What is the value of mentoring on our mental health? Hello, I'm Chester Elton and this is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gostick. Well, thanks, Ches. Yeah, today we're going to find out how mentoring relationships foster a sense of belonging and social connection and how we can create some of those mentoring relationships in our lives. As always we hope the time you spend with us will help reduce the stigma of anxiety at work and in your personal life. And with us is our dear friend Dr. Ruth Gotian, the Chief Learning Officer, Associate Professor of Education, and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by the For more information on the book, financial times guide to mentoring, please visit www.financialtimesguidetomentoring.com. We're just delighted to have you here and thank you for your time. I am trying not to crack up because we have already been laughing hysterically before we ever pressed record. And we've got a serious topic, but we're gonna have some fun along the way, so that's good. Just so everybody knows, Ruth and Chester and I, we're all members of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches. So we do a lot in the coaching world. Maybe Ruth, help us understand, people tuning in, what's maybe the difference Maybe Ruth, help us understand, people tuning in, what's maybe the difference between coaching and mentoring and why would somebody want mentoring in the first place? Look, at the end of the day, the labels that we give don't really matter so much, right? We have enough labels in our lives, so sticking another one may not be helpful. But what a mentor can do, I think, is so critical to this conversation. The mentor is thinking years ahead. They are seeing past the horizon that you may not see. They're able to ask those big questions, open those doors that you did not even know existed, plant those seeds in your head so that you can charge forward. And when the mentee is ready to say, OK, I want to do this, they say, OK, let's do it. And they are there to help you both with your career, right, and your professional development. But as Kathy Cram out of Boston has said, there's two roles for the mentor. It's the career development, but it's also the psychosocial support. They're there to lift you up when you're having a bad day. They are your biggest cheerleader when you have succeeded. They are celebrating not just the end goal, but every single milestone along the way. And so we understand a mentor, you probably wouldn't choose somebody maybe outside of your industry, maybe they're more somebody who's done the job you're doing. Is that right? Or help us understand, you know, what a mentor looks like. Well, yes and no. Right. So you ideally you'd have a team of mentors. You want people who are in your industry, you want people who have walked the path before. But if you're only looking at those people, then you're going to be stuck in an echo chamber hearing the same solutions to the same problems. And if you really want to get innovative, you want to see how people are correcting things and being innovative outside of your industry. So for an example, There were errors happening in surgeries in operating rooms. Anyone who has ever had a surgery knows that before the surgery starts, there's a pause and there's a checklist of everything that needs to happen. And that checklist is how they solve those medical errors. Well, where did that idea for checklists in the operating room come from? That came from aviation. Those are the same checklists that pilots use. So by taking it from another industry, we're able to solve a problem that was in aviation and in healthcare, and now it's just being, you know, copy and paste that solution and massage it a little bit. So you want people in your industry, outside of your industry, right? Best practices are transferable. Absolutely. So talk about mental health for a second here. You know, the podcast is Anxiety at Work here. Have you seen the effects of having a reliable mentor on people's mental health, managing their anxiety, their depression? Absolutely. And it's that mentor who can give us that 60,000 foot view so that we don't just see what's happening right now, but we can look forward as well. of your world right now, but in reality it is a blip on the screen. So they're able to see, you know, what's happening down the road. They're able to pull you up by your bootstraps to help you get there, and they're there to cheer you on along the way. They're going to give you that self-confidence that you may not have enough of. They're also going to push you outside of your Because that is where true learning occurs. So if you want, for example, those who are mentored, we know all the research shows that those who are mentored out earn and outperform those who are not. Let's say you want to get a promotion. Well, you might think I don't have 100 percent of the qualifications listed in that job description. Right. And then you wonder why you're never getting promoted because you're never throwing your hat in the ring. And the mentor will say, you've got half, you're good, throw your hat in the ring. And they will cheer you on and they will prepare you for that meeting. And when you have that kind of guide by your side, somebody who opens doors you never knew existed, that just builds you up all the time. And if you are starting to get anxious, they're the ones that can be your anchor because they can tell you, this is worth getting anxious about, this is not. And if you are, here's what we're going to do about it. And they have strategies. Love that. So in the book, you discuss, and you've touched on this a little bit about the idea of mentors being outside your direct line of management. So say I'm in sales and I love sales and I always wanna be in sales. I don't want to be moved to operations or finance or anywhere else. Why would that help me finding a mentor, say, in operations or in marketing or somewhere else? Why would that help me? Why is that effective mentoring versus, again, sticking in my channel? In your channel and sometimes even your boss, right? So many people say their boss is their mentor, and that can be a little dangerous for several reasons. One, what happens if you start to outshine your boss? Right, that can create all sorts of problems in the workplace. Also, if you get so good that you now leave for your next job, then who's doing your work? That might need to be your boss, right? So they have a gap to fill, and they might have to start doing that as well. But also, there are organizations, I just wrote a piece in Fast Company with my co-author, Andy LaPata, and an officer from the US Army. And did you know in the US Army, every two years, they're switching posts? So if your boss becomes your mentor and you leave, well, where's your mentor now? Or if your boss leaves, where's your mentor now? So sometimes it's better to have people who are outside your line of command, outside of your industry, because you can get those perspectives and you don't have this gaping hole when you leave or they leave. You will always have someone by your side. So cool. Yeah, it does get tricky. So that's a perfect lead into my next question. And that is, how do you find and build a mentoring relationship as a mentee? Like, you're on, you know, you need one, you know, and you're looking for, you know, for example, how can individuals, you know, identify potential mentors within the organization? You mentioned that the boss isn't a good one. So, so where do you go? And are professional networks helpful with that? You know, I nurture those relationships. Yeah, those questions always come up. And I think people are beginning are really overthinking it. Do you question where you're going to make friends? Do you question how to build that friendship with someone? We don't. Chester never worries. On this plane ride, he's going to Abu Dhabi, he'll come back with three friends from the plane ride. So that's never a worry. I've got friends that are baggage handlers. Well, look, that Uber driver, right? It's your new best friend, your new BFF. But it's true, right? We never question where we're going to meet people as friends. We never question how we're going to develop the relationship. So why are we overthinking it with mentorship? Really, mentorship should be reciprocal. We're both giving and receiving. And I don't care how senior you are or how junior you are. You always have something that you can teach someone and you always have something that you can learn from someone. Right. I have a Nobel Prize winner. He won a Nobel Prize. Right. And he's coming to me for mentorship on marketing his book that he wrote, because everyone he knows is a scientist and he doesn't know about book marketing. Well, I know about book marketing, I'm never gonna win the Nobel Prize and I'm a generation younger than him. So there's always something that you can learn and that you can mentor someone with and teach someone. So I think that's always there. Now, where do you find people? Where do you find anyone? At the bottom line is you need to gel with the person. You need to be able to connect with the person because they can be an expert in the field. But if you can't carry a conversation with them, if you don't connect with them, if they feel like it's transactional, nobody's going to want to talk to you. Right. So it's about developing the relationship. And if and when you do have an ask, you want to approach you, I'm not going to say, Adrian Chester, can you help me with my career? Well, where do you start with that? Right? But if I said, I am working on this, I know you have expertise in this subject matter, I'm stuck on this one area. Can I grab you for 15, 20 minutes, walk you through what I've done? Can you help me see what I'm missing? And then I want to come up with a plan on how to close that gap. Well now you're excited to help me because I met you at that 50-yard line. I told you what I need help with. I told you why I'm specifically reaching out to you. I told you how long it's going to take. Don't worry about that label. That mentor label is not important and the more we talk and the more I show you what I can do and what I can also help you with, the more you're going to want to engage and it becomes reciprocal that way. And ideally, you are going to offer to help before you ever ask for any advice. This is so powerful, Ruth. You know, we've done a lot of work, Jester and I, over the years with Michigan Medicine, which is the University of Michigan's medicine system. And one of their, they put a program out, it's called MicroMentors. Yeah. And extremely popular. And what they found is that people just sometimes just want an hour. They don't need to, you know, over and over and over again. They just need to know, I want an hour with Ruth on work-life balance. I want an hour with Chester on how to publish a book. And that's all. I don't need a continuing relationship, but they found that's extremely popular and very powerful. That's right, especially in healthcare when they don't always have control over their time and their schedules are constantly shifting. That is so critical, right? And sometimes a lot of people don't want those regular check-ins. They want that guidance and they want to go to their own corner, figure it out, do whatever it is they wanna do. And then, but here's the critical part, you need to follow up and that could be an email Right Adrian. Thank you so much for that advice that you gave me. I really appreciate it. Here's what I did Here's what I didn't do. Here's why I didn't do it and here are the results because now you want to help again, right because You now see that I was listening to what you said So I think you're saying to you as a mentee figure out the cadence. Maybe I want a monthly meeting. Maybe I want just a one-time. Figure that out. Absolutely. And that could be a flow, right? Because your workload might change over time. Right? I don't love the formality of, let's meet every other Tuesday at 4 o'clock with an agenda. Because what if I have a question on a Thursday? Does that mean I need to wait until every other Tuesday? And what if you're traveling that Tuesday? Do we miss sessions? I think we've come to the point that we need more flexibility. How do people learn more about your work, Ruth? Where would you send them to learn more about you and especially this new book? Oh, thanks. So the book is called Financial Times Guide to Mentoring. Wherever you love buying books, it's there. You want to know anywhere in the world, go to mentoring-guide.com. It'll have links all over the world. There's also there an assessment if you're in a mentoring relationship and you want to know if it's working, if it's as powerful as it could be, there's an assessment there as well as a chapter download that you could download for free. Of course, all over social media, especially LinkedIn, it's just my name, Ruth Gotian. So I can actually assess how good a mentor Chester is to me. Okay. There you go. You guys are pure mentors. Yeah. Five stars. It's five stars. Now, I assume you guys are pure mentors to each other, frentors. Yeah. That's a good term. I like that. Fren-tors. Like frentors? Yeah. Yeah. It's better than tormentor. So we're always interested in self-care tactics, Ruth. What are some of the things that you do to keep yourself, you know, mentally sharp and engaged in your truthful self? I listen. You what? I listen. Excuse me. It's an old joke, but I like it. What can I say? Good job. There's a lot, but there is a lot around listening about leaders need to be better listeners. So how do you put yourself in that good listening mode? So I'll tell you what, I'm a social scientist. I study extreme high achievers, Nobel Prize winners and astronauts and Olympians. I'm around that world where you're always trying to achieve and you outwork everyone in order to get it. And when you see that all the time, you start to do that yourself. And then there was a time in December where within a two-week span, a Nobel Prize winner, an Olympic bronze medalist, and an NBA champion all told me, Ruth, you need to pause. You need to take a break. The work will be there when you get back. And And I did it was four days Because I was getting restless But I had to listen when all three of those people are saying it You need to listen and you know what the work was still there when I got back There's always work you can always Always find time for work, right? Well, that's really interesting Is there anything else you do like we talk to people that they exercise or they walk or they meditate. For you, it's really just listening to that good advice and then executing on that, eh? It's listening, look, do I go to the gym? Absolutely, I go to the gym. Do I like going to the gym? I hate going to the gym, which means I have people holding me accountable. So I have these Olympians, I have to send them pictures of my feet on the treadmill. That's true. But I am actually- With a timestamp, I'm guessing. You can't just send them the same photo over and over again, right? The newspaper today's newspaper That's right But you know, so I'm doing things like that I'm also a voracious reader and I sit in a lot of traffic so constantly listening to podcasts and books Well, this has been so great Ruth. I am time is flown as we knew it would have been fun with our friend here, but it's been a good conversation, but most importantly, we've learned a lot, I think, about mentoring that can help our listeners, but what would you say, look, from a year or two when you started this process to now, what have you learned, maybe, about mentoring that you could help us? A couple of big takeaways you'd like our listeners to leave with today. So I've always been fortunate enough to be surrounded by a team of mentors, and they never looked like me. And I always thought that was a gap, that I needed people who looked like me to get that empathy. And yes, I now have one or two who look like me, but having people who are vastly different than me in age, in gender, in religion, in occupation has actually been so valuable to my learning and growth. And that's where I always want to add people. That is such great advice. And what an interesting life you lead, interviewing all these champions and Nobel Prize winners and so on. One last question is, so when are you going to interview me and Adrian? Never say never You're looking for high achievers Anyway, listen Ruth delight to have you on the show We've been friends for a while now and thank you so much for finding the time and sharing your extra Expertise with our listeners to our podcast. It really has been a delight. Take care. My pleasure. Thanks, Ruth So we are delighted to welcome to the podcast our sponsor, Magic Mind. Now Magic Mind is this great product and I use it all the time. I'm telling you, it's all natural. They grow all their mushrooms, all their content, all their ingredients are all natural. You might think, oh, this is like a five-hour energy. It's not. It's an easy up, it's an easy down. It really does calm your mind. I find that Monday mornings for me in particular, Magic Mind is what I use. And for our listeners, we've got a special offer. You'll see it in the show notes when you go to Magic Mind, and the little coupon is Gaustic and Elton 20. So take advantage of the discounts. Use Magic Mind. I am a huge fan, and we are delighted to have them as a sponsor of Anxiety at Work podcast. Well, Jess, you know, just such powerful thinking on mentoring from our friend Dr. Ruth Gotian. First off, I love the idea that mentors, they think decades ahead if you have a good mentor. That's pretty powerful. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We've been lucky enough to have Marshall Goldsmith as our mentor. And of course, Marshall's in his 70s. It is interesting. You want someone who's had the experience, has done a few things, right? I do really appreciated her tip on don't make it your boss. That can get really complicated really fast. Your boss might leave, you might outshine your boss. You might be seen, she didn't mention this, but one of the things that came to mind for me was as a total suck up. The boss is your mentor, oh, how lucky are you? Do you bring an apple in every day? So those kinds of things were great. She did talk about the importance of follow-up, you know, that accountability, that if you have a mentor, make sure that, you know, that mentor is following up with you and keeping track of what you're doing. That was a big takeaway for me, and mentor selection is really important. I love that idea too, yeah. Make it not the boss, because I had a boss as a mentor when I was in my 20s. I remember, you know, early 20s, and I was thinking about an MBA, and I talked to him about it, and he says, oh yeah, you don't want to go anywhere to do that. You don't want to go to one of those top schools, because you don't want to be like a CFO. That's how, they're the only people who go there. You want to stick around here and do your MBA. And you know, and I was like, okay. It wasn't until later I realized, oh yeah, okay, he just didn't want me to go. That was the worst advice I could have ever gotten. Yeah, exactly. So no, I love that. And I love the idea. I learn from people in different industries, different ways. I love, for example, the checklist and the surgery. You know, where does that come from? It comes from aviation, you're right. Every time your pilots take off, they're going for the checklist. Yeah, I go flying with a friend of ours, Eric Schoenberg, and he's got this list. I keep looking and I go, some of these are so redundant. Do we have to do it every time? He goes, every time. These are small planes. The more I thought about it, I thought, yeah, let's make sure we do this every time. I really do want to be safe. I love her take on mental health, that having a mentor does calm your mind, and that they're your biggest cheerleaders. And that, you know, and of course that's right in, you know, our research around leading with gratitude and so on, that you've got somebody that you can rely on, you've got a cheerleader, somebody that's, you know, got your back and is in your corner. Boy, that goes a long way, doesn't it? Well, and I love too, the connection there, she's saying, look, it's not just calming your anxiety, it builds your self-confidence and it pushes you out of your comfort zone. I remember you, when you were my, even though you were my boss one day, you were my mentor too, and you said, look, Adrian, you need to have connections with other people in other departments. I don't wanna. I like working with my team. And he said, no, look, have lunch at least a couple of times a week with other departments. And I started doing that. And, you know, it gets me out of my comfort zone. I didn't like doing it, but I did it, and it was good for me. It was good for our team, good for our group. And yeah, we didn't sit talking about work. We just talked about things. But it created those connections so I could go to those folks and say, hey, we've got a work issue. And I had those relationships. I love her personal commitment to listening and reading. That's what really gets her going. She goes, yeah, you know, I've got, I do love listening. She's obviously very coachable herself and a voracious reader, just constantly feeding her mind and keeping her mind sharp. And, you know, through all of that, it's so interesting, and we've known Ruth for a while now, she brings such joy. She loves her work, you know, and why does she love it? Because she's constantly learning and she's constantly taking advice and listening. Just great advice to the rapper. Such great advice. Yeah, I think my last one was, instead of just one mentor, which we tend to do, have a team of mentors. And I love that idea. It's like, yeah, Marshall's our mentor, but we have others that I know that you, especially, go to others on, well, I'm having this tough business issue. You're gonna go to Scott O'Neill. You've got this kind of publishing issue. You're gonna go to Eric Schoenberg. You know, there are people that you go to that, so you're a great example to me of having a team of mentors ready to help you. Yeah, I'll tell you what's interesting about that too, that you brought that up, is I have people call me a lot and say, hey, will you, a book launch, for example, or we're writing a book, or I've got a partner, how do you and Adrian make that work? And so it's that give and take. But talk about great partnerships, and we can't not talk about Brent Klein exactly the greatest podcast producer probably of all time He makes it sound really good and boy. We've challenged him with this podcast in particular You'll have to really put the pieces together and of course Christy Lawrence who we've known for forever and brings us these wonderful Guests and amazing, you know thought leaders if you like the podcast, please share it And we'd also love you to visit thecultureworks.com for some free resources to help you and your team and your culture thrive. But what else should they be doing, Adrian? You know, we love speaking to audiences around the world, virtually or in person, so give us a call. We'd love to work with you to help address leadership, culture, teamwork, resilience, whatever you're trying to tackle in your culture. Give us a call, we'd love to talk to you about that. We've also got some amazing new anxiety work training that's out. Check out that on our thecultureworks.com website as well. Don't forget to pick up a copy of Anxiety at Work. Justin, is that a bestseller? It is. Funny you should ask. It's on Kindle, it's on Audible, it's even on lit video books, which is a great little short movie from the book. Again, we just want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Magic Mind. It really is helpful to have that little dose of confidence. You get all your vitamins. It calms your mind. I'm a huge fan. I take it all the time. So Magic Mind, look in the show notes, it's Gostick and Elton 20, and get your discount. Well, Adrian, Dr. Ruth Gotian, her new book is called Financial Times Guide to Mentoring. Pick up a copy and hopefully it will help you build a great mentoring relationship whether you are the mentor or the mentee. So until next time, thanks everybody for joining us and we wish you the best of mental health. Bye.