When I think of mentoring – I think of Miss Val. Who’s Miss Val? Aside from being one of my personal heroes, Valerie Kondos Field is better known for coaching the UCLA Women’s Gymnastics Team for almost 30 years. Although her experience with gymnastics was limited, Miss Val led her team to 7 National Championship titles with a simple philosophy – coaching the whole person. When Katelyn Ohashi (another personal favorite) joined the UCLA Gymnastics team, she could no longer find joy in a sport that had now become a source of significant emotional pain from continuous body shaming and her skills suffered from a lack of practice. As her coach, Miss Val was faced with the daunting task of not only building trust but reigniting the flame of an underperforming athlete who had secured a scholarship spot on her team without alienating her any further. Her approach was to coach Katelyn both inside and outside of the gym. As part of this plan, she showed Katelyn that she was invested in her wellbeing and her interests, not just her ability to earn perfect 10’s. At Miss Val’s suggestion, they had a weekly lunch where Katelyn drove the topic of conversation and gymnastics was only discussed if she initiated it. Over the course of her UCLA Gymnastics career, Katelyn not only discovered a newfound love for gymnastics (don’t believe me – see for yourself here) but she found a lifelong mentor in Miss Val and has gone on to nurture her other passions of social justice and poetry.
“Coaching the whole person” does not just apply to college athletes, Cindy and I often discuss how this philosophy applies to other types of mentoring. While mentoring in the workplace may have a business lens, this can’t be done in a vacuum. From my experience, formal mentoring programs often lose sight of that personal aspect and zero-in on helping an individual reach a goal (such as earning a promotion) without taking the time to learn who they are as a person. Professional goals are often motivated by personal interest, so it’s not possible to build on the first without understanding the latter. Not all coworkers can function effectively as a mentor, that’s not to say you can’t learn from those you work with, but a mentor/mentee relationship is not destined to develop in every situation. At the end of the day, I believe natural mentoring boils down to chemistry and that connection drives the interest in building a deeper relationship.
I often think of Cindy as my Miss Val, helping me find joy in both personal and professional ways. I first leaned on her when I embarked on the arduous journey to secure my full-time job. Although I was interested in Consulting because of the large variety of projects, I felt I didn’t offer much as a Psychology Major. I failed to realize that my unique experiences conducting research or my internship making wigs in Colonial Williamsburg (no joke) set me apart from the homogenous group of applicants. As Cindy got to know me, she helped me understand the value I was bringing to the table. I attended information sessions for every company who came to campus with the same cohort of aggressive humanity majors who bragged about their congressional internships and tried not to roll my eyes at obnoxious questions about the difference between a good and a great employee. I kept an open mind as I applied to jobs but in full transparency, I was denied interviews from around 95% of my applications. Cindy prevented me from feeling discouraged when I waited until midnight for interviews to be posted only to discover I wasn’t offered a spot. She reminded me that I only wanted to work for a company who could see my potential. By understanding what interested me both personally and professionally, Cindy could also better advise me when those job offers finally did come through; job offers, that ultimately were not offered to the rude individuals. In retrospect, my final decision considered personal preferences that have since become an essential part of my career like the ability to travel and the opportunity to continue learning through sponsored certifications (yes, I did dig up the pro/con list we made together to remind myself what was on there).
It has been over three years since I started my first fulltime job and although it took some time, I’ve found my niche in such a big company. Even better, I’ve found several new mentors along the way. But what most excites me is that I have finally started to step into the mentor role myself as I am no longer the new kid on the block, and with each new relationship, I take a page out of Miss Val’s playbook and make the effort to learn both the professional and personal passions of new team members.
