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[Flash] Seeking White-Knuckle Moments

Phillip Phillips won American Idol in 2012. Since then, he has sold 5 million copies of his hit “Home,” produced three albums, and performed on morning shows, afternoon shows, late shows, and concerts worldwide.

This month, Phillip returned to American Idol to debut his new single, “Love Like That.”

When he finished singing, the audience was on their feet, roaring for their fan favorite.

As the applause subsided, Phillip exhaled, smiled, and remarked to the judges, “It’s still terrifying.

Similarly, when Willie Geist interviewed actress Sienna Miller recently on Sunday Sitdown, he asked her, Stage or film? Which one gratifies you more?” Without hesitation, she responded, “Stage. Because it’s terrifying and indelible. And when I achieve that unimaginable thing I didn’t think I’d survive? I say, Yes! I did that!”

Why are Phillip and Sienna seeking out “terrifying” situations while others gravitate to zones of comfort? 

And are we robbing ourselves of the journey and the challenge when we seek safety, predictability, and ease?

While “terrifying” means dreadful and fearsome, it also means hair-raising, formidable, thrilling, and white-knuckling, like riding a roller coaster.

These moments push us to grow, remind us that we are alive, and encourage us to lean into life.

But we don’t need to audition for American Idol or jump out of airplanes to find those white-knuckle moments that help us grow.

Opportunities abound!

  • Volunteer to lead a new project
  • Pitch an irreverent idea
  • Be the lone dissenter or supporter
  • Ask a question in a room of silence
  • Confront a bully
  • Advocate for ourselves
  • Offer tough-to-hear feedback
  • Embrace difficult conversations
  • Change roles
  • Make friends out of strangers
  • Connect with senior leaders
  • Engage cranky clients and petulant peers
  • Deliver a presentation
  • Be a mentor
  • Call a mentor

White knuckles don’t typically result from answering routine emails and attending conference calls. They occur when we muster the courage to do that which we think we can not do.

Actress Viola Davis reflected recently in an interview, “I don’t want to go to my grave and have my final thought be, I was not brave.” 

Isn’t it time for more butterflies-in-the-stomach experiences at work and in life?!

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] Don’t Look For a Mentor. Look Around For Mentoring

In my house, whenever someone hollers, “I looked. I can’t find it!” I instinctively respond, “Look around.”

And when people ask me, “How do I find a mentor?” I offer similar advice…

“Don’t look for a mentor. Look around for mentoring.”

Last year in one of our leadership mentoring programs at a small hospital, a nurse manager mentee confessed to me glumly, “Ann, I’ve never met with my mentor.”

Concerned, I approached his mentor, a nurse executive at the hospital, to better understand the situation and hear her side.

I was surprised (and delighted!) to hear the mentor say, “Ann, I love this mentoring program! Once a week, I walk around the hospital with my mentee as he sees patients and engages with his nurses. I get to observe one of our leaders in action!”

When I asked the mentee about this, he staggered, “That’s our mentoring session? I envisioned sitting in her office immersed in conversation about leadership.”

I challenged, “John! Be agile and adaptable! While you wait for Obi-Wan Kenobi to show up, your mentor is walking with you! Stop missing these mentoring moments and start asking better questions.

To prepare him for his walk-and-mentor sessions, we generated the following questions to spark the mentoring conversations he craved:

  • What are you noticing that I’m doing well?
  • What could I be doing differently?
  • What is your perspective of this situation?
  • What am I missing? What are my blindspots?
  • Do you have any advice or recommendations for me?
  • Who else should I get to know?
  • What resources should I leverage?
  • What should I be reading?
  • What actions should I take next?

Once we closed his expectation gap, the mentee successfully kindled his mentor’s wisdom during their weekly walk-and-mentor sessions.

Don’t look for a mentor. Look around for mentoring conversations by asking different questions.

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] Laughter is the Cement of Strong Mentoring

Last month, Stephen Colbert hosted singer Dua Lipa as his guest on The Tonight Show.

While promoting her new podcast, Dua Lipa shared her preference for interviewing people instead of being interviewed. Colbert then surprised her and said, “If you’d rather interview, you may interview me.” She paused and thoughtfully asked, “Do your faith and your comedy ever overlap?”

Without hesitation, Colbert mentioned enjoying the movie Belfast, reflecting, “It’s funny, and it’s sad. And it’s funny about being sad. Sadness is like an emotional death but not a defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it.”

He continued, “Because that laughter keeps us from having fear of it.”

Colbert then concluded, “No matter what happens, we are never defeated. We must see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other.”

Humor guru William Fry, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, found in his research that by the time the average child reaches kindergarten, they are laughing around 300 times each day.

But sadly, by the time that typical child becomes a typical adult, they are only laughing a measly 17 times per day (research by Rod Martin, Ph.D., University of Western Ontario).

While studies show laughter strengthens our physical immunity, laughter also helps us bond with others. Telling a joke, particularly one that points to our shared experiences, increases our sense of belonging and cohesion. Psychiatrist Joseph Richman, Professor at Albert Einstein Medical Center, contends that laughter counteracts feelings of alienation by psychologically connecting us to others.

We feel less alone when we laugh together. 

Furthermore, when we’re stressed, we feel hopeless; but laughing helps us reclaim some control. Laughter reminds us that we can handle it.

And in mentoring, laughter suggests that we can handle it together. We bond, partner, and feel hope when we laugh with our mentors and mentees. We will not be defeated.

Strong mentoring relationships stand on a foundation of trust, goals, and structure. Laughter is the cement.

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] Imagine. Inspire. Involve. (RIP Dr. Paul Farmer)

Over the weekend, I saw the comedy-drama film Dog, Channing Tatum’s directorial debut. The movie follows the road trip of U.S. Army Ranger Briggs and Lulu, a retired military working dog. Briggs is charged with transporting Lulu from Washington to Arizona to attend the funeral of her handler, another Army Ranger who committed suicide.

Throughout the film, we witnessed Briggs struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and an inability to make emotional connections. But during their wild adventure together, Lulu helps him make peace with his life.

It was entertaining, amusing, and poignant.

And by the end, I was heart-wrenchingly reminded of the plight of our soldiers who suffer from PTSD, and I got a glimpse into the world of military working dogs. I was eager to do something or get involved, even ready to adopt a retired dog.

But when the movie ended, only the credits rolled. There was no information about where to learn more or how I could make a difference. 

Of course, I could have googled it. And granted, this movie was not a documentary or a public service announcement. In fact, Channing Tatum made this movie as a tribute to his dog Lulu who died from cancer in 2018.

But… there was a missed opportunity.

The movie invited me to imagine a different outcome for soldiers who suffer and retired military dogs. It inspired me to want to do something. But then it forgot to invite me to take action.

We often tend to overlook and overcomplicate opportunities to engage and collaborate. Why?

  • We become fascinated with our creation, idea, or project.
  • We get distracted sharing information or stories.
  • We don’t know what we want people to do with our idea, information, or story.
  • We assume others are disinterested.
  • We believe others have nothing to offer.
  • We’re reluctant to ask.

But sparking collaboration can be straightforward and engaging:

  • Imagine another possibility.
  • Inspire others with this possibility.
  • Involve people in creating a new solution.

Dr. Paul Farmer, who passed away this week, was a champion of global health equity. In an interview with Wired in 2013, Dr. Farmer said, “We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, ‘What would make this service better for you?‘”

Imagine. Inspire. Involve.

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] When Jiddu Meets Queen Elsa (Care But Don’t Mind)

In 1977 in Ojai, California, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti was lecturing on incessant worrying and perpetuated fears.

As the story goes, Krishnamurti paused his talk, leaned forward, and asked the audience almost surreptitiously, “Do you want to know what my secret is?” The audience waited with bated breath for his wisdom. “You see, I don’t mind what happens.”

While this is undoubtedly compelling (and not dissimilar to Queen Elsa in Frozen singing, “Let it go!”), the real secret is being able to care and not mind simultaneously.

  • To care about an outcome and take actions to influence or create that outcome
  • But when the outcome disappoints, to not be disappointed but activated to take different actions

We only mind what happens (and cannot “let it go”) when our expectations are missed.

Missed expectations remind us that we are not in control; we are, in fact, vulnerable.

This inability to control the uncontrollable ignites our frustrations and reactions, often sparking outbursts and altercations. In a world where we are desperate for control, missed expectations threaten our success.

But we can only control two things in life: our actions and our responses. Fortunately, that includes our perseverance, resilience, tenacity, commitment, and grit!

When we care but don’t mind what happens, missed expectations can inform our future actions instead of dictating our present reactions.

A few years ago, my cycling buddy Roger and I decided to bike from Crater Lake National Park to Yosemite National Park. It was a carefully planned trip, but many events missed our expectations: our train to Crater Lake was delayed by three hours; we had flat tires; the sprocket on my bike broke, causing a detour to a bike shop; I wasn’t feeling well one day; Roger wasn’t feeling well another day; and on the road up to Yosemite, the mighty winds knocked Roger entirely off his bike.

Did we care about any of this? Absolutely. Did we mind? Sometimes. But when we didn’t, we improvised, persevered, and pedaled. We still remember the experience as one of our favorite cycling adventures.

When we mind, we are at the mercy of an outcome.
When we care, we are always in control.

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] When Jane Mentored Meryl Who Mentored Jane

In a Vanity Fair article reflecting on her career in Hollywood, Jane Fonda mused, “I didn’t see myself as a mentor.”

But Meryl Streep did.

Meryl met Jane in 1976 while filming the movie Julia, Meryl’s film debut. It was her first day ever on a movie set, and Meryl felt lost. Noticing this, Jane whispered to her, “Look down… over there, that green tape on the floor, that’s you. That’s your mark. And if you land on it, you will be in the light, and you will be in the movie.”

While paying tribute to Jane Fonda at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony, Meryl thanked Jane for her inexhaustible guidance and for “opening more doors than I probably even know about.”

She then thanked Jane on behalf of all the young actors Meryl subsequently worked with because Meryl mentored them with Jane’s lessons and kindness.

Interestingly, Jane Fonda recalls the experience of working with Meryl Streep a bit differently.

“I was close to Bette Davis. I was close to Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn. So why didn’t I ask them endless questions when I was new in the business? Like, ‘What do you do when you’re nervous? How do you overcome fear?’ And I didn’t! Do you know the only person who has ever asked me those kinds of questions? Meryl Streep!”

As author Annie Murphy Paul reported in her book The Extended Mind, “research consistently shows that engaging students in tutoring their peers has benefits for all involved, especially for the ones doing the teaching.”

…especially for the ones doing the teaching (the mentors!).

But how? Annie Murphy Paul continues, “Teaching is a deeply social act, one that initiates a set of powerful cognitive, attentional, and motivational processes that have the effect of changing the way the teacher thinks.”

…changing the way the teacher (the mentor!) thinks.

In other words, Jane’s mentoring Meryl ultimately shifted Jane’s thinking, not just Meryl’s.

Marvelously, mentoring has a boomerang effect. When you mentor others, you invariably get mentored in the process.

So the next time you have the opportunity to participate in a mentoring relationship… less hesitation, more assimilation!

© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

[Flash] Nobody Knows Anything… Including Your Mentor

I just finished listening to That’ll Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Netflix’s co-founder, Marc Randolph.

In his compelling memoir, Marc referenced screenwriter William Goldman (All The President’s MenThe Princess Bride), who described Hollywood in three words: Nobody knows anything. Goldman explained that nobody can truly predict how a movie will do until after it’s released, regardless of the budget, or the caliber of the script, the director, or the actors involved.

Marc applied this same theory to describe Silicon Valley: nobody knows which concepts will succeed until one does.

When he originated the idea of renting DVDs over the internet in 1997, many people (including his wife) said, “That’ll never work.”

But their prophetic declarations were simply assumptions based on their knowledge and experiences.

At the time, Blockbuster was a $6 billion business, and internet consumption was relatively new. So, of course, it was hard to imagine using the internet to rent a movie instead of driving down the block to a video store.

And in 1999, when Netflix decided to evolve to a subscription model with no late fees, people said, “That’ll never work.” Because at the time, subscriptions were for magazines, not movie rentals, and charging late fees ensured movies were returned!

Nobody knows what will eventually happen, including mentors. Instead, people merely reference their past experiences to inform their future predictions. And then they forecast and pontificate about what will and won’t work. For example, in 1995, astronomer Clifford Stoll brazenly declared in Newsweek magazine that the internet would be a passing fad. (Good thing Marc didn’t heed Clifford’s warning!)

Growth happens in action, not speculation.

Incidentally, mentors don’t want to be your fortune teller. They signed up to be part of your journey. That’s the only way they’ll grow too.

So, invite their opinions, advice, perspectives, and ideas. But then explore those as you move, don’t adopt them while you’re standing still. Think critically. Consider context. Take a chance. Evolve as you discover, as Netflix continues to do.

At the end of the book, Marc concluded, “You’ll learn more in one hour of doing something than in a lifetime of thinking about it.”

Welcome wisdom but apply it mindfully and actively.

© 2021. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. All Rights Reserved. www.mentorlead.com

[Flash] When Colin Jost Spot Mentored Michael Che onto SNL

On a recent episode of Sunday Sitdown, Willie Geist interviewed Michael Che about his journey to the cast of Saturday Night Live.

Michael Che was a standup comic in NYC when he met Colin Jost, a comedian and sketch writer for SNL.

Michael was performing a comedy set in Brooklyn when Colin casually approached him, “You ever want to write sketches?”

Michael described his response as follows, “I blew him off. I don’t know how to write sketches! I’m not going to audition and send in a packet. If they don’t like it, then I have to go through life knowing that I suck. So, I just blew him off. But Colin kept messaging me urging me to come in.”

Then Colin shared with Michael an opportunity at SNL for comedians to be guest writers for two weeks. Finally, Michael responded.

He said, “I ended up getting a sketch on TV. SNL let me finish the season, and I’ve been with them ever since.” Today Michael is co-head writer and co-anchor on SNL’s Weekend Update.

Michael was a bit self-deprecating about his imposter syndrome throughout this interview. But my favorite insight occurred when Michael reflected, “SNL is a dream job that I did not know that I could possibly do.”

He did not know that he could possibly do it. And, left to his mind chatter, he wouldn’t have.

Fortunately, he had a Spot Mentor who stopped him from missing the opportunity: Colin Jost.

Spot Mentors show up when we are about to overlook or neglect a moment.

By definition, spotters are trained to look for something. Typically found at a fitness studio or a construction site, spotters ensure someone’s safety and provide situational awareness.

Spot Mentors offer us similar protection from and awareness of our blind spots and missed opportunities. Their objective is not to prevent us from falling or failing. Rather they are determined to hinder our heedlessness. They see what we can’t or won’t. And by connecting our potential with possibilities, they practically dare us to get out of our own way.

Weightlifters and equipment operators don’t operate without a spotter. So, why would we traverse any path without seeking a Spot Mentor? And while we’re at it, serving as a Spot Mentor does wonders for the soul and society.

© 2021. Ann Tardy and Mentor Lead. www.mentorlead.com

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