Mentoring is about acknowledging people and the most powerful tool of networking. It’s not about exploiting people’s power or time by having a predetermined purpose in mind, which is commonly misunderstood.

For me is mentoring is about connecting through personal touch points, sharing passion, thoughts and mindset that is reflecting each other in different stages of life. Over the past, I had and have gained valuable people like my mentor, who had a significant impact on my perception of the world. However, I am not counting my strong ties such as family, because if so, my parents will be definitively in the strongest influencers of my life with advice and guidance.

The following section reflects on my five most influential mentors in my life.

The first one was my first supervisor an Department manager in a retail house. We shared hard-work and motivation to challenge each other. With small competitions, we encouraged each other to perform more in our work. Apparently, I won almost every challenge. But as he was the first person, who motivated me and guided me to deal with challenges and gave me the necessary support to perform better. It gave me a particular set of attitude with every task I take and succeed as a challenge. We still are in contact after 7 years of bonding.

My second mentor is actually my best friend. I have already shared her impact in a post couple years ago about networking. Her attitude to connect with strangers with her openness inspired me. It allowed me to unite with strangers more smoothly and it was very worthwhile in events and a room full of people to connect with people. It’s the ability to change the perception of ‘I am getting attention, because of my ethnicity ‘ into ‘I am getting attention because I am interested to talk to’. She influenced me a lot in the way I behave and talk as well as I see myself from others. I know her for 7years now with a break of 2,5 years due to geographical segregation.

The third mentor is a combination of a 3-set team at Daimler of my supervisor and both of my internship advisors. I have learned and gained a lot of experience in organisational politics from my supervisor. He shared a lot of experience in mind games, of which I had no clue in business until then. Furthermore, both of my advisors can’t be more different. While the first internship advisor showed me the importance of a healthy work-life balance and lived it out. The second internship advisor gave me clarity in confusing situations. He gave me the ability to remain calm and showed me to take my own decisions. All three I know for almost 2 years now and stay in contact and catch up regularly.

My fourth mentor is my Daimler Student Partnership mentor at Daimler Financial Service. We share many values of being a high-potential and drive for a career. His attitude to see the workplace as a game is an inspiration. Which, is a beautiful perspective on work environments. Because this small change in perspective has a substantial psychological power. It prevents from taking failure seriously and mental damage such as burnout or even worse – depression. It opened my eyes, as I am very driven by how much I make an impact and see the contribution to the global task. This perspective changes it all and plays the game more free without constraints. We just met this year, but his impact on my work perception is enormous.

My fifth mentor is my current COO during my internship at Equiwatt. She and I are sharing the constructive handling with success. While I had some success stories in my past that were more based on luck or right time at the right point, her success is more planned and based on the prediction as well as the proper measures. She holds several awards such as highly recognised Young Entrepreneur of the Northeast of UK; Best Several success awards and Entrepreneurial awards; holds a permanent Visa as an international in the UK through her contribution to the economy is significant. All of this at the age of 27 most of it she received at the age of 25. Her impact on me is her need to give something back to society. Realising time as the most expensive asset in our life, not wasting it with procrastination. Her encouragement in dream-big is astonishing and drives me to set higher goals, which I want to achieve. Understanding her tacit knowledge is inspiring but also challenging to follow. But we share the same values of being a global citizen and the ability to resettle anywhere in the world by having a spiritual home, where the strong ties are based on.

Mentoring is a heritage of experience, you have to give it back to the society and share the knowledge.

In 2014, I first met a very young bright coursemate, who struggled with shyness and limited self-confident. I provided advise and challenge herself’s perception by pushing the boundaries similar to that type of mentoring my previous mentors shared with me. I yielded discussions and support, whenever she needed. It was a great feeling to see my impact on her, as she transforming to become more self-confident and making her own decisions. She transferred this attitude not only to her university environment but also to the work environment and the resonance was phenomenal. She undercut with her professional appearance other students and competitors at a much younger age. We are in contact, and she still comes back to me for advice and discussing every future career steps.

Seeing the impact I made on her and her further career, I decided to help more people going through the same or similar situations. I wanted to help people to change their mindset and push their intrinsic motivation from doubting thoughts to a can-do attitude. Most of the people I came across have so much talent and just need a bit of guidance, which leads to new personal success stories.

I advised besides my two younger sisters for years also many other people on the way. As with my professional appearance, I like to help people who are seeking advice in my age group. I am working closely with them on a regular basis and expecting them to share this knowledge to the next generation as a mentor.