WEBVTT
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She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she
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is true, is true, she is brave Bray, she is
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she is you, is you, she is she is sure,
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she is true. She is strong. She is strong, she
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is true, is true, she is brave Bray, she is
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she is you.
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Hello, everyone, Welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here
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on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host,
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Dori Di Carlo. And you know we're here a week
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after week, show after show breaking those myths that morepreneurs
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and business women, especially those of us building our businesses
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from home. You know that we're just dabbling in between
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bake sales and getting our nails done. We're not. We
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are smart, we are savvy, and we are sharing the
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wisdom of women in business and in life. And I'm
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really looking forward to bringing today's guest into our show.
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Doctor Jebra Heiser is the CEO and founder of The
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Mentor Project, author of The Mentorship Edge, and an applied
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developmental psychologist. She has been featured at Tedex Marshall Goldsmith's
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one hundred Coaches, Thinkers fifty, Radar List, Psychology Today, and
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is also an adjunct professor in the psychology department at
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sunny Old Westbury. And I could go on and on
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and tell you about her, but I'd much rather bring
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her in. So, with that being said doctor Deborah Heiser,
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welcome to Word of Mom Radio.
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Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here.
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I'm excited to have you. So I would love for
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you to take us on your journey that led you
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to creating the Mentor project.
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Sure, well, it started when I was starting out as
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a researcher.
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I wanted to study aging.
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And when I thought of aging, it was everything that
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no one wants to have her get. So studying depression, frailty,
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Alzheimer's disease, and this is how I got my start.
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And then I went out and somebody said to me, Hey,
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what do we have to look forward to? Is anything
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you're doing mattering for what we have to look forward
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to as we get older. Is it just frailty with
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a band aid on it? Is it just depression with
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a band aid on it? And I really had to
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stop and think, and I said to myself, oh my,
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I don't know if this is the future I want.
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I want to know what I have to look forward
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to also, so I pivoted and looking at our lifespan.
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I didn't know there was so much good stuff. And
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right in the middle when we hit midlife, is this
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stage called generativity, and it's where we're built to want
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to give back without expecting anything in return. And any
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mom out there understands this really well, because when you
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get up and the little baby cries, you don't say
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you better do something for me later. You know if
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you are caring for that person without expecting anything in
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return from them. And it really hits again in midlife,
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right around fifty is when it said it's really hitting
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for most of us, and in that we want to
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engage in mentoring, volunteering, and philanthropy ways that we can
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give ourselves back to others. And I was like really,
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So I took a dive into looking at mentorship because
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I thought, well, for giving a piece of yourself back
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to somebody else, what does that look like? Why would
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a mentor want to do that? And I started interviewing
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mentors who were from grandmas to four star generals to
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see what they were really saying about it. Why would
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they want to do it? I couldn't imagine what was
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the driving force because the research was saying that we
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have this.
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Built in drive like walking and talking just to do
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it well.
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It turned out they all said things like they needed
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to feel relevant. They wanted to feel like they had
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value in the world, that they were useful, that they
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had something that was important in them, that they hadn't
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just checked a lot of boxes in their life, and
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that what they were giving back was needed in the world.
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It made their footprint a little bit deeper. So when
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I talked to them, there were a couple of people
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who said, I have a really hard time finding mentees.
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And these were people that changed the world. One of
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them was one of the fathers of the network firewall.
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His name is Bill Cheswick, and he said, I'm getting
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ready to go live on a farm, and I'm retiring
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from Bell Labs as an innovator, and I'm not going
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to have any access to students to give back to.
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And it wasn't like he could go to a park
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and say, hey, kid, you want to mentor He had
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this problem, and so we said, well, let's see if
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we could get Bill into some schools. We started with
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a few people and at worked they even had Chez
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Day on Wednesdays, and we had a couple of other
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really cool people from NASA and other researchers. They were
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going into schools and the kids loved it, and the
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people were mentoring loved.
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It, and we thought that was going to be it.
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But we decided to.
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Form a company, and it was thought it would be
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ten people, that would be all it would be. And
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everyone said, no one will ever want to join to
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you band of weirdos going out and doing this, because
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people who are really top level are too busy for
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this kind of thing, they're too important for it. And
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I said, okay, good, then it'll just be us. I'm
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happy with that.
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I'm fine.
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And it turned out that within six months we moved
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from ten to sixty, then to eighty, then to one hundred,
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and we're talking top notch people, astronaut six, seven time
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Nobel Laureate nominee, artists, everybody from soup to nuts was
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saying I want to join. So that's how we got formed,
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really by accident, really just organically, and we've been moving
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ever since. We're five years old now, and just last
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year we were able to give away three million dollars
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of mentorship out hours to students in five countries, so
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you know, it's just fun. How things that were built
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to do happen when you just ignite a little flame.
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It's amazing to me that people thought people wouldn't want
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to give back, and I find that incredulous. I truly do.
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I know.
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I don't know anyone who has attained a certain level,
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and even before they've gotten there, that hasn't wanted to
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help other people move forward.
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You're right, but most people don't think that. They think
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only if you think of mentorship. Most people think of
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the mentee looking to climb the lower They say, go
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find a mentor, and that person's a nameless, faceless individual
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out there. They can't describe who that person is. They're
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just like a hand grabbing them up. And that is
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why they couldn't imagine anyone would want to do this,
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because there has been such a difficulty for mentees to
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find a mentor. It's just that no one ever realized
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that mentors were having the same problem. They had no
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way to get in touch with mentees. And mentorship is
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mentor driven, it's not menty driven.
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You know.
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The mentor's the one with the knowledge, expertise, the values,
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the culture, all of that stuff that the mentee wants.
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So we had it backwards, and that's why we've been
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having so many problems. Is that you can't drive something
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by someone saying I want and they don't know who
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that person is. It has to be driven by the
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experts who can say I have all of this, who
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wants it? It's free, come take.
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Why do you feel it is so important for the
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mentor to be part of this mentorship?
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It's incredibly important because imagine yourself in midlife and you've
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checked all the boxes. You've done everything you were supposed
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to do. You got your job, you had your kids,
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you did whatever you were going to do, and then
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you say to yourself, now, what more boxes?
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I get to check more boxes? This is the.
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Time when you want to say I have meaning in
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the world, that I matter. Mentorship allows you to feel
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that you feel relevant. You are changing somebody's life, you're
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making their life better, You're moving something in the direction
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that you want to move it to. So mentorship is
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you get to choose who you mentor how you mentor
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when you mentor where you mentor you get to choose
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all of that, and that's what allows the mentors to
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feel like they're useful, productive, that their footprint matters. They
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have a legacy that they are relevant. There's nothing more
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scary to a person than feeling like you're isolated, alone, disconnected,
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and irrelevant. There's nothing like that is like being put
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in a room with no lights and no windows and
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the door is closed. So this is what allows us
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to feel as mentors, like we're an important part of life.
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Everything that you're doing. And so far as being able
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to match people up. Do you find that there's a
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commonality when you create that mentor mentee relationship or are
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they just all so completely different?
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You know, the commonality is that people are looking for
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a meaningful connection. That's really what the commonality is. It
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doesn't work if somebody is coming in and they're saying,
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I want information. I don't care who it is, I'm
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just looking to get a grab. Mentorship can be a
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one off, but it really is the biggest commonality is
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that people want a meaningful connection. The mentee often does
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they want somebody who doesn't like somebody in their corner
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who's really working to make it so their life is
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better For the mentor who doesn't want somebody that says,
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everything you're giving me is so wonderful. Just what I've wanted,
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Thank you, Thank you. Who doesn't want that. It's like
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saying that an actor gets on stage and doesn't want applause,
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They like, you know, a silent room at the end.
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It's the same exact sort of thing. And that's really
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what the commonality is is drive for meaningful connection from everybody.
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We all want it at all times. There's nobody who
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goes through life and says, oh, I want to be
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disconnected or I just want to get what I.
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Want and go.
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We all want to feel connected and needed, and we
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have that with mentorship. There's the need of the mentee
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to get the information. There's the need of the mentor
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to have somebody want that information that they have to
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feel important and relevant.
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Do you find that there's in today's world kind of
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a niche that people are looking at when looking for
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mentorship or is it really across the board in all
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kinds of fields.
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Oh, you need mentorship and everything. If you think about
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the biggest way that we've mentored in this universe, in
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this planet is through culture. That's how religion has been
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passed down for centuries. It doesn't matter which one you
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subscribe to. It has been passed down by mentorship for
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thousands of years. In the book, I talk about religion
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and I have a professor, Christopher Baldo talk about mentors
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from the Bible, Old and New tests and things like that.
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And it's been in every kind of a scripture that
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is out there. That's how it gets passed down. We're
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never going to remember an accountant three hundred years ago
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that was in the local job, but we are going
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to remember the traditions that have been passed down the
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values that matter to us. Those sorts of things are
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the ones that are really really meaningful to us as
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mentors and mentees. So is there a niche, Yes, there is.
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There are some people who say I need something specific
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or I have a very specific job. Like if you're
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an astronaut, that's pretty specific, you know. But if you're
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somebody who's you know, doing world peace, that might be
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broader and you can get a few more people in
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that area. If it's art that that's an area that
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has a little bit more broadness to it. So it
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really depends on what you're looking at.
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On that note, I want to take a quick break,
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say thank you to our sponsors. Then I want to
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talk about what makes a good mentor and mentor and
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everything else. Because I think this is something that's going
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to resonate with our audience. So we'll be back here
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in just a moment on Word of Mom Radio.
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She is brave, she is bold, she is you, and
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we want to tell your story. Are you ready to
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share your journey with us on Word of Mom Radio?
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Go to wordommradio dot com and register as a guest.
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We want to tell your story because when you win,
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we all win.
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In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors
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of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization
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currently serves Siri Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In
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twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand
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dollars to survivors in the USA and in Siri Leone.