How I Started Mentoring

I started mentoring back in 2021 during pandemic and at the end of my first maternity leave on a voluntary based initially.

Volunteering has always enriched my life, enabled me to have experiences that I would not have otherwise like selling ice cream in a theatre, being a staff member and watching behind the scenes of olympic games organisations or supporting an act performing in a concert. Therefore I wanted to volunteer but did not exactly know what to do as it was pandemic.

While volunteering for my local council in London, I worked in a library for people to "read" human books. I loved human library idea! ( You can find more details about it at https://humanlibrary.org). I was a member of the staff organising it but I asked whether I can have a break and read a few human books. I then chatted to a single mum home schooling her children, a shopaholic, a woman in finance. A few of them told me that I should consider to be a book at human library to share my own experiences. Then I remembered how it was hard for me during my younger years in university and afterwards early in my career to find out what to do next all by myself, with my own efforts. I always wished someone who had experiences in the studies I was doing or the industries I was interested in to help me steer so that life would be a bit easier ( my amazing mum and dad were civil servants in banking so they did not know much about engineering and the private sector).

I had coaching training back in 2020 so I knew the techniques and how to ask right questions for someone to find out more about themselves to make decisions that lead to a more satisfied life. Then the opportunity of being a mentor came and I thought I can make it easier for others to find their own path in their career or during their studies. And that's how it all started. Then I became addictive as being able to help others in that way is very satisfying. You really feel that you touch to others' lives and serving others really makes me happy.

Emergency state of pandemic is over. I am main servant for my daughters Emily and Leila for now ( and I mentioned why briefly in my previous post) but meanwhile I plan and hope to continue serving others as a mentor too. I will continue to do it remotely but for any encounters I am most likely either in Pornic/ France, or in London/ U.K. or in Ankara/ Turkey.

Photo by Luís Eusébio on Unsplash.

By the way, I learnt later in life that you should really look for a mentor yourself instead of waiting to be involved in a mentoring programme or someone to find you. Later in my career in the men dominant car industry a woman vice president from US was visiting U.K. offices and due to Christmas and her visit there was a pub gathering. I went there specifically to meet her and talk to her. She was all with other senior management but I walked to the front next to her and started to ask questions. I should have been really enthusiastic as she asked whether I would like her to mentor me during her U.K. visits. I was over the moon and that mentoring reinforced my thoughts to steer my career to do my own consultancy work instead of working as a contractor for a giant global company. Our discussions filled in the gaps in my head at the time.

So don’t be shy and open your eyes for the opportunities. It’s great to have someone, who walked the path before you and made the mistakes already, listening to you. For long years I worked incredibly hard to find out for myself and perhaps missed the fun. Life is much easier and more joyful when we learn from others’ experiences.

If you want to continue the discussion email or follow me on LinkedIn.

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Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps individuals and organisations become better at achieving their purpose.

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* Cover photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash.