Practical Genius (17 page)

Looking back, I realize that Sheila looked straight to my potential and focused on teaching me some critical things no one had taught me before. This included everything from the art of listening to the power of keeping your word to professional etiquette and how to write a killer thank-you note. Sheila is a master communicator and in many respects was one of my first editorial teachers. I will admit that sometimes I had to learn the hard way, but it was worth the pain I sometimes experienced behind closed doors after one of her “reality checks” with me.

Sheila, a classic, old-school straight shooter, expressed her commitment to my potential by being persistently patient and unfailingly honest with me as I was learning. For example, I remember once she recommended I write a thank-you note to one of the women I had interviewed for the Women of Color in Corporate Management study, and when I submitted my first draft to Sheila for her feedback she handed it back to me and said to try again. I ended up rewriting that thank-you note fourteen times, every time getting a bit closer but not quite there. Sheila could easily have said, “Never mind, I’ll write it for you,” but instead she coached me through every draft until I got it. Fifteen years later, I still handwrite all my thank-you notes, and every time I remember exactly what Sheila taught me about the precise art of saying “thank you.”

Now, you might be wondering what Sheila has gained from this fifteen-year relationship. The benefit to her, I think, has been the value of mutual, intelligent honesty. Just as Sheila has been candid with me, I have always been straightforward and open with her. Many times while we worked together, I would give her my honest opinion when others didn’t dare to. Another benefit has been the lively and unexpected
mutual learning. For example, Sheila introduced me to the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope; I taught her how to use virtual currency.

Too many of us assume that the Yodas in our lives “know everything,” but in my experience, they are as grateful as I am when someone takes the time to channel new information, insight, and trends their way. Whether it’s a link to an article I read, a book I think she would like, or just sharing my life lessons as an entrepreneur with her, Sheila always appreciates the depth of our conversations and diverse range of topics and perspective that I bring to the table.

Today Sheila sits on the board of the New York Women’s Foundation and is a professor of women’s corporate leadership at the Stern Business School at NYU, and we still have a strong relationship. In fact, she is my rock. Whenever I am facing a big life decision, I always consult with Sheila first. “Sheila, I think I want to move to Miami, what do you think?” “Sheila, I think I want to quit my job to write a book, what do you think?” “Sheila, I think I’m ready for motherhood, what do you think?” When I’m at one of these junctures, the ritual is to meet her at the Century Club in New York City and commune from the heart.

There is a kind of informal mentorship relationship that is more oriented toward nurturing than process or toward a specific objective. My aunt Maria certainly falls into this category. Your relationship with this Yoda often offers the best of a kind of parent-child relationship, because it’s based on care and closeness but lacks some of the traditional issues with which true parent-child relationships can be fraught. The female mentors who adopted me as their “daughter” were always pushing me, protecting me, dressing me, grooming me, and plenty of times gently scolding me. Those kinds of Yodas lead with the maternal/paternal aspect of their natures and really don’t know any other way. They also tend to be “lifers,” who stay with their
protégés over the course of a lifetime. It is a great blessing to be adopted by such a Yoda.

Over the years I’ve been blessed with several surrogate-parent Yodas, and each of them has been instrumental in exposing me to the world beyond the borders of the United States. In my junior year as a literature and rhetoric major at Binghamton University, I dreamed of studying abroad but didn’t have the resources to do it. It was then that I was “adopted” by an amazing professor, Dr. Carole Boyce Davies, who helped me secure the funding to participate in the English Department’s study-abroad program. Dr. Davies taught abroad that year and basically took me with her, and it was truly an act of love. I studied English literature at Regents College in London for a year and backpacked throughout Europe with other students. I can’t tell you how unlikely it was that this Puerto Rican kid from New York City would have this experience.

Four years later I was adopted once again by two community leaders, Alice Cardona and Yolanda Sanchez, who had been impressed by my success organizing a Puerto Rican youth conference called “Muevete,” and invited me to travel with them to China for the NGO Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. I received a scholarship from the United Nations to do just that and traveled around China for a month with other female delegates from the United States.

Thinking back on all the surrogate-parent Yodas I have had, I realize that they were all advocates, extreme nurturers, and, in my case, frequently overlapped with the youth and community organizing efforts I was involved in during my twenties. In my experience, the public sector and NGO world are full of these kinds of mentors. If you lead with your heart, impress them with your energy, and have a positive measureable impact, those folks will pass it forward and make things happen for you.

Note that you are never too old to enjoy the support of a
surrogate-parent Yoda. I have found as I get older that for the overextended professional, the nurturing aspect of this kind of relationship is especially rewarding. While other Yodas provide logical, left-brain kind of support in your life, surrogate parents tend to focus on the protégé’s entire life experience and context rather than one slice of it.

During my last year with PR Newswire, I was offered a stretch assignment, and as part of my compensation for this additional work, I negotiated for an executive coach. Several friends at other companies were working with executive coaches, and I was curious to see and experience what a “paid mentor” would be like for me, someone who’s a big sponge and constant learner. The most interesting revelation was that I found myself working extra hard at achieving outcomes in this relationship because of the financial investment that was made for the service. It’s the same thing that happens when you pay for a personal trainer or a therapist—you do the work because you want your money’s worth.

Now, not all executive coaches are the same. They have different techniques and personalities, and, as with your trainer or therapist, before you engage in a relationship like this, you want to hear from others that the person is great to work with! You want to know exactly what the benefits and outcomes of this relationship will be because you’re paying for it. But that’s the best reason in the world to seek a Yoda-for-hire, when you have a particular objective that someone with a particular skill can help you achieve.

For example, after my unfortunate experience with the shingles, I knew I wanted an executive coach who was an expert in stress management as well as leadership. I also knew I wanted someone with a bit of edge, and after interviewing four coaches I ended up choosing Angela Love, an expert in neuroleadership who taught me—among many other things—how to meditate with nonachievement in mind.
Angela got me to begin scratching at my genius potential by teaching me how to exercise unseen “leadership muscles” while meditating. This practice resulted in better patience and quiet confidence and, most important, taught me courage, which eventually helped me take the leap to start my own practice. Angela was a great coach, and my experience with her taught me the real power of Yodas-for-hire.

There’s nothing wrong with “paying for it” if you know that this Yoda will play a role in feeding and growing your genius. But you have to base the work on your genius needs, define the objective, and measure the outcome. That’s very different from the more organic nature of an institutional mentor or a surrogate-parent relationship. For whatever reasons they arise, those are relationships that have more natural rhythms and usually less precisely defined objectives. Their common denominator, though, of course, is that all these Yodas are operating from their own genius zone, at the place of their greatest power, and can inspire, motivate, and support
your
genius.

If your dance card is already full of more Yodas than you can handle, good for you. More likely, though, you’re realizing that you’re way low in the mentor department. You can see how helpful it would be to have that rudder, that mirror, that swift kick in the pants when you need it most. People come into and out of your life in these roles, and it’s common to wake up one day and realize that you’ve been flying solo a little too long.

If you have access to a formal mentorship program in your workplace or another organization, such as a church or community group, get hooked up with it. You may or may not find a genius in the mix with whom you want to ally yourself, but it’s more likely you’ll find one if you’re actively looking, right?

If you had a positive mentor relationship that you’ve allowed to fall dormant, think about reactivating it. There are all kinds of reasons your relationship may have lapsed, but if it was strong and positive for both of you, there’s a very good chance that that Yoda will be delighted to hear from you and for the chance to reengage.

Finally, you can start from scratch, as any resourceful genius would do. Think hard about the people you’ve been exposed to in your personal life and your work. Is there someone you’ve admired but have never had the opportunity to engage with? Is there a wise genius you once worked or played with whom you could now enlist as a Yoda? Or is it time to get out your wallet and get a professional Yoda involved in your progress?

In any of these instances, the trick is how to ask. You can’t just knock on someone’s door and say, “Will you be my Yoda?” Not cool. But it is simpler than it seems. You can be direct, especially in a formal situation in the workplace. You can also informally sidle up to someone, get to know him or her, feel him or her out, and, if you feel a click, ask if he or she has the time and inclination to work with you. Or you can go total stealth by developing a relationship
with the intention of making the person your Yoda but never saying a word about it until you’re there! It’s kind of a Lucy Ricardo move, but sometimes just planting the seed and quietly watching it grow is enough.

The most important thing is to stick to your genius agenda. Once the relationship with a Yoda begins, be sure to share your genius learning goals. It’s a complete waste of time if you don’t say out loud what you’re working toward. It can be a hard-asset goal, such as expanding your expertise in a particular area, or it can be a soft-asset goal, such as developing a particular creative outlet. Being specific makes the learning richer, more efficient, and more focused. You can and should pursue multiple goals, of course, but it has been my experience that the best way to access their genius is to focus on one of their strengths.

For example, in my own life I have focused on specific learning goals with each of my Yodas, most recently ranging from entrepreneurial learning goals to writing goals to developing my emotional intelligence. No matter what the relationship, though, I always have a learning goal in mind and, in my own way, ensure that the other person is learning, too.

As a protégé, your job is to be open, flexible, available, and 100 percent present in the relationship. When you give yourself up to the process and commit to the trust required for its success, powerful bonding happens. You’re invested together in the success of the relationship, and your mutual access to each other’s energy, curiosity, and intelligence is a critical motivator for both of you. In other words, it’s not all about you. So if you really want it to work for you, you have to give as much as you get. You’re certainly the student in this dynamic, but that doesn’t mean your Yoda won’t grow his or her own genius as a result of engaging with you—that is, if you’re really putting it
out there. That will be the moment your relationship truly puts down some roots, when the mutual rhythm of giving and receiving goes both ways.

A good mentor will always try to help you “sharpen the saw,” as Steven Covey would say. The trick is to be the best student you can be within the context of that relationship. In playing the student role, it’s natural to aspire to please our teachers, seeking praise and acknowledgment from them. But sometimes the best kind of learning is experienced not in the praise but in the difficult feedback every good Yoda will share at some point in your relationship. You have to be built not just to withstand constructive criticism but to do everything you can with it to grow your genius. Although the frank feedback from your Yoda is always rooted in what’s best for you, the experience of hearing the things we sometimes don’t want to hear is often not easy for the protégé. Yet some of the most important growth I have experienced in my life was the result of relationships with mentors who didn’t censor themselves and were very direct about what I needed to work on, regardless of what my emotional response might be. Your ego may be bruised during the process, but your strengths will grow stronger and your weaknesses weaker. Some might call this “tough love,” but I prefer to call it “responsible education.” All mentors should hold their protégés to nothing shy of a standard of excellence.