What I Have Learned From My First UX Mentee 🥰

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” — This quote describes this wonderful relationship to the tee!

Let's jump right to it

After our third session with my mentee, I was pleasantly surprised by how fast she learned and applied all the advice I had given her. She is the perfect example of a blossoming student. 🌸

I give her a direction or a task and she does more than I expected! That’s how I know we are doing something special together! The proactiveness is a clear sign that she is ready to pursue this seriously.

Example of the evolution of her critical thinking and taking more autonomous decisions :

“I’m wondering if it’s better to wait until I finish the projects and web portfolio or to pitch now.

I know there is a right time for everything.

When do you think is the right time?”

I told her the best time to pitch is now and gave her some actionable reasons fitting her current situation and experience.

Later on before our weekly meeting, she presented me with two, I repeat, two versions of her pitch she wanted to post online. One in a usual offer layout and another using storytelling to present her skills.

This was the moment I knew for certain now that she was taking this seriously. And I am so proud to observe her growth. 🥹

We are close to our 7th session and she already:

• Has created two different portfolio case studies
• Did two discovery calls, with a third one on the way
• Drafted a social media post to promote her services
• Improved her UI and UX skills
• Started applying business strategy and most of the principles of design accurately

I can’t be anything but proud of her! 😌

In the pipeline we also have:

• Practicing her real-life pitch and networking skills
• Online conversation formatting and rules
• Reviewing her Brand Style Guide
• Learning about freelance platforms and their specifics
• Working on her positioning
• Going over a LinkedIn revamp checklist
• Edit and go over her Freelancer Business plan

The lessons for me as a mentor:

• Way before mentoring I learned that, you can't help someone who is not seeking help or more precisely ready to receive help
• Not everything I know is known; what I take as common knowledge for some people is a completely new concept
• Those ready to succeed will invest in their progress either time or money without even thinking about it twice
• If you do not exercise your critical thinking it will be much harder for you to progress in anything
• Ideas are in abundance, the execution is what matters
• The feedback from my mentees and students helps me fight the imposter syndrome like Amazonian fighting enemies. 💪🏼
• Foundations, preparation and documentation are everything!
• Systems, systems, systems — make them update them.
• There is always something new to learn.

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