How Mentors Can Help You Stay Focused During COVID-19

One of the resounding mantra's of COVID-19 has been "We are all in this together." As beautiful as those six words are, not everyone has figured out how to ask for help. Not everyone has mustered up the courage to find the support they need. Some need help with personal things like feeding their family and paying the rent or mortgage. Others need help with professional things like what their next career move should be or navigating this new job market space. Because my life's work has been the care of people, I've been talking to people quite a bit and the reality is whether it's personal or professional, everyone has been impacted by what we are going through in one way or another. Therefore, there should be no shame. There should be no judgement. There should be no reservation where owning how you feel is concerned.

Being in this "together" means that we rely on one another. It means that we listen to one another. It means that we do what we can to help the next person feel supported and loved. In addition to family and friends, one of the ways I have made certain I get the support I need - whether in a crisis or not, whether personally and professionally - is to surround myself with mentors. People who have been where I haven't. People who have done what I aspire to do. People who know more than I know. That's how we move through this pandemic "together", people helping people.

This week, I talked with Cheryl Grace, senior vice president at a global market research company and founder of Powerful Penny, about mentoring, about tapping into a mentor during COVID-19, and about her brand's Pink Elephant strategy to bite sizing our way through tasks that feel larger than life. Cheryl is a wife, a mom, a woman who loves helping other women "reach their next level of best" as she says, and she is the woman who helped me navigate my way through my life changing decision to move from Maryland to California two years ago. She reminded me then as she reminds us now that there is a such thing as too much and how when we take on too much we often overwhelm ourselves to our own peril.

Mischa's Conversation with Cheryl Grace

It is my hope that my enthusiastic conversation with Cheryl inspires you to reach out should you need to, gives you permission to take your time with yourself, and encourages you to consider taking small size bites out of what is before you. You owe yourself that much, my friend.

You can watch Cheryl in action on her YouTube channel Live From the Pink Couch. And you can learn more about her brand at powerfulpenny.com.

With Overwhelming Gratitude,