Chris A. Petersen

Strategic Thinker, Professional Speaker, and Workshop Facilitator

How to Find A Mentor

Regardless of where or how long you have been employed, having a mentor is one of the more important resources you can have for your career. The sooner you seek a mentor, the better off you will be. Finding the right person may take time, but it’s important to find someone you respect and like to spend time with. I had the great fortune of having two extremely successful, professional women mentor me at the start of my career, and continued to have excellent mentors throughout my journey. It has made all the difference.

In an interview with my friend Patricia Valentino, she said, “When I define mentor, it’s somebody who has my best interest at heart, takes me under their wing, and helps propel me into the world for success.”

Not all of my mentors were women, but having females as my first mentors in the business world helped me a great deal. It’s not that men can’t mentor women—but it helps to have a woman’s point of view, especially in a male-dominated environment. They can be your guide and ally in many situations.

Here is one of my best pieces of advice: Find a female mentor who understands. Some time ago, I had recently changed my hairstyle—and was not happy with how it had turned out. (Just to be clear, I change my hair color and style quite often.) On this particular occasion, I wasn’t happy thanks to a bad hair day. I was set to give an important presentation, and I was concerned I would not do well. I’m not sure if it was the hair or the presentation, but either way, it was a really bad hair day.

Working with a female mentor who understood why I was upset comforted me, and she calmed me down before the presentation. In the end, I did well. Not having to explain to a man that my hair was the wrong color took away so much of my stress; her experience and empathy as a woman helped me let go of my worry. She didn’t dismiss my situation as unimportant.

Successful people learn quickly from others, and don’t do everything solo. By emulating successful people, you’ll be on your own pathway to success far more quickly. Some people insist on doing everything themselves, and while this isn’t necessarily bad, it can waste a lot of time. It’s okay to accept help, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be creative or add your own personality to a job.

Spend time with people who are enthusiastic and passionate about their success. Mentors should help guide you on a positive path and motivate you in your success. To have a great mentor-mentee relationship, you should also be someone who is enjoyable to mentor.

Here are tips I’ve learned from experience:

Be great at what you do – while this sounds obvious, it’s the most important thing you can do to get noticed.

Ask for more responsibility – have specific ideas for how you can contribute in deeper, more expansive ways. Be creative, and think outside the box.

Don’t be a wallflower – participate in all meetings, even “optional” ones. Volunteer to represent your team on important department or enterprise-level initiatives. Prepare ahead of time so you can meaningfully advance the discussion.

Promote the success of others – your generosity and openness are critical to your success and will be remembered.

Build your support network – reach out to groups within your company and outside your line of business. Learn what they do, and how you can help them succeed.

Mentors can come alongside you and help give advice in tricky situations, steer you clear of mistakes they have made, and offer support and wisdom in new experiences.

Professional Branding As A Woman

Personal branding is vitally important, yet none of the professional women I know—including myself—learned that until years after we started our careers. Having a good brand will help you come across as knowledgeable, capable, highly credible, reliable, and will establish you as a strategic and integrous leader.

Personal branding in the corporate space is the way you present yourself in the workplace environment. This includes how you dress in a professional setting, how you react to pressure or deadlines, and the personality traits that influence your work.

Creating a brand needs to be a conscious decision. It has to be definite, and every aspect integrated with purpose. First, think about the type of brand you want to carry. Assess the values and the qualities most important to you. Not only does this require reflection, but also additional effort if the characteristics of your brand are new to you. Above all, build your brand with integrity, and with confidence.

One of the most important attributes a woman can bring into her professional brand is confidence. How do you develop confidence? Try interviewing yourself. Explain your strengths in-depth. When you know your strengths, you know what you can stand on. Also, ask yourself what makes you uncomfortable, and use those answers to establish your boundaries.

Define who you are, and you will start to define your brand. Ask questions like:

  • Am I trustworthy?
  • Am I knowledgeable?
  • Am I capable?
  • Do I have leadership qualities?
  • Do I have compassion?
  • What is my confidence level?
  • Am I competent? If not, why? Am I not prepared enough, or do I not have enough knowledge?

Second, once you have looked within yourself and identified the traits valuable to you, start building the brand that reflects those elements in your professional environment. Once you have your individual brand, explore how it plays into the company, and how it affects your target market and audience. Then you’ll be able to adjust your brand to truly personalize it for the results you want.

Your brand also needs to be a clear representation of your work ethic, because that’s what people will associate you with every day in your workplace. It will also give your coworkers and clients the ability to be more familiar with you.

As you explore this process, be aware of the traits and habits that can ruin your brand. It’s possible to have a bad brand, and you earn that reputation when you let your integrity fall to the wayside in an effort to reach your goals. This is why it is so important to establish your values beforehand. Otherwise, you’ll adjust them depending on your situation and be inconsistent in your character.

Something else to keep in mind, is that your brand will continually evolve through your career. As you grow and change, so will your brand. Your brand will become a positioning factor within your company, as well as for customers, industry individuals, and prospective customers or partners.

It’s easier today than ever before to create a brand and collaborate and build relationships with other professionals, largely thanks to social media. Social media plays a huge role in branding and job presence. If you choose to have professional social media profiles, such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn (along with Twitter and many other platforms) each one of them should match your brand. This is especially important as you consider applying to companies or networking with other professionals. Do your homework and research their values, mission, and brand. Understand the organization, their workplace culture, their rules and practices around social media, and so on. If you want to build a relationship with them, you want to make sure your brand tells the best story of who you are and aligns with their purpose and brand as well.

While my generation didn’t put much stock into creating personal brands, you have the incredible opportunity to create your own path. Your path will take you further. Faster. The sooner you think about your professional social media, branding, and appearance, the better! Take the time now to build and understand your brand. Start as soon as possible, even before you graduate college, if you still have time. Get your social media in order, find a professional style that fits you, start doing some thinking, and research the kind of company you want to work for.

We can learn to brand ourselves from a young age. It’s time to start now!

How to be Kind and Strong

Kindness and strength are vital in all aspects of life. You want to be kind to your family and friends, your coworkers and your clients. You also want to be strong for yourself, reach out of your comfort zone and be courageous in all of your endeavors; sometimes that is easier said than done.

When you’re bogged down by work, typically the last thing you want to do is be kind and offer strength to others; you just want to get through the day and go home. I get it, we all feel that way sometimes.

But, you have to do it anyway. Being kind to your coworkers makes the workplace more enjoyable in the long run, and being kind to your clients preserves relationships and sustains future partnership. Clients remember who was nice to them and who was not, and that’s a huge factor in if they choose to be repeat clients.

You also have to remain strong, which takes on many differents forms. Pushing through tough days and going even when you don’t want to is being strong. Being strong in your convictions and sticking to what you believe in is another. Don’t compromise your moral compass, as there will be times in your career when this will be tested. Also, remain strong and confident in your abilities and be willing to branch out and try new things. This will help you expand and continue growing in your profession.

Here are a couple ways I remember to stay kind and strong each and every day. I hope they can help you too.

Put Yourself in Their Position

It can be easy to get frustrated working with other people. We all have our own thoughts and ideas, and it can be hard to compromise with someone else when you have a strong belief in your vision. Instead of lashing out when they don’t agree or see your perspective, think about how you are feeling.

You want to do your best and put forth the highest quality product/presentation/project as possible. Well, so do they—this is their job and they have their own vision of how to achieve the best results.

When you can empathize and realize you both are working towards the same goal, it makes it easier to be kind to them.
This can also branch out into other scenarios such as a difficult client—they just want to buy the best product for their own professional or personal reasons. No one is trying to argue with you or ruin what you are doing. Everyone wants the situation to turn out right.

Know Your Convictions

Stay true to what you believe in. If an employer or client is trying to convince you to do something professionally or personally that you are not comfortable with, be strong enough to say no. You will feel better in the end, even if it costs you a client, though it probably wasn’t a client you want to work with anyways.

Include People

Everyone wants to be included. Invite the new coworker to lunch, explain what’s going on in the office lately, and keep everyone in the loop. I don’t mean gossip about other employees, but keeping others professionally informed on the projects going on.

Stand By Your Work

Take the blame when you mess up. It takes a strong person to not push the blame on to someone else, so own up to it, and then right the wrong. Employers don’t expect you to be perfect, but they expect you to put out good work and try your best.

In general, be yourself and stand by what you do. Be kind to others, and try your best to put forth good work, and you and your coworkers will all enjoy the workplace more.

How to Build Confidence

Confidence can be tricky—but everyone knows it’s a positive trait which can help you not only in your career, but in life. It can give you courage to try new things, wisdom to make good choices and the ability to take on new challenges.

When you are confident, other people feel they can trust and rely on you, making you an indispensable employee. This can assist the climb up the corporate ladder in your industry, because if you’re too meek, people will assume you can’t handle the tasks at hand.

Building confidence is easier said than done, and you can’t decide one day to be instantly self-assured. It requires consistent conscious choices to believe in yourself and your abilities, and practice showing the world your boldness to really make it authentic.

Here are a few tips to help you build your confidence:

Picture It
As I mentioned before, building confidence takes time. To begin the process, picture your goals on a daily basis; think about what you want to do, how you want to act and what that looks like in everyday life. Then start to mirror what you see in your minds eye and practice it in your day-to-day.

For example, do you see someone who sticks to a daily routine and prioritizes self-care? Take tangible steps towards that: wake up and go to bed at the same time every day, make time for exercise, and do whatever it is that you think will get you where you want to be.

Be Consistent
Adding to the previous section, not only do you need to visualize your goals and take steps to achieve them, consistent work daily to help boost your confidence. If you feel confident when you dress well, then dress well. If you feel confident when you practice a speech/presentation, then practice it multiple times to be consistent.

Give Yourself an Ego Boost
Congratulate yourself when you do things well! The same way compliments and acknowledgement from others can boost your self esteem, so can compliments you give yourself, so encourage yourself when you do things well. When you mess up, acknowledge it. Think about how you can improve and use what you learned from the mistake in future lessons; be comforted knowing it was a one-time mistake.

Take Care of Yourself
Make yourself feel good—this means hygiene, dress, and how you portray yourself to the world. It may seem cliche, but you have to look your best to feel your best.

I am by no means saying you have to be a runway model. But for instance, if you have a favorite outfit you feel great in, wear it on a day you have something important going on to give yourself a little confidence boost.

Think Positive
Stay calm and positive. It can be easy to dwell on the things you did wrong or could have done better, but it makes more sense to learn from those things and move on. Think about what you did right and build off of that.

Take on Challenges
Challenge yourself to do things out of your comfort zone—when something tough comes along, you know you’ll be able to tackle it the same way you tackled all the other challenges. Keep growing and expanding, it will give you the confidence of knowing you can handle anything.

If you incorporate even just a few of these tips into your everyday routine, I guarantee you will begin to feel and act more confident.

Tips for Asking Good Questions

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” right? It may be true, and of course it’s important to be curious and seek clarification, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put any thought into the questions you ask—especially at work, where time is valuable and everyone is focused on their own tasks. If you want to be as effective and efficient as possible in your question-asking, here are a few strategies sure it impress your boss and grow you as an employee.

Do Your Research
Before running to your supervisor every time you encounter a question about an assignment or project, try doing a bit of research first to see if you can’t find the answer on your own. Explore online—there’s a good chance Google will know. If it’s a question someone else has already asked, the answer you’re looking for might be in an email chain or your notes. Take the couple of extra minutes to search your inbox—you don’t want to waste your supervisor’s time having to repeat information when the answer was already available you.

Make a Plan
Determine exactly the information you need before you ask your question. Have a purpose for what you are going to ask, and then do so efficiently. Is your question clear and concise? How much background information is actually necessary? Don’t beat around the bush, either, and don’t ask too many questions at once. Also find out what time of day is most convenient for your coworker or boss. Be respectful of their schedule so you’re not interrupting phone calls, meetings, or crucial work time. Make a plan, practice in your head, and then ask away.

Keep it Professional
Only ask questions you really need the answers to. Nosy, personal questions are distracting, unnecessary, and unprofessional. Ask questions relevant to the projects you are involved in and need to know about.

Be Authentic
Only ask questions you don’t know the answer to, and don’t use questions as an opportunity to push your opinion. If you have an opinion to share, state it openly. Don’t try to obscure it behind a question mark. Save asking questions for things you don’t know.

Be Thoughtful
Your supervisor will notice if you have taken the time to craft a quality question. Such thoughtfulness will demonstrate you are not only a capable employee, but are also respectful of their time. These well thought-out questions will also show your ability to iterate and improve your thoughts, as well as your ability to tackle challenges from every angle. So take the time to think about the topic at hand, figure out what you need to know more about, and then ask the appropriate question.

By following these principles, you may ask fewer questions, but you’ll find the more careful and intentional you are with your questions, the more you will ultimately learn. Such intentionality will help you to think critically and deeply, as well as impress your employers. Curiosity leads to improvement and growth, but only if you ask the right questions at the right time. So keep asking… after you think.