I’m the accidental Doctor.
I never expected to be this person.
I am this person because of the unlimited power of mentorship.
I’m going to share a story with you that’s a little difficult for me to tell.
Classrooms and books have never really been my thing.
In fact, I failed grade 9,
and for example,
my high school provincial standardization test scores in English …
28 percent.
I wasn’t very book-smart.
In fact, I was full on book-dumb.
Here’s a secret.
The only reason I got out of high school
was, by and large, due to the goodwill of my teachers
and the group work my friends bestowed upon me.
Their completed homework became my completed homework.
Their answers became my answers.
(Laughter)
You know what that’s code for right?
[Cheater]
(Laughter)
Yeah…
For about three decades,
reading and especially writing were pretty much out of reach for me.
That’s terribly hard on the soul.
Ashamed, I was about to drop out of university again.
This time I was an adult in my 30s, and it was going to be for my 4th time!
(Speaker uncomfortably clearing throat)
All I could think about was how I was going to tell my family.
On my way to drop out, I met Lee Ellen, my future mentor.
It was an accidental meeting,
and it forever changed the course of my life.
She struck up a conversation with me,
to ask in her very sincere way,
“So, how’s school going?”
Wow, I lost it.
I told this total stranger absolutely everything.
I admitted out loud for the very first time that I was stupid,
and I mean really, really stupid, it’s how I felt.
Look, I had the grades to prove it.
I believed it with all of my heart and all of my head.
What more did I need?
Well, it turned out that this kind-eyed woman
was not only studying English literature, perusing a PhD,
but she also worked on campus,
at UNB’s Center for students with learning disabilities.
She suggested very gently to me
that I get tested for learning disabilities.
I had never heard of learning disabilities before.
And so, as I was trying to get my head around this,
she was coming to a conclusion all on her own.
Why did I look so familiar?
Well, it turns out I’ve led a rather public life.
My husband is a former Canadian provincial premier.
That adds a layer of complexity.
Living in a political fishbowl,
I carefully protected my privacy.
I had always felt as though I was part of an environment
that was built on the assumption
that everyone of value was in perfect working order.
And I had been faking smart and faking able and faking competent
and hiding stupid my whole life.
I had always had high feelings of fraudulence.
And at that moment,
I was about to potentially become the “failed” first lady!
I mean, how’s that for a public ass-whooping?
But at the suggestion of this complete stranger,
I didn’t withdraw that day.
Instead, I was soon tested for and diagnosed with learning disabilities.
I also began to understand the concept of neurodiversity.
Lee Ellen taught me that I can learn.
I just learn differently.
Lee Ellen saw more in me than I couldn’t see in myself.
She is a great mentor.
I went on
to complete an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree and a PhD.
And I’m humbled that my work and research on mentoring
is both award-winning and globally recognized
by the International Mentoring Association.
But I tell you this not to boast or to brag,
but because I want you to understand the unlimited power of mentorship.
And I am not the only one who’s extolling the virtues of mentoring.
Seventy-five percent of executives credit mentors
with helping them reach their current level of success.
And yet,
more than 40 percent, 40 percent of millennials,
are without a mentor.
We are failing the next generation, and to me, this is unacceptable.
The formula is broken,
and smart, young people like you deserve good mentors too.
So, if you’re one of the [75] percent that I was talking about,
chances are you’re a boomer or a traditionalist,
so somewhere north of 50,
and chances are really good you’re a white male,
and chances are really, really good you were mentored by another white male.
And that’s how it was.
But the problem with this is how they experienced
how mentoring looks and sounds and is expressed.
It happened in a vacuum a mono-cultural vacuum,
white guys mentoring other white guys.
This formula is passé.
Since then, the workforce has diversified:
visible minorities, women, immigrants, newcomers, people with disabilities.
So, these guys,
these executives, these role models
who believe in the unlimited power of mentoring,
really believe in it
because they’ve experienced the benefit of good-quality mentoring,
are largely unprepared to mentor more than half of the population,
who deserve and require good-quality mentoring.
And this formula is further compounded by the fact
that the model we currently use is one in which the mentee is portrayed
merely as a vessel that knowledge is poured into, passively;
bystanders, if you will
This is not the formula that works best.
Yet, we’re bombarded with messages about the mentor.
The old adage is, “Go forward, pay it forward, be a mentor.”
In popular culture and elsewhere, we hear “mentor,” “mentor,” “mentor.”
But the core of this equation it’s no longer the mentor.
It’s not the mentor at all.
It’s the mentee!
We can hack mentoring
if we flip the power structure from the mentor to the mentee.
The model that works best is one in which the mentee takes agency
and is the owner and the driver.
In my experience, successful mentees know
that good mentoring relationships don’t just happen.
Nod your if your answer is yes to any of these questions:
Who here believes in mentoring?
Who here would like more mentors?
Who here would like more fulfilling relationships with their mentors?
I see a lot of heads nodding. Awesome.
Well, when you look at remarkable individuals
or successful individuals –
and I don’t mean monetarily,
I mean individuals who’ve achieved what they’ve set out to do –
the one thing you’ll find they have in common is mentorship.
It’s a vitally important ingredient for leaders, life-long learners and doers.
So, as a researcher, I began to ask myself,
“How has mentoring affected me?”
I began to realize
that mentored learning, real-life experiential learning
and building relationships
has been more valuable to me than classroom learning.
I also began to realize that, from a very young age,
all of my successes worth celebrating were hard-earned and due, in large part,
to the magic, the magic of mentoring.
The formula goes something like this:
hard work
plus some lucky breaks plus good mentors,
with a little of pixie dust.
But make no mistake,
cultivating good mentor relationships is complex.
As a mentee, you have to want it, you have to seek it,
you have to nurture it.
You have to be the driver.
Look, you’re the driver of your own life.
Why not this too?
And remember this: closed mouths don’t get fed.
Just because you know someone doesn’t mean you’re going to be mentored.
Because the formula is broken,
if you don’t say it, they might not get it.
Take a chance on yourself, ask.
And remember,
not all good mentors are in the same field as you or you might like to be.
You don’t necessarily want a mirror image of yourself.
And remember, a mentor’s qualities and experience
are more important than his or her profession.
And mentees,
know that you’re in the driver’s seat.
Don’t expect your mentor to know how to mentor you.
Show up prepared.
And don’t leave it up to them to establish the relationship dynamics.
Take the lead on that.
And I tell you good intentions are not enough. Take the lead.
Expecting more of yourself as a mentee, well, it benefits us all
because successful mentees go on to become good mentors.
And mentors, mentors,
I want you to know the hope that you can give,
the impact that you can have
and the lives that you can change.
And be sure to diversify:
visible minorities, women, immigrants, newcomers,
people with disabilities, people outside of your profession.
And does everyone here know how to spot a mentor?
Well, they speak not in sentences, but in invitations.
They say things like this, “Let me know.
Let me know how I can help. Let me know what you need.”
If these people stepped into a phone booth and ripped off their shirt,
the one underneath would have a great big M on it.
You want a team of these people.
So, in cultivating your mentor network,
remember to tend your mentors much like you might a flower garden,
and know that mentors rarely look, act or sound like what you expect.
And most important of all,
you never know when one might cross your path.
Perhaps an accidental meeting.
I am a mentee,
I am a mentor,
I am the accidental Doctor.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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