Design & Career Mentoring

Growing up as a teenager I hated mentoring. I couldn’t stand the fact that someone was trying to teach me something and coach me on life. Heck, I knew everything! So I thought. Being a typical teenager I never really allowed myself to be as teachable as I should have been. But luckily as I’ve grown older I realize the great benefit of having a mentor. I not only have one mentor, but several for different areas of my life. One for design, one for my career and one for my personal life. I have realized that I need to be mentored to grow. It’s good to be told when I am going the wrong way and also to be encouraged when I am going on a path that is beneficial.

What I wanted to share was having a design mentor and career mentor. Someone you can go to at anytime to ask questions, receive advice, listen and be teachable.

How to choose a mentor:

Find someone that is in your career field
Have admiration and respect for this person
Enjoy their work
Study their accomplishments

Choose someone who you admire and respect what you do. They should be accomplished in their field and have a good amount of experience. You’ll want to grow from someone who has already grown in their life. A lot of designers would be willing to help out another designer. When you find someone that you would like to be mentor just simply ask! What else is the community for? I see there is a lot more potential in us then just showing off our work and trying to get as many likes as possible on Dribbble. Or trying to gain some kind of popularity. My mission ever since day 1 as a designer was to help out the design community and give back. Sure, having an online presence helps a lot but that’s not what it’s all about.

A mentor should be someone you go to about:

Pricing for projects
Salary questions
And even deeper issues such as dealing with clients

You don’t want to exhaust your mentor so only go to them when you are truly in need of help or a certain kind of information you are unable to find anywhere else. It’s find to send your mentor designers to receive feedback, but remember sometimes it takes time to hear back.

Having a mentor for design and your career will help you grow a lot and also you improve professionally as time goes on. It’s even better if your mentor is close to you. Going out for a cup of coffee once a week and building that relationship is to profitable to not only you, but to your mentor as well. Being open and allowing yourself to listen and take in all that they have to say is vital for your career. Taking the right steps in the early stages of your career will make a strong and straight pathway to the rest of your life. These lessons learned will probably even pave you to the success of your own company or design firm. The possibilities are endless with your career and your dreams. Having a mentor and someone to help guide you will make you hit your dreams even faster.

Your Thoughts
Who are your mentors, or who would you want to be yours? Do you have other ideas for mentoring?

It’s Good to Get Away

I just had to make something on my own tonight, something whimsical and fun. I didn’t focus too much on perfection, just on a fun concept! It’s good as designers to get away from everyday design and make something of our own. Something where we are able to create whatever we want, and just go with it. Not worrying or being too critical of the design at hand. Just having a great time in making what we love and what inspires us.

Awaking the Dreamers

I’m awake again. It’s 1 am on a Saturday night and while I could have gone out, I’m here writing out my ideas. Half of the ideas I ever write down end up getting canned for one reason or another. But I feel that anyone that has ever had a great idea for a company or an app, started with many small ideas. It’s almost like each idea gets greater and better and then one day it’s going to explode. I can feel it, this momentum building up inside my gut. There is something in me that has this desire to build and do something great. I wish I could explain it to you, but I just know it’s there. I feel it hovering over me constantly. I know I am destined for something so much bigger than myself, but what is it? My whole life I’ve wanted to be apart of things that are bigger than me. That’s why I really enjoy working in a larger startup, it’s why I love spending time with people of such a high caliber who are smarter and more talented. When I spend time with greatness I aspire to do great things.

A lof of my thought process is asking myself “How can I make people’s lives around me easier? What can I do to improve their caliber of life and what can I give?”

Is it a product, company, application or charity? These are questions I am always asking myself. I want to help improve the quality of peoples lives. Weather it’s finding people jobs in SF through connections, taking a friend out for coffee, or really sitting down with someone and mentoring them in design.

As my birthday rolls around, I start thinking to myself how I want the next year of my life to impact people. This positive impact, that changes lives and gives people the motivation to live their life to the fullest. To dream bigger than they ever have before to keep running when people say to stop. I’ve always had this notion and this self awareness of life and time. I know I am so young, but for me I can already feel time running out, that there is so much that needs to be accomplished in life, yet we truly have a ticking clock among us. Time is moving quickly, and the world is moving even faster.

I know it’s coming, I just don’t know what it is yet. It’s the calm before the storm. I know for myself that I need to make the right decisions in my life that will lead me to that place. To be cautious of my steps and to protect my work and ideas. I am sure many of you feel the same way. I believe the reason we wake up everyday with motivation is because each of us knows we are destined for something great that each of us was made for. The hard part is just learning to wait and grow and also have the ability to take the blood and sweat that will happen in the process. So many people feel the urge to be a “Mover” but they get half way up the hill, something happens, they get hit by a rock falling from the top and they never climb back up. Great things will not happen on a first or even a second treck up the hill. They will happen when the person refuses to give up and lives their life to complete their destiny and fulfill what they were created for.