The Unexpected Key Value Pair in Mentoring

Hey, Sydney. Hey, there. How are you Heather? Well, I'm doing good. It's good to see you. Good to see you too. And it is so nice to see everybody at React Summit in New York this year. Hi, hopefully everything is doing well. It's super exciting. We're like really excited to talk to you all.

Sydney what are we going to be talking about? Yes. So we are going to be talking about mentorship and honestly how unique our journey has been so far, especially with the two of us. First off, since you all don't know, we have had this amazing relationship for about five years now. But the catch is that we've never worked together. We have never lived in the same state. And the kicker is that we've actually never met in person before. So how the heck did we find each other? I mean, how did that happen?

Yeah. Well, I remember this clear as day. So 2018, I had just graduated from my bootcamp. I was job searching. I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do next. And I honestly thought that the answer was learning another programming language. And I had gone through boot camp with JavaScript, decided to start thinking about Ruby and things, and had found Coding Dojo. And I was like, let's see. Let's see if we can figure out if this is a good place to start. And so I found you actually in one of the testimonials for Coding Dojo and decided to send you a LinkedIn and here we are today.

Yeah. And I remember that I was just finishing my first year at Stitch Fix. And I had just actually done a talk at Coding Dojo in San Jose for like junior dev stuff and getting your first job. And I saw your message come across LinkedIn. And I was like, Hey, perfect timing.

This is cool. And so we like hooked up on zoom and we've been doing this now every month for the last five years. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Like one hour, just one hour of our time a month for five years. Oh my goodness. Like I'm still just very shocked.

I want to hear like your perspective, like how has it been been for you. And then I'll share like how it's been for me. So, first off having to have another woman in tech, like let's just like first off talk about that. All I had were men to talk to and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but like that felt so isolating for me. There were so many opportunities and learning things that I felt like I still had to navigate through and I didn't know who specifically to talk to you about that. And that was very frustrating.

And so like having these conversations with you, being able to get to know you and your journey where you were still like figuring things out compared to where I was, like that really helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin while I was navigating like what else I was trying to figure out in my life. And so like our conversations have always been so appreciated and just respected, and I am absolutely overjoyed whenever we talk.

Me too though. It's not just one way. Like this, I feel like people think mentorship is like top down or unidirectional, but it really isn't. I've gotten so much out of our relationship and like our chats because we, you know, it's not only just my opportunity to like reach out and like help you bring you to the table and give you some advice and stuff from me, you know, a few years ahead, but it's also a chance for us to, we've talked from tech, we've talked about issues, this process scrum dealing with difficult team members or companies, and then just like also our professional journey where we want to be, what are our goals. And over the last five years we've done like it's kind of gone beyond even all of that because of COVID and everything. We kind of went into, started podcasts and we were talking about our podcast journey and all of the things. And it's really been like really helpful for me and on so many levels.

Like I always look forward to chatting with you because I feel like for me it's sort of like tech therapy. Like once a month I know. Shout out to my therapist! Yeah, once a month I know I can chat with you and like, we are each other's supporters like a therapist would be like, we're totally biased in the fact that we want to support each other and like always on our side like we're on each other's team, even though we've never worked together directly. So I think that's really cool. I'm wondering like what if someone's thinking about trying to find mentorship or what's some advice you would give to someone who's watching? The first thing that I'll say is that you just ask, you just try. I know that that's like such a hard thing to do because you never know like who's going to say no. I've talked about this before in some of my content where you know the worst thing that people can do is say no and that's not necessarily bad. A rejection is normally a redirection into something else, something better. Being open to those experiences where you potentially like find a mentor in unexpected ways I think is the best advice that I can give because I was not expecting this to be as glorious and as productive and as amazing as it has been with our relationship.

And then being able to also like spread that knowledge around to others, like being able to lift people up behind you as well. You gave me the confidence to teach at the boot camps that I had went to and things just like going for it and just seeing what happens and that has opened up so many doors for me and I hope that people understand that it really is just about like spreading that kindness and just like trying something you know, you never know what will happen. You just need to put yourself out there just a little push.

100%. I think I think for me, I would encourage people to make themselves available to be a mentor like you don't have to be an expert in your field. You just have to be available and whether you like find people on meetups or your boot camp or college or campus, whatever it is, like being available and letting people know hey, I'm willing to give an hour of my time a month. I really want to share for you and it's like so impactful on so many levels. And I also think that also another note about being a mentor in that relationship is that Yeah, it's again. It's just about you listening and really hearing where you're, you know where the other person's at and being supportive of giving advice. Maybe sometimes like some like not critical hard advice tough love like, hey, you need to learn Ruby on Rails. No, that's not I've been trying for five years. It hasn't happened. She's stuck. She's getting there. Yeah, we're getting there, you know, like so I think that there's just it's such a wonderful relationship and we encourage everyone to be there because the more of us that do this better and more inclusive and more supportive our entire Tech environment will be and you know, not everyone has the the opportunity to work for a culture like Stitch Fix that so many amazing colleagues and had mentors directly in Stitch Fix. So like I think that you know, being able to be that light share that outside and bring everyone in is super important.

So and yeah, so if you have any questions, we're excited to to chat with you about it. Please reach out you can we have our LinkedIn and all of our information with this program and we also have email and chat and notes. But yeah, I think that's it. I don't know. We really appreciate you all coming to see our talking things. Right. And hopefully we're going to be meeting in person for the first time in New York. We're really hoping for this. Cross fingers. Thanks so much, everybody. Thanks. Bye.