Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl! And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Hello, and welcome back to Tweed Trends. Today is National Mentoring Day. Let's get started.
Yes, as I stated before, today is National Mentoring Day, and to be honest with you, I don't know the first thing about mentoring. I have never been a mentor that I knew of. People have come back to me and said, oh, you know, you gave us some gems. And I was like, oh, it could have let me know that at the time.
But that's neither here nor there. I'm not here to discuss that. And I've never had a mentor because I really didn't even know how that worked. Like, you just vote somebody random out of your life experience and be like, damn, you're going to be my mentor.
Like, I could say like Oprah has been my mentor, but she doesn't know me from a campaign. So, yeah. So what I decided to do is I am bringing my sugar plumb to be my sidekick today on today's episode. Hey, sugar plumb.
Hey, baby girl, how you doing? I'm good. Now, he's got a lot of experience with being a mentor as well as being a mentee. So I figure, you know, rather than me sit here and just ramble on about whatever.
Let me actually bring somebody in that knows what they're talking about. So sweetheart. What type of experience do you have with, I don't know which one you want to talk about first? Well, let's talk about mentoring first.
So being a mentor has really been a privileged experience. I was born out of my service in the United States Navy. Can I stop you right there? You certainly.
Today is Navy Day as well. I didn't really know what all you could say for a whole episode about Navy Day, other than the fact that it's what two weeks after the Naval birthday, which is October 13th, did I get that right? Whoo, whoo. Navy birthday in house.
Two points for the military spouse. But anyway, so back to what he was saying. So mentoring has really started earlier in my career, in which case we were unofficially called C-Dads and we had C-Pups. So I would have a junior sailor come aboard and we were required to sort of show them the ropes.
More so about shipboard life, about qualifications, about how to manage all of your Navy experiences, as well as making sure that they had a plan and a process for handling their family affairs as well. So oftentimes sailors get on ships and get focused on the job and don't always take care of things and back home the way they should. So the mentoring program has really helped a lot of junior sailors understand how to balance both at C and at home life. That's pretty cool.
And that was with you being the dad. That was in my C-Dad role and being a C-Pup myself. My experience more as a C-Pup came about with actually just people sort of challenging me. I didn't really need a mentor per se.
I was kind of driven due to some events, life events that you were well versed in. So based on my own life events, I was sort of driven to accomplish a lot of things. So every now and then, though, I would need a course correction. And so I had a lot of people that would challenge me to do certain things or to more or less look at how I interacted with people.
They thought I had a lot of ideas, but I didn't have a lot of tact early on. So I had mentors who sort of gave me ideas like, hey, if you actually talk to people differently, they may actually be willing to hear what you have to say. So although I didn't need to sanitize the truth or the facts, I did need to take a little bit of staying out of what I was saying. So that really helped a lot.
Now, I know you've done more than just the type of mentoring that you mentioned just now, because there have been times that we've been out and about and it might be on base or something and you run into somebody. And then all of a sudden you challenge them. I guess that's the best way to describe it. And it's almost like you're hunting for people to mentor.
Like you're looking around like, yep, that one right there, they need some guidance. Let me be the one to provide that to them. How does that even, I don't even know my question, is it well received when you do that for people? Because it's obvious they didn't wake up that morning saying, yep, I'm going to find me a mentor today, but yet you will jump right out there and be like, hey, what do you got going on?
Send me your information. And I don't know if it's because you got ranked them, but they're like, okay. And they go ahead and do it. I think that's born out of actually just the whole minority experience, right?
Being black in the Navy, there are a lot of sailors that I've interacted with who don't have a lot of ambition or don't really see themselves going far in their military careers. And that's always troubled me. That's troubled me because they have the potential. They have the ability.
They don't necessarily have the direction or understanding of what that path could be. And so when I see someone standing around in a discussion, it's good to have downtime to have those discussions. But then I'm going to ask them about where they are in their qualifications. Then I ask them how they've done any of the extra quals, just any of those little things that can put them over the top.
Because that does affect your bottom line. The more qualifications you have, then the higher the chances are for you to be promoted. The higher the chances for promotion, then that feeds your family, that takes care of your bottom line, that gets you to do things out in society, that you may not be able to do otherwise. Now I do want to make sure I emphasize the fact that you don't have to be in the Navy to need a mentor, to want a mentor, that sort of thing.
It just happens to me that my husband's expertise, his area of influence is the Navy, and therefore that's the angle that he's speaking from today. But there is an important role, I believe, to be a part of, no matter which side of the coin you're on. Because having a mentor, being a mentor, it provides you that opportunity to have interactive discussions about topics that maybe you're a little ignorant. You don't know what you don't know, and then when somebody can kind of see that you're going in the wrong direction, they can kind of help you.
Or you may have questions about something, and so you want to go to someone who knows what they're talking about. Talking to your peers that don't know any more than you, they're going to get you any further. They're bumbling, dripping up, stumbling over yourself with them, like that's the blind leading the blind, that's stupid. I know the way to describe that.
Can you describe that any other way? No, that's pretty accurate. Okay, so I say all of that to say, you know, don't feel like you have to have a need either. So this is me preaching to myself.
I shouldn't wait until I have a need to then look for a mentor, because there's so many things in life that you could get mentoring for. And the fact that mentoring comes in so many different forms, you know, it could be a sports mentor, it could be a business mentor, it could be a relationship mentor. You know, I don't think there's any shortage of types of mentors or mentoring that you can be a part of. Therefore, I believe mentoring is for everyone, even myself.
So I think I'm going to start looking for it, you know, let me back up. I was actually considering talking to a lady in regards to being a mentor for me, however COVID happened, and all interaction with this lady kind of like went away because I wasn't interacting with anyone. And I let that be my excuse as to why I did not go ahead and reach out to her, and I am going to have to rectify that misstep and still, I mean because not like I can't email her or, you know, text her, call her, that type of thing, I can still do that. So do you have any last words on mentoring that you'd like to add?
Well, I think your point is valid with regard to it not being just in your job feel. I think there are definitely people that I've reached out for mentoring in certain areas and things that I may not have been strong in. And I had to recognize that with myself though, to then say, hey, that person over there, I like the way they do that. I want to add that to my toolbox.
And so I reached out and got some information in. As you mentioned earlier, I turned around and do that to not just people in the Navy, but people that I interact with in society that I see that there's a need. And then to be a part of other programs out there, and this isn't a plug, but for programs like Big Brother Big Sister and other mentoring type programs, I think that they're going to be a part of other programs out there. And other mentoring type programs, you know, President Obama had, yeah, I'm my brother's keeper.
And the other fraternities and sororities that have mentoring type events, so there's a lot of opportunity. Okay, well that was today's episode of Tweech Trends. Basically, bottom line is don't wait. Don't sit and think that you don't have anything to give.
As long as you know a little something, you know a little bit more than somebody else out there. There's always somebody that knows more than you and somebody that knows less. So look for those people that need that help, they need that hand and guide them along, help them. And before you know it, there's going to be someone waiting there with their hand out saying, you know, come on, let me help you along the way so that you can get further.
And if we all did that, can you imagine how amazingly all would be? It'd be pretty cool. Yes. So, all of that, enjoy your National Mentoring Day, start looking for a mentor, consider being a mentor.
Did I miss something? No, no, no, you didn't miss it. The one thing I would add if I could please. The one thing I would add is that in the part that you just mentioned about you may know a little bit more, sometimes being a mentor challenges you to go and learn more yourself to ensure that you're giving the mentee good information.
So oftentimes you end up kind of learning a little bit more than you may have known initially and then you have a situation where iron sharpens iron. So other than that, I totally agree with everything you stated. Okay. Well, look at that.
I just learned a little bit more. I think I found myself a mentor. So have a great day guys and I'll see you back here again on Thursday.