Hello Sunshine.
What's up, besties. It's a new year and a new chance to rewrite the narrative. So today we're highlighting the life changing power of mentorship at any age. We've got De Laurs Julie Morton, CEO of Step Up here with us. She's sharing how mentorship changed her life and why she owes so much of her success to the women who guided her along the way. It's Monday, January sixth. I'm Simone Boyce and.
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Yet, the new year is here, and it's more than just a new calendar year, you know. I always feel like the new year is a chance to hit reset and start fresh. So, whether you're just like cleaning up the confetti from your New Year's party or you're back into your routine, I think this time of year has a way of making us feel brand new.
Do you feel it.
All the time? January is my favorite month of the year.
I love the because it's my birthday month.
It's mine too. I'm not even like a big birthday person. It's honestly just it's the fresh energy of January. Like you were saying, it's a clean slate, and I just love a new beginning. And then also, you know we live in la and La is particularly green during that time of year, and I think that does something for me positively psychologically.
Well, here's the thing that has been on my mind.
Psychologists call this fresh start a fresh start phenomenon, and it's this mental boundary that inspires us to leave failures behind and face the future with hope and determination. So that feeling is psychologically proven, Samon. It creates this like wiping the slate clean momentum and Wharton behavioral economics professor Katie Milkman writes, people are more open to change when
they feel they have a fresh start. Think about that, whether it is the start of the year, or a milestone birthday, or even a simple Monday morning, we all have the opportunity to reseet.
Well, Danielle, everything you're saying aligns with what Wendy Wood told us on the show when we interviewed her about habit forming. Yes, she said that the best time to implement new habits is when you have a fresh start, When you have this sweeping environmental or circumstantial change in your life.
That's exactly it. And it's actually especially potent after a setback too. So one of those two things. And so now I think is the perfect time because it's the turn of the holiday. It's this renewed commitment to health, to productivity, to personal growth. But it's not magic, right, Like, we can't just hope that all the changes happen. To really make the most of them, we have to recognize the energy of this moment. And I think instead of
making these big, sweeping, overwhelming resolutions, start small. Let's pick one thing that we want to focus on and make a plan to build it into our routine. So what's one thing you're either implementing or taking away.
This is something that I typically implement at the beginning of every year, and that is just an increased focus on consistency. I tend to start out the year pretty consistent, you know, with like waking up early, working out every day. But by the end of the year, I just sort of get lazy. And I honestly think that's okay, Like I embrace it and I think it's healthy, but I do enjoy you know that kickstart at the start of the year. That just really encourages me to be more
disciplined and consistent. I love that, how about you.
Okay, this is going to sound annoying, so please excuse me, but I haven't done cardio in like five years. Like I just love lifting weights, and for the sake of my heart, I'm really going to try and implement some cardios, some more walking, maybe even some running if I can get away with it. But it's one small thing I'm going to implement.
Isn't it interesting that fitness is like the first thing that so many people think of when it comes to fresh starts within a year.
That's such a good point. We both really kind of touched on that.
Yeah.
Wow, Well, I.
Think it's important to think about what your thing is. What is your fresh start moment of the year, whether it's eating better or being more present, or taking your phone out of your room. Good luck with that I tried, or you know, starting the hobby that you've always been dreaming about.
I think now is the perfect time to go for it, Danielle, it's not too late. Twenty twenty five might be the year that you put your phone outside of your room. Do you absolutely not.
Okay, there we go, well, simone.
Besides both of our birthdays, January is also National Mentoring Month, and this month is dedicated to celebrating the power of mentorships and shining a light on how mentorship can actually change a young person's life.
I gotta be honest, I'm kind of I'm heading into this conversation kind of bitter because I never had a mentor. I have to figure it all out. Not too late, I guess, yeah, or maybe it's time to you know,
mentor someone else that can be really fulfilling too. But listen, I have good reason to be envious of people who have benefited from mentors because, according to a study commission by the national nonprofit called Mentor, more than fifty percent of adults credit their mentors for their success in life, and fifty eight percent of young people say their mentor has supported their mental health. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah.
One specific program that I've been able to witness firsthand that really changes the lives of both the mentors and the mentees is called Step Up. It's a mentorship nonprofit whose mission is to help girls define and achieve their unique visions of success. So much of it is about becoming confident and connected and saying what's on your mind. They even have wonderful tactical programs like how to write
a resume and a cover letter. I've had the opportunity to work with them on and off since I lived in Chicago, like I don't know, like seven six, seven years ago, and it's one of the few programs I keep coming back to because the work is so great.
Well, it's not just you, I mean our Hello Sunshine leader Reese Witherspoon has directly invested in and supported this program, and she was super intentional about making sure that the curriculum included a financial literacy element. I love that. That is so huge, huge, all right. For all the details on step ups impressive mentorship programs, joining us today is
none other than Dolores Juliet Morton, the CEO herself. Having experienced the benefits of mentorship firsthand, Delores is now reshaping the present and future of Step Up. Did we mention she's expanded their programs to include young women from eighteen to twenty nine. Yeah, she's pretty much redefining what it means to lift women up. Juliet Mortin, Welcome to the bright side. Thanks for having me, It's gonna be fun.
Well, Simone and I are such huge Step Up fans. We were so excited to finally be able to speak with you.
I love Step Up fans.
Yes, it's easy to be a Step Up fan.
Right, Like it's a mission that you can't be mad at. Who can say no to mentoring girls like?
Period? Easy, period exactly.
I got to experience Step Up firsthand when I worked with the organization in Chicago, and I'll never forget watching these girls. I met them at the beginning of the program. Then at the end of the program, we had this little event and they got up on stage and they were different girls.
They got up on stage, they.
Put their hands on their chest, on their heart, over their head and they said, I am confident, I am strong, I can do anything I put my mind to, and they believed it. And those were not the same voices I heard at the beginning of the program, and I was just I'll never forget it.
I was blown away.
And that was in one mentoring session.
One mentoring session that wasn't because they had been doing things for weeks and months with us.
That was one session, and you saw that transformation. So what you said was so powerful, Danielle, just looking at the transformation before and after of these girls. What exactly happens in a step up mentoring session for anybody who's a little bit new to this process.
Sure, so all of our mentoring sessions are curated. Our mentors don't have to come in with specific skills or experiences. We are team designs and activity that is specific.
It might be focused.
On them being able to tell their personal story and their personal narrative, or it could be something as simple as time management, right, and so really it's in a curated, active, engaged space. So both the girl and the mentor, there's no you don't feel intimidated. You feel supported and cared
for and confident. So we want the mentor to feel confident going in and the mentees to feel confident leaving out on whatever that issue is that they were talking about, whether it is perfecting my pitch or time management or conducting a job search, whatever those things are.
I think back to my early twenties in my first three jobs, and I've said this on the podcast before, but I felt so unprepared and out of my depth, not for the actual job, but for the office relationships and dynamics and talking to my boss and what was expected and how to say things with a positive spin and be an encouraging peer and leader and follower. I was so much I can't even imagine what mentorship would have done.
Right.
So I love that you guys are expanding this program. Did you feel that way too? Oh?
Absolutely?
Not just I mean I was a first generation college student, so neither of my parents went to college, so I didn't know. When I went to college, I thought that the degree was success, like I'm going to get this degree and magically the carpet's going to roll out and everything's going to work. But I didn't know, Oh, you need to do internships while you're in college and you need you know, you need to build relationships and network. I was like, no, I need to get good grades.
Like that was all I was focused on. And so whether it's going to college or going into the military, workforce, wherever you're going, when you're done with high school, you still need that support. And so everything from navigating college to my first job too. I remember one job, I got my terrible performance review, the worst. And I was an a student in high school and in best grades in college and then I get this, you know, needs improvement.
It's like, I like, who are you talking to improvements?
I got some improvement for you. And I actually ended up calling someone that I knew in high school that as a mentor in high school and told them about it, and they were like, well, you know, remember that time, you know, you got this bad grade and you went back to your teacher and talked to them about it, and you know, they helped you to improve, like use those same skills that I was like, oh, and I didn't have the language to even refer to that as mentorship, right, So,
but they helped me to navigate that. And you know, look at this bad performance review as really it was an opportunity to demonstrate what you can do. So don't look at it as you know, you're awful and you quit your job, do I need on the wrong path? But more look at it as an opportunity to prove yourself. So just even those little things how to respond to a performance review is one of the things that a young woman engaged in step ups programs can talk to a mentor about.
That's actually what I'm curious about hearing you talk about a review. What are the common challenges that you're hearing women in their twenties tell you that they're facing that they're needing this mentorship.
One is navigating job searches, and that's everything from conducting the search to so do I have the right resume or preparing for an interview. So that's a lot of it is that, but they are also needing support in financial literacy, financial management and so you know your four O one K and when you should start investing in putting you know, money into your four one K. So a lot of them are asking for how do I get career clarity?
Right?
So we think, oh, I want to be a social worker, but I don't really know any social workers, but it sounds good. And then I get the job and I'm like, oh, this is not at all what I thought all health social workers, that's not I'm using that as an example. But when you get in the job, what you thought it was going to be is not at all the actual work. And so they're like, wait, so now I have this degree, how can I use this in a different way than what I thought I was going to
use it for? And so that's one of the things that a mentor can help a young woman to figure.
Out I just talked to a good call friend who's an attorney and we were having a heart to heart because she became a mom and she's frustrated at her job. And she was like, if I would have known what my career entailed, I would have never gone down this path.
And I was like, do you mean that? And she said absolutely.
But I didn't have anybody to show me or tell me, and I didn't know, No, I just saw what I saw on TV.
When we first started doing our work, especially with young adults, we were like, what is exactly do they need from us at this point? So we put it all in the context of careers and having someone you know that you know you can call on to help you, and having a place like Step Up that you know you can come to to find the mentor who's going to be able to help you to navigate that space is so special important. And I've only been at the helm of Step Up for five years, but one of the
things that I think about is what did I need? Like, I'm building the organization that Dolores needed when she was fourteen, sixteen, twenty five, twenty nine, so that is the stuff up that I'm trying to imagine.
What did Dolores need? We've got to take a short break, but we'll be right back with Dolores Morton. And we're back with Dolores Morton. I want to talk about mentorship more broadly, because I'm sure there are some of our bright side bessies who are listening and thinking, Man, I could really benefit from a mentor, but I'm probably outside
of the age range of step up. And it's really impressive to take a step back and think about how mentors have shaped the lives of so many of the change makers that we all admire in our society today, people like Maya Angelou, who famously mentored Oprah. Amy Poehler was an early believer. In one of my favorite shows, Broad City, Michelle Obama was Barack Obama's mentor at the law firm where they met, Yes as coworkers, No, she
was assigned to be his mentor. Isn't that wild? So you never know where a mentorship will take you, to the wedding chapel to the White House. But my question is, how do you know a mentorship relationship is the right fit? How do you know when you found the right mentor.
M it's a good question. I think it's authenticity. It's it's really from the mentee perspective. I am looking for someone that I can be comfortable being vulnerable with that I don't have to be my best self with you in this moment because I really am coming to you
for help and support and guidance. And so I think that that's when you know that you don't have to be polished or put together every time you're with your mentor, then you've found somebody that is going to be engaged with you, you know, for a long time, and really am able to be invested in you. But I also say that I think it's important to not think of your of needing just one mentor. If you think about
your friends like your friends are all you know. I have one friend Tara who I always pass my clothing by, like hey, like is this the right outfit?
Like? What are these? She's my fashion group. Absolutely I was sending like is this match? Like? Is this am I doing the most? Am I doing enough?
So there's Tara, or there's Stephanie who gives me books. Are you know Evelyn who is kind of the one who's pushing me and cheering me on and like you can do this.
Or Karen who told me to.
Apply for this job as a CEO, I was like, I'm not a CEO and you really are, and so she so you need I would say, don't just look to one mentor for everything. I think that that's I'm sure as much as Michelle. Now I'm jealous of Barack for all new reasons. So Michelle Obama was a great mentor. I'm sure he had other mentors as well, as I
think that that's important. You need different mentors at different stages in your life, but also for different reasons, right, And so I think that that's important as you are, as you're thinking about mentorship, becoming a mentor or receiving mentorship, I think that it's important.
If I were Michelle Obama, I would never let him live that down, like I would always bring that up, like you just remember I was here. I was your mentor. Everything you are is because of me. Oh, he knows, he knows, he knows, for sure, he knows. So as I'm hearing you talk, I'm thinking about my career journey
and I did. I never really had a mentor in the traditional sense, But I did have people who brought my names up in rooms that I wasn't in, and that happened in several different situations and occasions throughout my career. So I do agree that mentorship can look different for different people. But I think the reason one of the reasons why I never had a traditional mentor is because I didn't want to burden anyone and I was scared
of being another responsibility on someone's to do list. And I think in our culture in America, there is this culture of self reliance where we are really hesitant to burden other people. But you brought up a word that I think is really important in this conversation, which is vulnerability, and I'd love to talk about that a little bit more. Why is vulnerability in mentorship so important because it does require us to put ourselves out there.
We all all want to feel like we are bringing something to the table, right, bringing our best selves, and you know, we want to be polished. We want folks to feel comfortable bringing our names up in rooms. But from a mentor's perspective, if all they're bringing is their perfection, then I can't see myself in your perfection, right because I'm not where you are yet, and so I'm going to be hesitant to talk about my mistakes and those things,
and the mistakes is where the learning happens. And so by being vulnerable and willing to share your mistakes and what you've learned along the way, I think that then I can I can make a better connection to you. And so I would say all mentoring starts with vulnerability and honesty, and you know, it creates it's a connection and a place to start the conversation when you can say, you know, I went into an interview and I was so unprepared and this has happened to me that it
was the wrong interview. I was prepared for a different interview. I was like on a big job search at the time, and so I was like, oh God, that was not the right job.
I always prepared for a different one.
And I tell that story to young women that I mentor so that they know, you know, and I'm telling them that story to help them to not make that mistake. But you said something simone about not wanting to burden someone, and I think one of the things that's important to me is that young women know that they deserve mentorship. Mentorship isn't just a nice thing to have. It is necessary and critical. And mentorship can be formal and informal.
It's not only the per like you are my mentor, like It's about conversation and connection and guidance and you know, helping someone to move you, you know, incrementally along your path.
And I think the vulnerability conversation goes both ways, right, because it requires vulnerability on the part of the mentee too to be open about what their biggest scariest dreams are or you know, what their biggest scariest fears are.
Yes, so true, you know, And that's the by the mentor being being vulnerable, the young person the mentee on the receiving and feels more comfortable being vulnerable as well. You know, that creates that that's part of the connection that you're creating, that sense of permission exactly.
Yes, yes, I love that permission.
And I'm wondering if you had a mentor or are you attracted to this because you went without.
Simone said something about not having a mentor in the traditional way, and I don't think that even when I was in high school, I didn't realize I was receiving mentorship when I was. I had a one woman, Nellie Watkins, who forced me into a competitive oratory, so competitive public speaking in Louisiana. And she would take me in on weekends to these competitions and you know, you get to
the competition and they give you a topic. You got to go in your room, write a speech, and then come and give the speech.
And amazing training.
I use that training in my real life today, you know. But she was somebody who invested in me, took some time and saw an opportunity and saw a place where she could help me along my path. And I can stand up now, you know, I've stood in front of thousands of people on stage and I can do that because of Nellie Watkins. And I have a current mentor, Karen Williams, who helps me. I like to use the mentor, still have a mentor I have. She's somebody that you know, I what do you ask her about everything?
You know? I knew her before I took the step up role.
But you know, when I was, I'd been in one job for fifteen years, It's like, okay, that was cute.
Time to move on.
And I called Karen and she kind of helped me to think about what was important to me in my next job. So she encouraged me five years ago to put my hat in the ring for this. But then, you know, whether it's like I'm I'm challenged with this thing with my staff, or you know, I've got a new donor, but I'm not sure what to pitch to them. Sometimes it's like should I go to this event? Like so that, So it's it's a little should I wear blue or pink? And so it's it's in little and
big ways. And that's the thing about mentorship. One of my goals when I came to step up was to demystify it and to make it less scary, you know.
So so so.
It's the it's the little things, but also you know, sometimes it's really transformational, like should I apply for this?
Can I do this?
And before I went into the interview, I was sitting outside the building. I called Karen and she gave me the pep talk. So like your mentor can be your cheerleader, your advisor, your counselor. You mentioned Oprah and Baya Angelo, and like Oprah's my mentor. She doesn't know it, but exactly she's my mentor, right, So like Michelle Obama. You know, me and Barack have something else in common. We both
have Michelle Obama for our mentor. So that's like there's formal but there's also people that we look to as lights and guidance in our lives, whether we know them or not.
That's mentorship. We can receive mentorship from them as well.
Yeah, I also think there's work mentors and there's life mentors.
Oh yeah, that too. So for someone who's on the other side of the equation and may be interested in providing some wisdom and guidance in a younger person's life. How do you know you're ready to become a mentor.
I'll say women in particular sometimes are hesitant to become a mentor because they are busy. So I don't know that you're ever going to feel confident that you're ready. I think that the magic that step up provides is that you get in the room and you realize, like, oh, I'm mentoring.
You know that's happening. It's happening.
Mentoring's happening, and so I think that's part of the magic that we provide. So I don't know if that you ever know. It's whether you're willing to try.
The reason why I ask is because I and I think you know other women that I know have a tendency to second guests our own offerings, like how we can be of service. You know, whether it's the rejection, the criticism, just the inner critic, you know, the outer critic, the voices from society that can tend to make you second guests, like do I actually have anything to offer? Woul anybody want to listen to what I have to say?
But it's great to hear from you that even though you think you might not be ready, you probably are. You probably are. You've learned something, Yeah, you know right?
And I always think about it like I was a fourth grade math tutor once, and I am by no means a math genius, but I knew more than the fourth grader, so I could help that fourth grader.
And so if you've got.
A little bit in your life that you are able to help someone, So whether it's a teen girl or a young adult, or a near peer, someone who's your age, if a teen girl can mentor another teen girl or a middle schooler, then woman, you're ready. Whoever you are out there, you are ready to be a mentor. You've got something to give. We all have something to give.
You don't have to commit a huge amount of time. You guys have something called flash mentoring, right, what is that?
So flash mentoring Three things make it up. It is short term, it is focused on something specific, and it is based on experience and not expertise. And so it's short term, like one hour, one conversation can make a difference. It is focused. So I am coming into this mentoring relationship, this mentoring moment with something specific that I'm working on. So I have an entry in three days and I want a mentor to help me with that. So it's very specific and it's experience based it so it's not
based on your expertise. It's not that I am an HR expert and I can tell you exactly what this job is going to entail and how to respond to the questions. But I can tell you how I've prepared. I can give you some guidance based on my experiences versus expertise.
So that's what it is.
And if we can get more people to think about mentoring in that way, then everyone will have a mentor when they need a mentor. You know, my big dream for step up, I will resign and Step Up can close its doors if we need to. When every young woman everywhere has a mentor when she needs one.
It's time for another short break.
But we'll be right back to our conversation about mentorship with Dolores Morton, and we're back with Step Up CEO Dolores Morton.
Okay, Bessie's this is a pretty staggering statistic about the impact of mentoring. According to the American Society for Training and Development, seventy five percent of executives say mentoring played a critical role in their development. How do you see this in action, Dolores? Through Step Up success stories? Is there one that just kind of sticks with you? One of my mentees through Step Up young women I've never met in person. I'll say that her name is Jaden.
She lives in North Carolina, a small town outside of Charlotte, and she reached out because she graduated college during the pandemic, which meant that she had been isolated working from home. She was working, but she was just getting these short
term contracts right, and she shared her frustration. I want a job now that has benefits and all of these things, and no one wants to hire me because my resume looks like a job hopped every three or four months, except that it was contracts that she knew were going to be four month contracts or whatever.
And I helped her to redo her resume. Resume writing isn't my expertise, right, but I know how I review resumes as an employer, and so helped her to reframe her resume as a skills based resume, like these are the things I've done and here's who I've done it with, rather than a chronological resume. Within two weeks of that,
she had interviews lined up. Then she had two different job offers, and she contacted me again, and she ended up choosing the job that allowed her to go back in person to work, right because she had felt isolated, you know, pandemic being at home and she had only worked remote, she'd never had an in person job. So she chose that job, and so yay, she got the job. So she went from you know, struggling to find full
time job to having the job. And then three months later she out to me again, I'm struggling at work because I've lost my social muscle.
While I would like the.
Very reason I wanted to take this job was so that I could work in person and be around my colleagues, but like it's hard being around people, right, and so she wanted some coaching for me. I was like, well, the first thing you're gonna have to do is take your headphones off at your desk, like stop sitting at your desk with your headphones and so, and you don't have to say yes ten z.
That's a PSA right there.
Like stop.
But and you don't have to say yes to every social thing, like but say yes to one. It's so one a week, say yes if someone says do you want to go to lunch?
Once a week?
And then she got she just sent me a note like that was so helpful. I just came from happy hour with my colleagues again. So and that sounds little, but that is that was transformational. I think Jayden's gonna kill it one day. But it's not just about getting to the C suite, but knowing that mentorship is is a to her as one of the things that's going to get her get her where she wants to go.
Well, she knows how to ask for help, which is going to help her tremendously in her career.
Yes, and we do that. We teach them that. That's one of the things we teach the girls, like how to ask for help. I think we need to go learn how to ask. Come on, come on, Dolores, will you mentor?
And I'm good, Well, I listen.
I'm sure so many people listening are going to feel inspired to get involved.
I know I do.
So I want to reignite the step Up flame. What is the best way to do that?
I would say, just visit our website. We have in person mentoring opportunities and we have a mentoring app. So our website su double n Step Up Women's Network SUWN dot org. Visit us there you can find the best path for you to mentor, whether it's in your hometown or you know, from your desk, for an hour once a week, once a month, once a year, whatever you have available to contribute to a young woman's journey.
Fantastic.
Thank you so.
Much for this conversation, Dolores, Thank you, Thanks so all, and thanks Dadielle.
Have so much fun. Delores. Julie Morton is the CEO of the mentorship nonprofit Step Up.
That's it for Today's show Tomorrow, economist, best selling author and the founder and CEO of parent Data, Emily Oster is back.
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and feel free to tag us at simone Voice and at Danielle Robe.
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See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.