Angelika
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to welcome you to the world higher education ranking Summit. And today's topic is very interesting for everyone that is joining us today. It is very important for every student; it is the role of mentorship in shaping leaders of a new generation. Today's topic is not only important for students, it's important for civil society, for corporate, for society in general, and the whole world. And I'm excited because today we are joined by mentors, by leaders, by extraordinary human beings that are working towards helping nurture leaders of the next generation. And this is a great honor and pleasure to see that today's panelists are active citizens that are helping the young generation to become better leaders. And let me introduce our panelists. First of all, because we have everyone joining us from different countries, different cities, and it's a very multinational panel. So let me introduce you.

Firstly, Humam Dweik is an expert in entrepreneurship and startups, and supporting organizations. Here's a business management consultant with 10 years of on-ground experience through creating ventures mentoring, coaching, and training startups to reach their maximum potential. And he's also involved with venture capital and startups globally. Humam is a serial entrepreneur, and he founded protect me, BRB media, and other ventures. He co-founded and supported several startups. And he's further experiences includes international public relation, motivational content creation, and youth leadership representation. This is very interesting. Humam is a very active member in several initiatives, including NGOs, locally, regionally, and globally, all related to youth education, and entrepreneurship. And SDGs Humam, this is a is a really brilliant to have you here with us. And as you are very experienced in mentoring youth yourself. Where are you joining us from today?

Humam
First of all, thank you, Angelika. I, I'm joining from Jordan right now. I'm currently in Jordan, and hello to the world.

Angelika
Excellent, excellent. Thank you very much. Ruth Fuente is a professor of leadership, entrepreneurship, project management, organizational behavior, and marketing research at different business schools such as technological demand today, Amanda Business School, United International Business School, and others from Mexico, Spain, France, and Mongolia. She's teaching at the bachelor's, master’s, MBA, and executive education levels. And Ruth has a degree in psychology and Master's in management of educational centers, and an MBA Ruth is Coach herself a very curious person entrepreneur and I believe your insights would be extremely valuable for everyone listening to us and watching us today. Where are you now? And where are you joining us from?

Ruth
Hello, everyone. I'm today I'm in France. So, hello from France.

Angelika
Excellent. Thank you very much for this. And I would love to introduce Dennis DiPasquale is he's an award-winning lecturer at the University of Florida, Warrington College of Business. What is more, Dennis has earned a doctorate in master's communication with a specialization in advertising from the University of Florida, where he studied consumer changes and motivation to adopt products at different points in the consumers' lifecycle. Previously, he worked in IT and was a brand director for a midsize Credit Union. He also founded his own business which evolved from offering creative services to strategic marketing and advertising. And also, Dennis is a great mentor to his students. He's also a public speaker and topics such as learning from failure, emotional intelligence, and locus of control. Thank you very much, Dennis, we are honored to have you here. Where are you joining us from?

Dr. Dennis
Thank you. I am in Gainesville, Florida, which is a north-central part of the state here in the United States.

Angelika
Thank you. And also, I would like to introduce you to Rai Nauman Mumtaz is currently a medical student and the International University of Health Science School of Medicine, and secretly completed a Master of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Public Administration at the University of Southern California. Before that, he completed his Bachelors of Science in Environment Science, and Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary arts, passionate about his work and dedicated to, providing a better society by creating a better society through mentorship. I'm honored to have everyone here on board because I see mentors that are leaders in their communities today.

Angelika
My first question would be towards everyone, basically, why do you think mentorship is so important? Why every student needs to understand that finding a mentor is essential to help him or her in their successful career. Maybe Dennis if you have something to share, you have lots of insights here.

Dr. Dennis
Mentorship has multiple benefits across the board, not just for the mentees, but for the mentors. And so, for students especially, they must learn how they can grow, what's normal, and what's not normal, especially as many of our organizations push online, some of the learning that students would get from their internships would happen, not necessarily during the meetings that are now pushed over to zoom. But they would have happened in the meetings between the meetings, they would happen in the lunchroom, by the water cooler. And so just the ability to grow and to learn. And to avoid excessive failure, I would never want to say that failure is bad because that's how you have an opportunity to learn what you need someone to talk to about it before you go into certain situations, or as you come out of certain situations. So having a nonjudgmental mentor is going to contribute to both mentor's and the mentee's growth. And I think it's important for us to put forth that information to our students.

Angelika
This is extremely important. And your point is key here. Because we as a society, we are usually not prepared for failures. But when we understand that failures are lessons, and the whole approach to failure needs to be redefined is super important. I know that Professor Ruth has lots to say on failures and the way students need to perceive this.

Ruth
Of course, they've failure theme is something that we are not used to talking about it because we are expected to succeed, we're expected to do things in a correct way. That's how in the universities and the Bachelor they grade us because of a good note or a good performance and you're in the process. But what about failure, not all of us are doing things in the same way, we need to experience we need to try and test okay, and now nowadays the entrepreneurs do this. They try they test and if they fail, they learn and they continue they improve their skills and the way they are doing things. So, failure is the opportunity to find out how to do things precisely for you for the development you for improving your skills, improving your competencies, and improving inside you. That's an important thing because we are always thinking outside. We are always comparing ourselves with others. But why not? Instead of comparing with others, start comparing with yourself. How are you in the past two years past two months when you start your project how you are now? Which skills do you improve? Which techniques you're using to make things better? So, they think that's the sort of thing who with whom you're comparing, and what you're taking from those failures.

Angelika
Thank you so much, Professor Ruth. And to Humam Dweik because I know you've been working with the youth for quite a while. And why do you think this is so important for them to find a mentor that they can rely on? And so that everyone who is watching us right now, I believe we have a proportion of students joining why this is essential for them.

Humam
So, I'm actually going to start with the theory of how we reach towards mentorship, and access to knowledge, every individual that has access to the internet does have access to knowledge and the same thing goes for students attending the university. But that's not it. Here's where we go towards training, and after training, we go towards coaching. But that's not it, coaching goes towards tailoring whatever content you got towards the person receiving the coaching session. But then again, it's not enough. And there needs to be the mentorship session or mentoring, whether it's one session or several sessions a month, whatever it is, the idea of mentoring is more reflective, such as counseling such as different other content given towards the mentee, other points that would be provided, which would be active listening to teachers, the mentee and the mentor, whether it's after active listening, sharing experiences, as my colleagues over here have mentioned, sharing experiences, whether different successes or different failures. And again, people usually fear failure. Have I ever sought a mentor?

At every point in my life, I have always kept on looking for a mentor, just even for pen, even just for a small piece of advice. And that helps us in decision making in every step. And this is why whether it's startups, university students, or sometimes even school students as well might seek mentors. And that's where they start shaping their idea of what a role model was what an idol to them is. Sometimes that person could be their family, friends, sometimes even more, up until some days they would mentor themselves. While they're talking to others. They're mentoring others; they might mentor themselves as well. Just I'm going to finalize the idea of constant follow-up, that gives the idea of another person cares about my success and cares about my progress, whether it's with my company, as a startup, or with my successes.

Angelika
I love this, thank you so much Humam, because this is essential for every student, because the role that mentorship has, cannot be underestimated. In the years that you take on this journey by yourself, it's a very long journey while you get help from a mentor. It's much easier, it's much quicker, and you get to the point much quicker than by yourself. And I would like to refer to Rai Nauman on this as you have been enrolled in so many amazing degrees in mazing. Academic environments. What do you think, of students? And as you've been dealing with students in your community, why do you think it's so important to find a good mentor?

Rai Nauman
Yeah, thank you, Angelika. I think there are a variety of reasons, once there's the most obvious are the academic issues. Ultimately, when students matriculate into a higher education institution, we want them to be able to get into their major, we want them to ultimately graduate. And then we have to start thinking about the next phases and stages, job placement salary, we also have to think about the qualitative aspects of a student, and that's their personal life. That's their mental health, their physical health; I would call that life fulfillment. Oftentimes, we focus on academic and career aspects. But we also have to keep in mind that mental well-being is a part of that as well, for them to ultimately complete their academic studies. Financial literacy is another big point. For those of us that were attending the session a couple of days ago, we talked about industry skills and industry gaps. And how can we bridge that gap?

Well, mentorship is one way of making to do exactly that. By having that person that's a faculty member or a staff member, a friend or a colleague, a sports coach. What the point I'm trying to make here as a mentor can be it's not a one size fits all approach. It can be a different person, for the folks that we interact with, and it could be for different stages of their life. For instance, for me, I have a different academic mentor than I do a career mentor. As my career mentor is primarily focused on the field of medicine, and public health, whereas my academic mentor was primarily focused on education. And so having the ability to ebb and flow with that mentor is critical to my academic and professional success. And I encourage students when they seek out a mentor to keep that in mind as well.

Angelika
This is a very important point. Thank you so much, Nauman, for everyone who is watching us today. This is a very interesting thing because the role of mentorship is really important in shaping leaders of a new generation for society to benefit from it. But my next question would be on dynamics between mentor and mentee, and how actually, you can find that trustworthy mentor. And what would be your advice for every student that is watching us right now? What is the best way to find the mentor that they need?

Dr. Dennis
Yes. Ask, talk. Don't be afraid of getting a no because if they say no, then that just means that they don't have time for you. So, you bring up a good quick question what does a mentor-mentee relationship look like? That's going to be the first question most and Simon Sinek had a great answer that a mentor-mentee relationship should be one where the mentor is interested in learning from the mentee as the mentee is interested from the mentor.

It should be a two-way street. And if you find someone who has that same thirst to learn from you, that means that they are going to understand you better when giving advice, when listening, and helping you figure yourself out. But it matters to start just having conversations with the right people. And so where are those people going to come from? You have faculty that are going to be interested in mentoring, of course, they're going to be a little hard to find, as most faculty like to bury their heads in their research. But there are always those diamonds in the rough in every department that will want to give back. The other opportunity will come from history speakers that come to either class, or that come to student organization meetings if you have that.

Just after that meeting, saying I'd like to set up a time to get coffee or whatever, and sit down or have a phone call because I'd like to learn from you. Most people want to do that. And most people like the idea of doing that. And so, it requires you to leverage your curiosity in getting out there and talking to people and not being afraid if they say no, I have no time. If you don't ask, you don't get if you ask me to get to know it's the same thing. But you might get a yes.

Angelika
I love this. And Professor Dennis this is very important that you've mentioned this because many students are shy. And they are shy because they do not know how to approach the potential mentor. And this is very important because introverts are shy to approach a mentor. And they feel this and not only introverts, like, everyone has that fear. For example, when I was a student, I had a fear because the members of the faculty seem to be very busy. And it's like overloading them with extra work. But then when you see professionals like yourself, that are integrating their mentorship within the academia, there's their teaching, this is an excellent example that maybe if I had this courage to ask about this, I would have a mentor. And I just wanted to ask Professor Ruth about this. Why do you think what is what does it mean for students to ask for the mentor and what do you think is the most important the most essential for a mentor to have? And also one more question to you, Professor Ruth, is that we see the situation usually where mentor and mentee are, sometimes they do not match. And this is okay. And it doesn't mean that this experience is showing that the mentorship doesn't work. It's also personality-wise. I believe that with your degree in psychology, you can help us understand this a little bit better.

Ruth
Of course, sometimes you don't match with the person that you have in front of you. But you're not going to discover that if you're going to start that conversation that then is worth talking about. Now, you need to talk sometimes my students ask me some things that I'm not able to help them in those fields because I have no experience or I do have not enough knowledge to give them some guidelines that they are needing. I recommend them to talk with other people. And that's where they have heard the mentor can also help, you are not going to have all the answers and you don't have all the knowledge that their mentees are waiting for you. But you have more people, you have this huge network. And with that, you can help your mentees.
Nowadays, we have this a huge social media that helps us also to know another type of people, or like kind of a people that have that knowledge that you are needy, okay, so don't be afraid, I should recommend the students to use, for example, LinkedIn, LinkedIn is a good tool, if how to use it, you can contact people, and you don't need to have the face to face moment, that can give it can make you feel nervous, or it can make you feel uncomfortable, okay. So, you can send a message, get a message, you send it, and then you will be surprised with the response that you will receive. I tried by myself, I start I started with the network, and I start contacting people and sending those kinds of messages.

When I started receiving those responses about people wanting to help people wanting to connect with people wanting to get to know me, I was really surprised, because it's really easy to know people nowadays. If you're afraid of that, start with LinkedIn. If not, you also have your professors in the class, by the how the sessions will that if that Professor have time, or that professor could be more according with your needs, or we can help you also with naming another mentor, okay, now not this professor is going to be your mentor, because probably he doesn't have the time. But he probably knows someone that can help you. You can ask by knowing how to ask and knowing how to start conversations is an important thing. Because at the end of the relationship with the mentor-mentee, communication is the important thing. From sides, how you talk how you ask, and how you're listening, really listening, what you are hearing from the other person. So, I think the first skill that students need to develop is listening, and they're starting conversations because at the end is what we need in all our personal areas and professional areas. And that's a good competence to have and to develop to be better in many areas of their lives. Start talking and start writing.

Angelika
I love this, because this is our direct action, and nothing will happen if you do this. I mean, the worst, as Professor Dennis said, well, you will get to know but this is better than nothing because many, many students are really afraid of this wall. But we see lots of university professors that are so eager to share their knowledge, to share their skills to share their opportunities, and also maybe even give up potential recommendations or the network, building this network as a student is so important. Because when we graduate the university, this is when we get out to the real world and where we don't understand as students say what to do. But while growing the network as a student from university, you're much more prepared than your peers that didn't have mentorship. So, my next question would be to Humam was your experience? Mentoring startups, young entrepreneurs, and the youth? What do you think is essential for them? What would be the criteria that make a good manager? What do you think?

Humam
The idea would be depending on the startup themselves, or the students or youth, depending on their industry and depending on where they want to go with their life. And again, it's it always starts with the mentor's ability to the room or to seek those mentees. So that is one and again, sometimes the mentor does not know how much information you need. I'm just trying to guide you, I'm just trying to help you, but at the same time, help me help you. That is a major idea. So, the more information you provide, the more sincere you are with providing your information and trying to solve a specific problem that you're facing, which creates a better value for you per session.

Even if it's a five-minute talk. I'm going to give a small example in terms of communications, and how would a startup be able to find the right mentor, I usually start with, an elevator pitch five, sometimes it could go up to an hour up until a startup or an individual can represent themselves under 10 seconds, to be able to give the right information, what to say ask the right questions. Again, who to seek research, tons of research is always available online, LinkedIn, even Facebook, and Instagram can add a bit of value. Another point is tons of new platforms do provide such services for free or paid. If that is the perfect return on investment, find the right mentor or find the right person to give you advice; it could be sometimes just going to a fancy dinner, to meet that person, whether it's an investor, or it's a mentor, a teacher, or sometimes a professor. No matter what it takes, you need to break a leg to seek that person. And again, as a mentor, that is the role of a mentor to give back to society to give back to startups or their students as well.

Angelika
Thank you so much, Humam with your experience as a serial entrepreneur, this is a very valuable input here, sometimes see the situation that is following students think that mentors are supposed to give it to them. And they do not do the work to prepare and be more persistent and pursue the mentor. And this is a very important issue. Because for students themselves or themselves, it's very important to understand that mentorship is work. And of course, mentors give it back to society. But as a student, what do you give to the mentor, this is the most important because to build that trustworthy relationship with a mentor, you have to show that you are motivated, that you are outspoken, that you are ready to learn and to listen and to contribute to your community. So, I would say that this is brilliant because you've mentioned that sometimes it takes action from a student sometimes it takes investment from a student. And this is fine. Because investing your time investing time in and your time in research, understanding what your manager wants. Who are they like learning more about the manager? It's essential. And I would like to ask Rai Nauman, what do you think about this? As you're very experienced, working with students, as a leader, as a student leader, yourself, as a young leader yourself? What do you think is essential to building that trustworthy relationship? We are going now to the topic that is building a relationship that would last for a very long time, with reliability from both sides and responsibility from both sides from both mentor and mentee.

Rai Nauman
Yeah, thank you. I think there are four specific steps to keep in mind for the mentor and the mentee. And it starts with the introductory meeting. And that specific meeting with the mentor, the mentee should be open and share their background and expectations. I'm sharing a bit about myself and mentees sharing a bit about themselves, and then I think that feeds into the expectations. What do you hope to gain out of this mentor-mentee relationship? Because it might vary from student to student, for instance, a pre-medical student, their main purpose might be to declare their major or to graduate and get into medical school. For other folks, it may be that I want to get into this specific medical school. So again, it's not a one size fits all approach.

I think for a mentor, we need to be mindful of that. We also need to better understand the mentee, asking them questions like what motivates you. What stresses you? How do you relax that helps us better understand when things get difficult, and how we can tailor our mentor relationship to them? What's your learning style? Some folks learn specifically in one way for others, view their learning style in multiple ways we need to be mindful of that as well. And how often would you like to meet and through which mediums this pandemic has shown us that we can do many things virtually, that we may not have thought about in the past? So through zoom or the phone, meeting in person, the ability that there are multiple ways to access a student and access a mentor is critical.

And that helps to build a working partnership with the students that you're meeting them where they're at and understanding what the mutual benefits are. And then I think the next step is negotiating. This is both mentor and mentee working together towards goals. One item that comes to mind is SMART goals, which are specific, measurable, that should be appropriate and achievable, that is realistic, and then also are timely, how often are we checking in on our progress toward these goals? Again, for pre-medical students, it might be declaring their major it might be ultimately getting into medical school. For other students, it might be completing the residency program, and having conversations about their salaries and what that looks like. So again, it's not a one size fits all approach, then we also have to think about enabling growth. When a mentee comes to the mentor, our responsibility in many ways is to invest in the student, as we want to make sure that they don't have been made necessarily encounter the same difficulties that we might have. And that comes through actively listening and advising. I think this is another point that sometimes is forgotten.

Mentors do not know everything, we need to recognize that and provide them with additional resources, whether that's human beings or literature that can help guide them. Additionally, beyond what we're sharing. Oftentimes, the mentees come to mentors as oh, well, they know everything we got to ask them. And sometimes we might be facetious about what we do know and what we don't know. And I think it's important to recognize and humble ourselves as mentors and say, hey, there are some things that we do not know. And then the last thing point I would mention is as a mentor, especially if it's a long-term, mentor-mentee relationship, celebrating small successes along the way, is vital. When you think about a student that comes in as a freshman, sophomore, and junior or senior, they might be at different stages in their life, they might have different aspects going on in the back one of the personalized but to celebrate that success along the way, and then reevaluate at the end of the mentor-mentee relationship. Would you like to continue? Would you like to stop? And if you'd like to continue, we do like to do it in the same capacity or a different capacity. For instance, a student that I’m mentoring, an undergraduate will be very different than a student mentoring in medical school, totally different dynamic, they have completed their undergraduate studies there in medicine, they're preparing for different aspects of their lives. And I think that's important to recognize as well.

Angelika
This is very important. And thank you so much for these insights Nauman because what we see is, that many managers sign up as mentors. But these small things like small successes are being ignored. It shouldn't be ignored. And it's the development of the relationship through celebrating every single milestone in the mentor and mentees' achievement, any achievement that is relatable to the mentor to their personal and academic life. What I do believe is a very important point that we need to touch base on is measuring the impact of mentorship. How do we measure the impact of mentorship? Professor Dennis, what do you think about this?

Dr. Dennis
First, before I talk about that impact, I want to build off of something that Nauman said, when it comes to the mentor, not knowing something, especially a mentor, someone who's in this experienced area, they may be afraid to say, I don't know, I don't know how to deal with that. But what's critical there is that students need to be able to see that they're okay, saying, I don't know, we're often not I hope anyway, no one on the panel. But oftentimes, we're told that you should be afraid of saying I don't know. But the beginning of wisdom starts with I doesn’t know. And students need to see that, as for that impact. I think that's going to differ from the relationship.

The impact could be a building of confidence. The impact could be a successful job search, the impact could be improved grades, and really it goes back to those smart goals that Norman was talking about, in terms of what are your goals? What do you hope to get out of here, and at the end of it, have you gotten this out of here? Self-reflection and this is something for the students to learn self-reflection is also important with or without your mentor, the mentor is just going to help you learn how to reflect and how to grow. And that's part of what mentorship is, it's like a parent who's not a parent who you're comfortable going to with a lot of the questions that you may, that you may have, and of course, with no judgments that parents often have because they're so intrinsically tied to your growth. But another thing to say is to expect and hope for some hard-to-hear advice and hard-to-hear information that's also going to be there and sometimes you might want to measure that impact and how many moments were you jolted out of your comfort zone.

Angelika
This is brilliant because getting out of the comfort zone sometimes is scary, and most students are really afraid. But within this, you grow. And this is the only way to grow. Uh, but my last question is actually to everyone because we have a certain time restriction. What do you think? How do you see yourself as a mentor? As I know that everyone on this panel is a mentor himself or herself? What do you think is the quality that makes you a good mentor so that audience can learn from you? And I know that many academics, want to become mentors, but they are also afraid because they have never done this. So what do you think about your journey of mentorship? What makes you a good mentor? And I believe that you will base this upon the reviews of your mentees.

Dr. Dennis
I'm already unmuted so I'll start the first year. First of all, am I a good mentor? How do I know I think asking myself that question is the first start. Hopefully, a little bit of fear is a good thing as a mentor, do know that there are benefits for organizations and benefits for the individual. And so that that's your reason to do that. So, I'm not sure if I did that answer the question. I'm not sure if that was substantial enough there.

Angelika
I love the way you approach the question, first of all, because even asking the question on this, shows that you are really like a very humble mentor, but definitely, I would love to hear about everyone's personal experience, based on what they think about this.

Dr. Dennis
I have one more thing to add to that. I think this is important. Don't see it as a temporary commitment. See, it is a long-term, maybe even a lifetime commitment. And if that excites you, then you're the right person to be a mentor. Thank you.

Angelika
Thank you so much, Professor Dennis, this has been insightful. Professors, Ruth what do you think about this?

Ruth
I think my mentees could have answered this question. But I think one of the skills that helped me to help my mentees is being a good listener. Because sometimes people don't know how to ask us how to get the information. Listening in between the words that they are saying, I think is that it's a skill that mentors need to have to start asking and to start getting in deep the of the things that have the issues that their mentees have.

Angelika
Thank you so much, Professor Ruth, Humam what do you think about this, what makes a good mentor, and according to your mentees, what do they cherish and appreciate?

Humam
I would say, first and foremost, avoid spoon feeding at all costs, this is super important. You might sometimes tend to be a bit soft on mentees, and sometimes mentees, really, really need that help. But then again, really need to avoid spoon-feeding. And that mentee could be an employee that mentee could be a friend, a brother, or a startup, sometimes a student, and no matter what, who that person is avoid spoon feeding. If you know 1%, to those who are seeking to become mentors, you don't 1% Always give that back. I was once asked by a big venture capitalist, and that person was telling me at the beginning of my journey, how come you're getting back and you call yourself a consultant and a mentor? And what I said this is the reason why a lot of startups or a lot more many of our youth cannot find help when they need it. Because people think that they need to know 100% before giving that back. And that defeats the whole cause I am developing myself as well as developing you, helping you along the road.

Sincerity is number one regarding giving back to your mentees. There's a small note that I want to point out which is if you're in your job as a mentor, and that is your full-time job and that you've got too much on your time. Now you need to refocus on yourself in developing yourself because you will start losing your experiences you need to keep on going further and further. I've heard that from one of the startups as if my mentor has a lot of time on their hand. I don't want that mentor that is not the right mentor for me. Up another point which is showing those mentees that you are a human being, or you face problems, just like it's normal, put your ego aside and show them how to put their ego aside as well. That is something critical and being able to learn and grow with whatever makes the mentee happy.

We sometimes might be attached to whatever recommendation or suggestions we might give to our mentees. But then again, if the mentee is happy, that is all that matters. And if the mentee will learn and succeed with whatever they're trying to do, that's the perfect role. And we're done with our role over there.

Angelika
Thank you so much. Humam. Brilliant, I believe that when we start mentorship, the mentee himself or herself, will bring this back to their community, to their friends to do their micro-society. And this is essential to understand the power of mentorship which is the circle that goes from one to another, and Rai Nauman I believe that exactly as you are mentor and mentee. Exactly what it takes a way of why you feel like the Buddha is one of the most important qualities to be a good mentor.

Rai Nauman
I doubt I've perfected the ability to mentor. But what I do look reflect upon is I look at the mentors in my life and look at some of the best practices that they've shared with me and hope to emulate that with my mentees. I think that's important to realize, Dennis mentioned information sharing and our session a couple of days ago and how vital that is, I think the same concept applies between mentor and mentee, as our responsibility is to share best practices to information share with them so they can implement it in their lives and ultimately pass it on to one day as they transition into a mentor role. I think accessibility is key. And that can be done in many ways, whether it's through the phone or in a person having to adjust meeting times, I think it's important to keep that in mind. I call it to space for grace. Oftentimes students are dealing with life issues that sometimes we're not mindful of. And sometimes we have to pivot along with them.

As they address those aspects. I think self-humility is vital. Humam mentioned that a great point is when we're talking to mentees, sometimes we need to be held a firm hand, I think that's important as well, sometimes holding, helping them out as long as that balancing act is meeting them where they're at, and helping them grow from there. So, where they came in on the first day is not necessarily want them to be at the end of the mentor-mentee relationship. Self-humility also comes in not knowing all the information and being understanding of that. Ruth mentioned a great point. And that's listening. To dovetail off of that a bit, I would add the point of actively listening.

When a student comes to me and says, these are my needs, these are my wants. I'm actively saying, this is what I'm hearing, is this you're saying to make sure that I process what they're saying properly. And then I'm providing them with the right resources, the right support along the way. Because sometimes if we're in a specific industry, we might assume and think we know exactly what the student wants, and that may not be the truth, because again, it's not a one size fits all approach. And I would think about those four to five key components that I've had in my life when the mentors that I looked at when emulating when my mentees one day as well.

Angelika
These were some excellent points. Thank you so much. We know and I believe that today's session is crucial for every student. I believe that students that watched us today, have changed their mindset, they have understood that mentorship is a key to a successful career. And of course, you can live without a man to write but it will be much harder, and your journey will be much longer. And I'm grateful for everyone who has contributed to this discussion and for every effort that you are doing to nurture the next generation of leaders. I know that everyone who is presenter today here at this battle is doing everything he can to ensure that tomorrow looks brighter by empowering the next generation of leaders. Thank you so much. It was a great pleasure to host today's discussion.