piv·ot
noun \ˈpi-vət\
: a pin or shaft on which a mechanical part turns
: the action of turning around a point : the action of pivoting
: a person or thing that is central or important to someone or something else
For those in the tech world, PIVOT is a word that we hear a lot. I’d have to say that in the last 1 1/2 weeks, I’ve heard the word at least 2 gazillion times (maybe even 3 gazillion, no exaggerating!). I won’t bore you with what it means in that world, because that definition isn’t the reason I picked the word.
There are pivots in each of our lives. We hear something, see something, feel something, that causes us to do a 180 and see the world with new eyes and a sense of awareness that we didn’t know existed before. Some of the pivots of our lives are positive, some are negative, but all have a level of importance for us to rock the ground under our feet.
2 years ago I did something crazy. I signed up for Startup Weekend. I had just finished reading The Barefoot Executive and was starting to realize that my world needed to be bigger. In the book, it mentioned that you should find a mentor, surround yourself with those you wanted to be like. I thought of 2 things when I read this.
- Where in the hell do you find people like that?
- How incredibly self serving.
So I signed up for Startup Weekend because you know, I needed to find those people.
At the opening of Startup Weekend, they brought in a local company to talk about how they had created their business and built it from a startup. I had no clue what a “Bulu Box” was nor did I know who Paul Jarrett was, but if they were speaking at Startup Weekend, I needed to hear what they had to say.
I sat there and listened to their story and was caught by how he stressed the importance of mentors and how important they had been in the growth of their own company. After listening to Paul and his wife Stephanie speak, I did the next crazy thing. I stood in line to ask him a question. Little Miss Wall Flower, can’t approach another human being for fear of dieing on the spot, walked up to this stranger and said “How do you even find a mentor?”. His response was simple. (now I can’t remember exactly what he said… I’m old, my brain leaks out knowledge on a daily basis and I’m pretty sure I have early onset dementia) but summed up it was “Keep putting yourself into a position to meet them”.
I want to say that the sky opened up and I was bathed in this light of all knowing and angels sang and all was right in the word and a green line appeared on the ground which I could faithfully follow in the direction to those people, but yeah, that only happens in movies.
I walked away from that conversation thinking “What the hell? That didn’t answer anything”.
But let me tell you a secret. Though all those magical fairy tale love story things didn’t happen in the exact way it would in the movies, they did happen, but it took me 2 years to put it all together and realize the pivot I made when he answered my question.
Back up there, under the numbered list, remember #2 “How incredibly self serving.” Yes. Purposely surrounding yourself with the people you most want to be like is self serving. Yes, it is can be selfish and slightly narcissistic. But that isn’t how the last 2 years for me has been. Yes, I continued to put myself into a position to be surrounded by these people, but they stopped being people that I wanted to be like because they were successful and more about people I wanted to be like because they were incredible people and I really liked them, oh and yeah, I guess they are successful too. It also turned into an understanding that for every piece of advice, every nugget of expertise, every moment that I got to spend with these beautiful human beings meant that I got to do something pretty incredible at some point, I could have an opportunity of being the person that someone else wanted to be like, and I could give back all the knowledge and love and caring that had been so gracefully and openly given to me. I have realized that an act that I so quickly wrote off as self serving was anything but self serving.
Back to Paul. Paul was very giving of his time and knowledge. He took time out of his busy schedule and answered the question of someone who held no immediate need other then to mentor, even for a brief moment. He caused another human being to pivot. 2 years later, I was given the opportunity to once again sit and listen to Paul and Stephanie speak. This time it was at nMotion. They were still giving so much of their time and knowledge and offering us the opportunity to learn from them. It was at that moment when the angels sang (in my head at least) and I realized how important my conversation, 2 years earlier was. I looked around this room where my fellow nMotion teams sat and was speechless as it sank in. How do you find a mentor? Keep putting yourself into positions to meet them…