the future and of. Of yourself.
By the time you hit midlife, you've already developed more secure relationships with individuals. You've sloughed off some of those superficial friendships, and you're left with fewer but better friendships, closer friendships. So it's more of the quality versus quantity that we hit in midlife with regard to our friendships. And then we start to realize, wow, I've done a lot. I know a lot.
I have stuff to give back. I'm actually a person who has a lot to offer the world, and that can be that you have passed on values to others, whatever it is. But aging is. What's really exciting about aging is that most of us don't realize that we're actually actively doing what we're supposed to be doing. There are a few outliers along the way. Anytime we hit a transition, it feels like a bump. But that's not pathology. We're still on the positive aging track. So you can end up leaving a job early or retiring.
You can end up moving positions and saying to yourself, oh, my goodness, this feels. This just feels terrible. But really, you're adjusting your identity and moving yourself right back in, and you will hit generativity and be able to engage in the same way. It'll just take a little time, just like it did. You know, if you think back to any positive thing, when people get married, you have, like, the bride Zilla, who's really excited to be married, but she on a whole new entity.
So these good things in our life can even feel stressful to us. And people mistake those midlife transitions with feeling negative, but we're really doing that our whole lives, transitioning and feeling the stress, even in positive cases.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: All right, so as folks are sort of getting towards retirement age, then what are some specific things that people should do kind of as they're beginning to prepare for retirement in that, you know, next stage of life, a few things.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: That a person can do is to start to think of, who am I outside my job? What do I enjoy? What do I like? Doing?
Who do I like to be around? What do I want my impact on the world to be?
If I had to sum up right now myself, and that was going to be the sum of me to the world, am I where I want to be and what would I change? And so if people start that before they retire, they can start to build out that sort of plan. Now, most people don't do that. They wait until they retire and they have a couple of weeks that are really fun, and then they're like, uh oh. And then, you know, they might say, uh oh, this is a problem.
That's not an unusual person. That's how we often operate. In that case, I like to tell people to sit back and say the same thing that you would do prior to retirement and say, what do you want?
What do you want your vision to be? Some people will go back to where they used to work or to that same crowd, and mentorous. Sometimes people will go and volunteer or do the things that they never could do when they were younger. People will go and do habitat for Humanity. They'll travel. They will do some of the things that they say. I want to, you know, be able to see the culture of the world in many different ways, but it's finding out where you see some missing pieces that you'd like to add to your life, but also taking what you already know and putting. Putting the pieces that you feel most proud of out to others so that you can say, hey, I have made an impact.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Well, it's funny because I think in many ways, the perception of retirement is time to have fun, time to kick back, time to maybe spend all that money that I've been saving or supposed to have been saving up over time.
But those. But that's not what you're describing. I mean, you're not saying, don't do those things, but really what I'm hearing from you is that creating value for other people is far more rewarding than just kicking around the golf course or doing whatever it is that you do.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah. If you think about it, when we are, there are a couple of things. First of all, if you give someone a gift, how good do you feel when they open it and you find out they loved it? It's the most amazing feeling ever.
When we retire. It's the same as anything else. I see this with my kids when they come home from college. It happens when I go on vacation. In the beginning, you're going and doing everything. When my kids come home, they're out with their friends. They're doing a million things, and then they slow down and, you know, they're just hanging out, you know, not doing as much the same with a vacation. Towards the end, most people start to say, I can't wait to get home and be in my own bed with my own pillow, doing my own thing. Well, retirement is like that. The first couple of weeks are great. It's like you're on vacation, and then you're like, okay, now what?
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Right?
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Because even the most amazing things, when we're just taking it in for ourselves, becomes boring. We habituate to it, so we never habituate to giving. You just don't.
It's something that we have, are sort of built to thrive on. And so when we start to give and we can see that we've made an impact on somebody or that we've made a mark in the world, it lasts for us, that joy lasts for us. And that's why as soon as a person can start engaging in that, the sooner they'll start to feel that fulfillment. So go take your first couple of weeks. Have a blast. And when you start to feel like, I've got an itch to do something meaningful, that's when you can let it kick in.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: But not everyone does that.
What are some warning signs for people that they would benefit from some life changes when they get older? Or what are some warning signs for, you know, people whose loved ones are in retirement, but don't seem like they're kind of getting out of it, what they should, and instead just, you know, I don't want to say wasting away, but it's the phrase that comes to mind, you know, what should people look for?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: So I'm gonna give you an example. This is so common that it's in film. You know, it's this comp. It's just pervasive. So think of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens Christmas Carol. If anybody knows that character. He was the guy who was self made. He lived in a mansion. He had servants taking care of all of his needs, and. And he was miserly with his possessions and his emotions. He was miserable. Didn't matter. He had everything. He was self made. He was everything that we would check the boxes off and say, wow, what a success.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Right?
[00:31:17] Speaker B: And then it wasn't until he started giving and became engaged meaningfully with, like, tiny Tim and his family that he felt joy. That's literally exactly how it happens in real life. They really captured it well.
So the warning signs for that is, do you see somebody who seemingly has everything they need but they're just miserable.
Probably they're not connected. Probably they are not engaged with others. Getting that person engaged in a way that's meaningful will usually snap them out of it the same way it does with Scrooge.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Because my follow up question was like, well, what do you do?
Either if you sort of see those things or you're experiencing those things yourself. How do you get back engaged?
[00:32:10] Speaker B: If it's a person? Say I decide to retire, I have fun, or I lounge around for a year, even. I just say I'm going to just try to figure stuff out and take my time. And I'm not quite hitting it yet. I'm still, like, not feeling it.
I'm going to say to myself, I need to go out and get into some public spaces. What is it that I want to do? What is my meaningful thing that I want to do? In my case, I want to spread the word on mentorship because I really do feel like it connects the world and it allows us all to have a legacy. It's allowing us all to age well, that's my jam, right? So I go out everywhere I can and I engage in that way. If you're starting out a new company or a new organization, find the places where you can find people doing that kind of a thing and engage with them. It really is a hundred percent connection. It may mean going to your house of worship and saying to people, here's what I'm doing now. Anybody have some advice or, I want to just talk about it with you. This is kind of exciting to me. Chances are somebody's going to be able to give you that support you're looking for, allow you to feel comfortable in your vulnerability in your time of change, because vulnerability is really the thing that gets us all. We're like, oh, I don't like that icky feeling of not being secure. And when you have others who you've explained your insecurities to, you feel more secure. So it's getting out there and doing that. It's really that simple.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Well, and that notion of vulnerability, I think, is really significant.
You know, many times people feel weird or don't want to put themselves out there.
Often it's because, you know, we think, oh, I don't know if people really need to hear from me or, you know, they won't like it or, you know, you know, other reasons. And, and that does reflect on kind of a vulnerability. But what I'm hearing is that if you are putting yourself out there for the sake of helping others, then in most cases, people will take you up on that. And also, if you have built relationships, or if you're looking to build relationships with people that are, you know, friends and sort of mutually beneficial in a good way for good, healthy reasons, then asking for help is probably going to be received well. Also in the sense that you sort of give someone an opportunity, there's always that notion of it's better to give than receive. And you sort of alluded to that.
But it's also, I also think that it's a gift to allow other people to give gifts. You know, you talk about blessing other people by giving them things, but it's also a blessing, a form of blessing to accept things, because if you don't accept someone's offer of a blessing, then they can't be blessed by blessing you.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: I love that. That's really, that's like a nursery rhyme.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
Or a tongue twister.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Exactly. That's like the Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
The thing that you're talking about is most people think of, say, mentorship as a one way street. It's the mentee grabbing from somebody and taking.
But if you can't accept what somebody's giving you, just like you said, you're not allowing them to be happy. It's the same as getting a gift and saying, ew, when they open it, or no, thanks.
Yeah, I'm not looking for any gifts today. Thank you. But exactly what you said.
So, yes, if you go out and you say, ask for somebody for help on something or guidance, how good do you feel when somebody comes to you? Everyone I know says they thought I was smart and wanted my help and advice.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: That's how we feel. And people think, oh, I'm going to be bothering them, or they're going to think that I'm a loser in some kind of way. No. People are like, wait, you think I. You are looking to me for guidance? That's how the person always takes it. And there could be the random jerk who doesn't, but you just, you know, go to somebody else. Then there's the person who, you know, you say, hey, I see you're struggling with something. You want some help. Most people say yes, occasionally says no, but more often than not, people say yes. So it's really getting over that vulnerability of feeling like I'm going to be rejected in some way if I put myself out there in either a giving or a receiving mode. And we have to get past that. People love to give and people love to receive.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: We've talked a lot about lateral mentorship, but in sort of the traditional sense of mentorship, I think it is a really powerful connection between the generations and it's a great way to pass wisdom on from one generation to the next. So how do you think we could better, more effectively bring generations of people together to solve the problems and challenges that we have today? And how do the generations, how could the generations learn from each other in that context?
[00:38:01] Speaker B: Well, first of all, any time we have a connection. So if it's a holiday, you're already being mentored. How often do you have the same meal for thanksgiving? Thanksgiving, every. Every year. Traditions, right, traditions. If you're religious, that didn't come out of nowhere. That was thousands of years of mentoring that were passed down, you know, values passed down and passed down and passed down so that, you know, the same stories of the people before you. It's always happening. We just keep thinking there has to be some kind of magical aha. Moment when we make these connections. What we really have to do is just be more aware that we are being guided by people all the time. If you have the same soup every holiday or the same dinner or the same whatever, the same decorations, if you can smell a smell that you say, oh, that reminds me of a holiday that is, you've been mentored in some way by a grandma or a grandpa somewhere down the line.
I cook for, for example, the same turkey dinner that is in my grandmother's handwriting from her recipes that I make every year. Everyone expects it, and I have a hunch that it came from her mother. I don't know how far back it goes, but this is something that we eat every year. Now, what I would suggest to get more engaged with people is to say, I'm going to now start to look around and see what I'm taking in from others.
You know, what a great idea to say, hey, grandma, thanks for that recipe. I love it. I'm so glad we do this every year. Acknowledge it so that person feels like they've mentored.
But when you're going out and you're looking for something professional, make sure that you're actually aware of what you're asking for and that that person knows that you are seeking to be mentored in a way that you will accept that, receive it, and do something with it. A piece of them will live on in you.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Hmm. That's, that's really good.
So what are you excited about these days? What have you got coming up? What would you like to tell us about? Do you have anything sort of coming up or something. Anything you'd like to promote? Like what's, what's exciting in your world?
[00:40:31] Speaker B: Well, I do have a book coming out. It is on pre order now. In every place people can get books. It's called the mentorship edge.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Ah, tell us about that.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: So it's really a book that's based on, you know, my love of really understanding mentorship from a theoretical research and from actually having run an organization called the mentor Project for years now. So it's labor of love. I am so excited. It has a lot of. What is mentoring in it? What isn't mentoring?
What is lateral mentoring and what is hierarchical mentoring and when should you engage in them and is there? You know, I give a lot of examples. Like, you know, I mentioned Charlie Camarda, the astronaut. I talk about that as a mentoring example. I talk about corporate settings, educational settings.
I give examples pretty much across the board. And I also talk about modern mentoring. Now that we have AI in our world, mentoring is starting to look a little bit different, and it's got a new face to it in some ways. So we have new opportunities that are coming our way as opposed to fading away as we get more techie. So I really hope that people will check out the book. It's really geared for anyone. Whether you're in work or not, you'll find a way to mentor in it.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: That's great. Where do we find the book and where do we find you? And how can people get in touch with you and learn more?
[00:42:13] Speaker B: So you can find
[email protected] and that is d e b o r a h another heiser.com. and you can also reach
[email protected] and you can also find the book. If you look up my name or the mentorship edge, it's sold everywhere. You can find books.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: That is awesome.
Well, Deborah, thank you so much for taking the time and coming to talk to me today. Like, you definitely changed sort of my perspective on mentorship, mentoring, networking. And I feel like it's really just, it leans into the best of us and sort of the best of human nature, which is this intrinsic desire to be helpful and to create value and to help other people and to reach out to other people when you yourself need help. So I think that's just a really great message, and I'm so glad that you're doing it and looking forward to the book. And thank you so much for your time. It's been great talking to you today.
Thank you.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: It's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Ramsey.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Absolutely.
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