While looking for a mentor — I became one.

To be clear about my situation, I’d like for you to know my journey. Which may be an article that will help you fall asleep, but let’s walk down that path anyway shall we?

Since High School I have been looking for a mentor that I had a connection with. A personal connection. No — not that kind of connection. I wanted to have a personal connection with my mentor. Someone that took me under their wing and nurtured my development and supported me thorough my development.

My entire career I have been extremely disappointed. I have found some people that I admire, but didn’t get that personal connection. Some people I have desired to have that personal connection of mentor / protege, but it never happened. I was looking for that perfect situation. Maybe it only existed in my dreams.

Maybe the mentor / protege situation only existed in movies. Maybe that is where I got that idea. In the movies you have this expert that performs amazing things and they always have a protege that is their right hand and learns to be an expert by their relationship. If you know anything about TV shows and movies this will make perfect sense:

• Sanctuary: Dr. Helen Magnus had Will as her right hand and he was learning as her protege. Many adventures and a personal connection was understood that he was learning.
• Star Wars: All Jedi had a personal connection to their mentor. Forget the Sith and Jedi thing, it was about mentor and student.
• Lie To Me: Dr. Cal Lightman had several proteges that he was grooming to be the next experts.

While these shows and movies had action and suspense, that is not what I am focusing on. I have enough excitement in my life and I don’t need a weekly crisis like these characters solved. I wanted that connection with a mentor that could mold my skills, help me get to where I wanted to be and eventually feel like I had accomplished something. I suppose that is the second piece that accompanies the mentor relationship.

As I write this article I realize that there are a few pieces of this desire and longing. I wanted to have a relationship with a mentor that could mold me as a protege. I then wanted a sense of accomplishment. That I had “arrived” as someone that has accomplished something of meaning and worth.

Yes I know it sounds like a child’s dream of greatness, and maybe that is in there somewhere. I had this crazy vision in my head that my mentor would push me to be more and eventually I would be that guy that is walking around in the shirt and blazer with a laptop and a book under his arm. Reading, researching and creating solutions to problems that may or may not be viable, but nonetheless a solution that I poured over papers and such and eventually publish a paper on the insightful things I have worked on. Basically the University Professor that publishes books or papers and the like. A silly vision? Possibly. but that is the vision I had in my head for years.

I chased every mentor opportunity there was. I just never connected with any of the potential mentors and eventually gave up on ever reaching my dream. I should have been the Professor or called “Doc” and mentored the next generation to go forth and research, explore and become mentors themselves. That dream is gone.

Then something happen that I didn’t expect. I was working with some interns that my company had taken on for the summer. Who am I to teach interns. I mean I only have 20 years of experience in this industry, I do not have a PhD, I haven’t written any journal entries, I haven’t written any books. I don’t have a blog or anything. I was tasked with their education and their projects for the summer. I did my best to create an environment where everyone was respected, heard and valued. My famous lines were:

• the only coffee you will fetch here is your own.
• you are part of the team and your job is to observe, learn and contribute like everyone else here.
• I work for you this summer. My job is to provide you with what you need for success and to guide you in this industry as best I can.
• after this internship, you can always call or email me for advice and help anytime. We all need someone to be able to contact yeah?

This was apparently unheard of. Each of my interns for the four years prior to the pandemic got jobs with Apple, Google, Amazon and various other companies. I am so proud of them and what they are achieving. I have a way I like to be managed and I fought hard to provide that environment for my interns.

This is when it happened. Out of the blue I got an email from one of my previous interns earlier this year. She said:

“Jamie, I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me during my intership. Since I joined [company] I have been using what you taught us and me specifically. I don’t think you realize what you did. During the start of our internship there were two women and one man. The man took charge of the first two presentations of our work. I remember you put him in charge of presenting at the third week and you kept us back after he left. Our job that week was to cut him off, over talk him, make sure that our voices were heard and both of us were to take over the presentation that third week even though it was his job. You said women have a voice in tech and need to be heard — so be heard. You taught me that as a women in technology I have a voice and I should use it. I just got promoted to lead of our group and I will never forget the lessons you taught me. Thank you so much for everything you did to mentor us that summer.”

Wait, what?! What did she say? She used the word “mentor”. I didn’t mentor anyone. I just reached out and let them know I was personally here for them and to help their career. No matter what they needed. If they needed a reference, to talk, to have someone to reach out to after the internship was over. I told them I was there for them and their success. But that isn’t a freaking mentor! Is it?

And so while I searched my entire career in angst and anger at being shut out of possible mentor possibilities and never having that personal connection. I wanted to be the PhD doing research and writing books and papers. I felt like I had failed my entire career. That young woman showed me that I had accidentally become the mentor I wished I had had during my entire career.

This is the beginning. The first article I have written, I will be working on more articles, trying to write for a journal and possibly creating a book of sorts. Who knows where I go from here, but all those things are possible even if I didn’t get there the way I wanted to. Sometimes accidents are a good thing.

I was looking for a mentor and accidentally became one.