Mentorship: it’s a two-way learning

It was a first-time for both mentee Laiken Kerr Clarke, Director at Medisound, and mentor Catherine Duncan, COO at Matthews Steer Accountants & Advisers, to take part in EO Melbourne’s Mentorship Program and both found it enjoyable. Plus, they found the program nicely structured, which allowed them to go through their objectives for this mentorship journey.

“We did have that prior time where you thought about your goals and what you wanted to achieve through the mentorship. I think it just set a nice foundation that you could work off from, as you continued on along the journey with the mentor,” Laiken remarked.

Recognising common ground

Catherine recalls how they began with their journey, “Laiken and I met at that session where we were paired up. How they set that up that morning of us getting to know each other, I found it really good fun. I think we got to know each other pretty quickly in a short space of time.”

To which Laiken concurred, “We just had the same outlook on a lot of things – the same values and the way we saw the world and our kind of place and role in it. It was definitely something that I picked up immediately. Also, we have similar interests like yoga and the spiritual side of things, which clicked us quite quickly. It was a nice surprise, I guess. It wasn't something that I thought would happen to go into it, but it was a very good addition. We had lots of interests outside of business that was aligned.”

And there’s an interesting story to their similarities, which Catherine explained. “Apart from the fact that we've both got an accent as well, which is another similarity, the really quirky, funny thing was Laiken’s name and the background to that. It’s a place in Scotland where I actually lived 20 minutes from, and it's a very remote part of Scotland where she was referring to. So, I thought that was quite spooky, actually. We were very well matched in a lot of similar interests, which were fantastic.”

Finding direction through their conversations

As they found many parallelisms and similarities in their background, Laiken and Catherine also learned a lot from each other. “There were so many that came out of it, so it's hard to just go down on one,” Laiken pondered. 

She continued, “I heard a great quote a little while ago and it was something like ‘good mentors give useful answers but, great mentors ask great questions.’ I think that's what Catherine did really well and just effortlessly. Coming from that side of it, it helped me to solidify what I wanted to do and which direction I wanted to go. That then propelled me to make certain decisions based on those questions and conversations that we had. So, I think that the key learnings would definitely be to ask better questions and really dig down into what your motivations are for why you are choosing to do certain things and go in certain directions.”

But the questioning and learning were not just coming from one side of the mentorship because Catherine, too, was picking up insights from Laiken. “For me, the questioning part is interesting because, likewise, Laiken does ask a lot of really good questions. I think a lot of our discussions ended up about whatever Laiken was doing in the business or thinking about doing. It was actually tapping into how she was feeling about it. It’s that connection with both the health and the whole being of the person. It’s not just about your business but also about your heart, soul and mind. That was really easy to help align Laiken into where she was going because she's very clear and structured in what she's doing. And she's done wonderful things and got an incredible vision of where she wants to go.”

“It was just really tapping into that and checking in with herself along the way. Doing that with Laiken reminds me to do it with myself. That's the thing when you're working with somebody. It's about applying it back to yourself and going, ‘Oh, am I doing that for me, too?’ It's very easy to do it with somebody else because you're talking to someone than applying it to yourself. So, that was great learning for me. I guess it's that validation of surrounding yourself with good and like-minded people but in totally different industries and totally different walks of life, yet you have so many similarities that you can navigate together. I just love that I always come away percolating what we talked about. So, it was always two ways for me,” Catherine added.

Recognising a solidifying, powerful experience in mentorship

Not all the time one can experience a positive experience in mentorship, but for those who do, it can be so impactful to them. In the case of Laiken and Catherine, their mentorship experience is something they will always treasure. 

“The whole experience in itself is really solidifying, how powerful that can be. Also, a lot of people would struggle to find a mentor, but just the uniqueness of this relationship is quite nice. I had thought there might be an element of forcedness or that it wouldn’t quite work, but it's just been really a nice experience and something I’ve really enjoyed, and I’m very happy I got into it,” Laiken professed.

Catherine couldn’t agree more. “For me, it comes back to that whole thing of validating. When you talk to somebody in a place of trust, you get deeper into those visions and those goals that you become more familiar with what the purpose behind it is. For me, another learning is you need to talk things out what you're thinking just to really validate back to yourself. What is the purpose? What am I trying to do? Why am I trying to do this? It’s a simple thing of talking about building different relationships with a certain person and then seeing what difference that would make if you do that across a wider range or how that would change you. Those deeper discussions really resonated with me, and Laiken’s been great in sharing that and just helping me validate the need for those deeper discussions and deeper relationships with people who you can trust. It's been great to get that opportunity through EO to do that.”

There’s so much that mentorship can offer. In fact, many entrepreneurs have recognised the value of mentorship in their journey and growth. If you’re interested to know more about EO Melbourne’s Mentorship Program, visit https://www.eomelbourne.org/mentorship. 

The biggest hurdle in the first 3 years of my entrepreneurial journey

The entrepreneurial path is always filled with risks and challenges. It is not a smooth ride but the journey can be rewarding. The most difficult phase is the early stage where birth pains mixed with the lack of experience can make the trials seem insurmountable. But it is also at this point where entrepreneurs can learn a lot and use those lessons as tools towards achieving their goals.

Treating challenges as sources of motivation

“What was the biggest challenge I encountered in the first three years of my business? This has been an interesting question to grapple as I struggled to articulate exactly what a challenge meant to me over this journey of starting the business,” quipped Laiken Kerr Clarke, Director at MediSound, a distributor of medical devices to the Australia and New Zealand market.

“Without sounding cliché, from the outset, every ‘challenge’ almost seemed fun, like a puzzle to solve, which I was confident, if I put into motion a set of moves or combinations, would eventually lead us on the right track. Don’t get me wrong, there were, of course, many obstacles that we had to overcome as all start-ups would have experienced,” she clarified.

As a small player, Laiken cited many hurdles when she was starting her business, “From competitors, which are large multi-nationals with resources we could only dream of at the time, to the difficult task of changing customer’s opinions and beliefs in a slow-moving and conservative medical community. There’s also the challenge of navigating personal financial instability in the early phase of the business, as it was my primary source of income with little profit in the first 12 months.”

But she believes that the internal struggles were the most difficult ones. “Looking back now, I would have to say, with many parts of my life, the biggest challenge lay with me and my mindset of what I believed about myself and, in turn, the business. It was that space between who I believed I was and who I needed to be for the next step that this business demanded from me. I clearly remember the different mental and emotional layers that unfolded along the way.”

“For the longest time, I seemed to resist owning the experience, almost as if I was playing ‘business’ like one would play ‘house’ when I was a child. Friends, colleagues and associates would often ask me what I did for work and without thinking, I would respond with some job title and space I had previously held, not yet integrating the transition from employee to the business owner who makes the decisions. This is one example of the challenges I continue to come up against my mindset, which has also been the biggest catalyst for my growth as well as the growth of the businesses. It is that trust muscle you build within yourself by being able to step into a space of expansion, without fully knowing how just yet,” Laiken shared.

Turning a challenge into an opportunity

It’s an interesting experience for Cesar Aldea, Founder and Director of Aldea Consulting. “Within the first 12 months from launching my business, I received a legal threat from a large corporate that forced me to kill all the momentum gained, where I had to consider shutting down the business. Fighting them back was certainly not an option.”

Acknowledging his limitations, Cesar decided to change course rather than challenging them head on. “Against all legal advice, I decided to follow my gut and approach them personally. Not with a legal letter but with a business proposal. I knew that having them as a client would be a gamechanger,” he stated. And while there was also a risk of getting rejected, Cesar’s boldness, persistence and positivity paid off. “It’s now been over three years since I can call them my best client,” he declared.

Challenges may come with hardships and sufferings, but no obstacle may be too difficult for entrepreneurs who have the determination and relentlessness to move forward to achieve their goals.

What’s the biggest hurdle you had to surpass during the early stage of your business? Share with us your experience by commenting below.