Steven Spielberg said  “The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.”

Indeed, it is through the receipt of active mentorship that we can hold a mirror to ourselves and come face to face with our pressure points, blindspots - and our latent, unrealised potential. And this can make all the difference to our success trajectory.

Our Cofounder + CEO Madeleine Grummet wrote this piece about the power of mentorship, and how it has helped her shape her own career choices and pathways. Read the full article here.

Here’s an excerpt:
”It is directly because I have been fortunate enough to have lived the benefit of active mentorship that I have been empowered and guided and able to achieve what we have so far.

Of course we have stacks more to do. But daily, I still draw on the support and experience of my mentor caucus to stay afloat, accelerate our opportunities and make better business choices.

In fact some of the best decisions I've ever made were co-shaped with mentors.

But mentors can sometimes take a while to find. There is no one size fits all, and mentoring at its best is about cultivating positive and rewarding two-way human-to-human relationships, which can take a bit of time to nurture. (Listen to This Working Life with Lisa Leong, where I joined her to discuss The Power of A Good Mentor and tips on how to find one).

It was apparently Isaac Newton who said  “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Certainly, some of the most successful founders I know have attributed regular mentoring to their success, and say that by putting themselves and their vulnerabilities out there and building a trusted group of mentors around them, they have achieved far more than could ever have done on their own.

If you’ve been thinking about finding or becoming a mentor, there are multiple organisations, digital platforms and online communities offering professional mentoring services. Everwise, Mentorloop, Inspiring Rare Birds, Business Chicks and Mogul are just a few. As always, the value will likely cut both ways - in learning you will teach and in teaching you will learn.

If you’re a high school or tertiary student looking to find mentors, explore career options, and understand more about the world of work to make decisions about subjects, post-school courses and your future pathways, girledworld is delivering an online Workplace Mentoring & Employability Skills virtual program in partnership with the Victorian State Government.

Get in touch to learn more about this program that gives Victorian students windows to real-world workplaces and connects them with leading females in industry across the state. (Or read this ABC article about girledworld’s work to connect female students with industry mentors, and tips on how you can find a good mentor).

Finally, anyone and everyone has something to teach and can be a mentor to someone. This includes asking your mentor how you can help them! (Don’t assume that you have nothing to offer just because you’re more junior or less experienced.) Being a mentor to others is such a powerful way to pay it forward - and give back.