From the

perspective of
the protege
NARAYAN VAIDYANATHAN
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see
the hope inside yourself.”

- OPRAH WINFREY
Overview

UNDERSTANDING MY STRUGGLES AS STEPS FORWARD

THE VALUE A PROTEGE
Value to the protégé
 Learn the path from someone who has made it
 Helps and lends support informally, and becomes an evangelizer
for you and your work
 Offers you viewpoints about the business that you may not have
from your perch
 Sees your strengths and weaknesses and guides or positions you
well accordingly
Value to the protégé
 Learn the path from someone who has made it
 Helps and lends support informally, and becomes an evangelizer
for you and your work
 Offers you viewpoints about the business that you may not have
from your perch
 Sees your strengths and weaknesses and guides or positions you
well accordingly
Why and how I picked my mentor
 Easy to approach
Good fit with experience, but not directly in my domain
Thinker & answered a question with a question
Personal experiences in a
professional setting
What worked well What didn’t

 Got the support and backing for ideas  Over time and due to lack of personal
meetings, lost that personal connection a bit
 Gave me fresh ideas on how and why I
might be getting stuck in my agendas  Didn’t see the enthusiasm from my mentor –
to drive me, seek me out with fresh ideas
 Got encouragement from her when she was
in the room, or via email when I was
successful
How to succeed with a mentor
 Share your goals and fears openly

 Be coachable and open to hearing feedback from your mentor

whether or not it's positive.
Blockers
 I believe that “someone would only mentor individuals they
believed in.”
If you are going to invest your time, values, and expertise, you
must believe in the mentee and that person's ability to grow and
develop. 
 Scared to approach in that I don’t see a fit with my personality.
But isn’t a mentor with a different personality and view point actually a