You can be a mentor to someone else even if you don't feel like you're a mentor.You don't have to be a well-known blogger or influencer or well-known on the forums or whatever that looks like.
Whether you are just starting out in your information technology career or have been at this a long, long, really long time, you are in the right place.
Welcome to the How to Thrive in IT podcast, where it's all about giving you the tools you really need to grow your IT career outside of just learning more technology.And now, here's your host.He keeps it short.
And we're not talking about his height, if you know what I mean.I meant this episode. Please don't fire me.Here's DJ.
Welcome back.I wanted to talk to you a little bit about one of our core tenants here at Thrive IT.One of our four Ms have a mindset, methodology, mastery, and mentoring.I wanted to talk to you a little bit today about mentoring.
And I'm going to take an angle on this that you might not expect.Last time we were talking about mindset, celebrating your wins and realizing that you've come a long way.
Even if you don't realize that you've come a long way in your career, in your knowledge, you have things to share.And that's what I wanted to focus in on today.As far as the mentoring thing is that you can be a mentor to someone else.
Even if you don't feel like you're a mentor, you don't have to be a well-known blogger or influencer or well-known on the forums or whatever that looks like.You don't have to be that.In fact, let me be honest with you.
A lot of times, most people don't make very good mentors.A lot of times they might make good teachers or just personalities in general, but a lot of times they don't make good
mentors, a mentor, just to define this for you, is someone who is able to relay experiences to you in a way that will help you grow.
Now, a lot of times in the technology world, we get caught up in the idea of mentorship as being someone who is a technical mentor. I want to encourage you that that is not the only pathway.
In fact, I maintain a lot of relationships with people that have nothing to do with technology.Their eyes roll back into the back of their head anytime I bring up a lot of the things that I talk about.
The reality is that there's a difference between a straight technical teacher and a mentor of the technology world.
But the mentors that I've had that have really been very helpful to me have taught me things like how to communicate with people, how to identify challenges, both personally and professionally, how to overcome or sometimes, and this is actually, I think, one of the easiest ways to mentor someone.
is just to take them under your wing and help them understand the expectations of them.You've had all these assets.You don't even realize you have.Again, just to go back to what we talked about last time, you have wins.
And sometimes it's just that you've made it this far.Realize that, okay, yeah, I know a thing or two now that I didn't know months ago or years ago. And that's something that you can share with people.
You can start being a mentor, even with something as simple as taking a new employee under your wing and helping them understand what the expectations are, what things are like in the company.Now, I want to caution you here.
That means being a positive influence. Not being someone who is, well, let me just tell you how things actually work out here.And don't be that person.Don't be a negative influence on someone.Don't try and get them on your side.That's not the point.
The point of mentorship is to help someone else grow so that you grow right alongside them.And we do grow by being mentored, but we grow even more, I believe, by mentoring.It's a weird phenomena.And I've got a degree in psychology.
I've studied these things.I still don't understand how it's possible. It makes no sense, especially to a lot of us that are in IT that have a much more matter of fact way of doing things, or maybe that's just the way we're wired.I don't know.
But reality is that it's one of those things where what you put in is different than what you get out.It's not the usual input output that we usually see.
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My friends have put together a little bit of a deal for you, and you can go find out more about it at thrive-it.com slash TechSmith. that is an affiliate link, so I get a little bit of a kickback.You're helping support the program by doing that.
But more importantly, if you are someone that records videos for your trainings, for yourself, for YouTube, or just to have Font Cam, Tasia is a great option for that.
If you are somebody who wants to do screen capture for these kind of things as well, Snagit is a tool that is great for that because it's actually really affordable and usually at about $39 or less with that link.
And so this is something that is a great resource for you.So I highly recommend checking out thrive-it.com slash TechSmith.And that is your resource of the week.
Thanks, DJ.Let's get back to the program.
So my encouragement to you is to realize that you can mentor people in ways you don't expect.And the way you can kind of go about this is literally you start asking questions.How can I help you?Things like that.And forming those relationships.
A lot of times what you can do as well is get in touch with a person that runs HR and things like that and just offer.
And honestly, once they pick their jaw off the floor, and that might happen, by the way, that might be a pretty big shock to them that anybody's offering this kind of a thing without any expectation of being paid more or anything like that just for the sake of doing it.
But at the same time, what comes out of that for you is a sense of ownership and satisfaction that you didn't have previously.That's true.But you also learn things about how you like to be mentored.
By mentoring other people, you're adapting to what their needs are and you realize that not everybody learns the same way.
Not everybody has the same thoughts and approaches to things, and you get more adaptable yourself, but you also realize that, hey, there's a lot of different ways that I like to learn.
And when it comes to being mentored yourself, you're more likely to be, I guess assertive is the right word there, but you're more likely to be willing to accept other people's guidance and help them to help you.Help me help you.
I hope that was a helpful message to you.This was a short episode.They're not always going to be long episodes that last through your entire workout.
unless your workout was eight minutes long, and then, hey, I did a good job today, and congratulations, and I hope this does well for you.So until next time, again, my name is DJ, and I hope you remain blessed.Have a great one, everyone.
Thanks for being here for How to Thrive in IT.If you'd like a tool to truly thrive, we have a gift for you.DJ's book, Just Do This, A Simpler Way to Succeed in IT.
is the book that people have said that they wish they had 10 years ago to help them move ahead in their career.The book covers over 20 years of hard lessons that it turns out didn't take 20 years to learn.
You'll learn DJ's riskless methodology and how various roles in an IT organization have different expectations.You'll leave not only knowing how things should work, but how you best fit in.You'll learn how to communicate with management,
and how to write documentation that stands the test of time.You'll learn how to work with project managers and set expectations for staff around you.
But most importantly, you'll learn how to bring home more money and spend time doing things that really matter.Now, how do we know that?Because so many of you have written in to say just that.
All you need to do today is answer a few quick questions about how we can make better content to serve your needs, and you'll get access to a special link.
For a limited time, this link will take you to a page to be able to order the book in hardcover, personalized, and shipped to you.On Amazon, this would be 48 US dollars.
But because you've helped us out, it is yours for whatever cost you think is fair.Just cover our costs and it's yours.So go to thrive-it.com slash podcast survey.That's thrive-it.com slash podcast survey.We look forward to hearing from you soon.
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