More than a Mentor

By Amy Ryan and Heidi Romero, CP APMP

We had never met each other… but we have been in the GMC for almost three years together and have attended some of the same BPC and Symposium gatherings. We both have a hunger for knowledge and consider ourselves lifelong learners. We are both currently undergoing the daunting and (at times) unnecessarily stressful task of achieving our second college degrees – all while juggling the chaos that life throws at us. Whether that be our proposal work, family woes, personal trials and tribulations, or simply a lack of time, we needed someone to talk to. Maybe someone that could learn from us, or someone we can learn from. What better way to find that someone than through GMC’s Mentorship Program?

Amy signed up to be a mentee and Heidi a mentor. We soon realized neither of us was solely a mentor or mentee. Instead, we became quick friends and collaborators with similar goals. We figured out early on we weren’t in a bubble by ourselves. We both have experienced a lot of the same struggles, and it was enlightening and relieving to find each other. We have talked about everything from improving networking skills to taking “me time” because we DESERVE it and how it all relates back to our proposal work. Finding your niche in the proposal world and figuring out where you belong, how you fit in, and your end game is hard. So hard.

For both of us, trying to set goals was one of the more stressful parts. In our professional lives, we are directed to create SMART goals with tasks and outputs that can be accomplished and measured. SMART is a framework to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. Everything is broken down into bite-sized chunks and tracked, with deadlines and mounting pressure. We soon realized what we needed was less pressure. What if we embraced big, nebulous goals and softened our approach instead? Instead of turning something big into lots of little pieces, we spent some time with the whole thing and shared ideas, possible solutions, and stayed open to shifting priorities. We approached our issues with brainstorming, humor, and supportive discussions while still making progress on our goals.

So far, together, we have worked through:

• How to run better meetings and manage SMEs to get the information needed in a strategy meeting by communicating agendas, setting expectations, and showing kindness.
• Better managing time by identifying the problem, drilling down in conversation, and exploring solutions together to find strategies that work in real life.
• How to be more creative and personalize executive summaries by using information from the client’s marketing and financial reports, finding keywords on the client’s website that are applicable to the content, and using their mission statements and visions throughout the proposal.

And, of course, reminding each other that when things are too stressful to handle, don’t forget to do things for yourself. Doing personal things for you to make work better and get yourself in a better frame of mind to tackle the hard things instead of spiraling and trying to come up with a solution. Sometimes you just need to step back and regroup!