Photo courtesy of Tim Gouw/Unsplash

Have you ever had a mentor?

A brief definition of the term is “an experienced and trusted adviser.”

Who wouldn’t want one of those?

I once had a mentor who didn’t even know me personally.

It was the mid-1980s and I was attending my first live seminar. The speaker was Dr. Julie White. She was a petite blonde Ph.D. with a wonderful talent for infusing humor. She was willing to laugh at herself and that made the mostly female audience like her even more.

She taught me valuable lessons that afternoon in Washington, DC; they were lessons that helped shaped me into a successful business woman. I learned how to be assertive without being aggressive. Prior to that day, I was a pushover. It was as though I were living my own mom’s most often used phrase: Anything to keep the peace.

In the section on giving away success, Julie talked about how as women we often discount our success or achievements. Honestly, I felt as though a spotlight would shine down on me at any moment, and an announcer would say, “And here’s Norma Thatcher, a prime example!”

You see, at that time I had a boss who had a terrible habit of forgetting to let me know of upcoming projects. The situation replayed itself time after time. He’d call me into his office and say, “I know I should have asked you for this weeks ago, but by tomorrow afternoon I need blah, blah and blah. Do what you can for me.”

Overachiever that I am, of course I’d stay late to have it done on time, and would throw in extras that I know he could use. When I’d present the project the next day, he’d say, “Wow, this is amazing. I can’t believe you got it done.”

And what would I say? Ridiculous answers such as, “Oh it was nothing.”  “Once I got started it just flowed.” “It was really easy.”

After that seminar and the scene replayed again (I told you he was really bad about it), I started to answer the same old way, but then my mouth formed the words, “Thank you.” It was as if I were trying out a foreign language. I had trouble getting out the two syllables. But it got easier over time.

You can imagine the impact Dr. White made since I can recall specific lessons over thirty years later. I still pull on her wisdom today. In fact the reason for this post is because I recently shared the above story with a younger professional woman.

Dr. White was likely also one of the subliminal draws to my fascination with public speaking. My own style of speaking is similar to hers in that I use a lot of humor. Audiences learn more when training is infused with laughter.

We need to not take ourselves so seriously.

Seriously.

To my readers: What training has made an impact on you?