Sarah Bowman Davila never thought she'd own her own business.
The licensed clinical social worker had always worked for agencies, providing counseling
to teenagers, women and people with chemical dependencies and other issues.
But an opportunity — and a caring guide in her life — changed things.
"Four years ago now, when I started doing some independent contract work with a small
private group, I had hoped that I would become more of a part business owner with that particular
group or at least learn more about the business."
She had a lot of questions about what that would involve.
So she took a course offered by the Rochester, New York, chapter of SCORE, a nationwide agency where
volunteers provide mentoring and workshops.
That's where she met Bob Zinnecker, who's been volunteering for SCORE for 25 years and
has mentored more than 100 people.
At first, she wanted Zinnecker to help her review the contract to make sure she was protecting
herself.
But then opportunity knocked again.
A colleague had an office to rent, giving Davila the chance to open her own practice.
"So I was torn, and one of the key things that Bob said to me at some point was, 'Where
do you see yourself in five years?
Do you see yourself as an employee or a small-business woman?'
"And I liked the ring of the second one."
So, Davila opened her own therapy practice, Joy Full Living Center, three years ago.
"I never dreamed that I would be doing that, when I first went to SCORE and first met with
Bob, but his encouragement and support just made that very clear that that's where I
wanted to move into."
Both she and Zinnecker share in her success.
"So I can look at Sarah and I can say, 'If she's helped somebody, then I've helped
somebody indirectly, right?
Because I helped her, and she's helped somebody else, and I think that's kind of what makes
the world go round."
Many successful businesspeople credit their accomplishments to having a mentor — someone
who served as a guide as they progressed in their careers.
"Mentoring would be something where an individual has a deep expertise in a particular field.
"And you would come in and ask them for advice and get insights from them, and they would
listen to you and give you guidance."
Richard DeMartino is director of the Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship
and a professor in the Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology.
At the center, mentorship is considered so important, students are linked with industry
leaders who help them navigate the challenging world of entrepreneurship.
"And they don't do it for me, and they don't do it for RIT.
"They do it to give back to the students because they want to help.
They want to help!
"They want to help guide young, promising people in promising directions.
"So we truly realize that as part of the educational process, but really part of the human development
process."
But not everybody has access to such advantages.
What about the people who have big dreams but little support?
Kevin Walker knows what that feels like.
While he had a successful career as an executive in the energy industry, he knows that his
life could have been dramatically different.
"I grew up a child of a single mom; she had me when she was 16.
"I had great love in my family.
"A lot of my relatives — cousins, aunts and uncles — all lived in the same area, sometimes
in the same house, so I was not lacking for that at all.
"What was missing was experiential, larger worldview, kind of experiences, like college
experience.
"Nobody had ever been to college before me.
"Like military experience.
"I didn't have that network close by."
Mentorship changed the course his life would take.
"And so, if it hadn't been for those folks outside my network who were willing to mentor,
coach and advise, I would have had a very different trajectory in my life."
Walker says his personal life inspired to him to create and co-found TurtleWise, an
app that launched in March.
Think of it, Walker says, as "the Match.com of advice-seeking."
There are advice-seekers — called explorers — and advice-givers — called gurus.
"The idea about the app is to try to mimic the natural world, so you come in, you sign
up, you put in your profile, you talk about characteristics, traits, aspirations that
you have about yourself so that people can see who you are and you can see who other
people are.
"We have a technology in the background that as you ask your question, and you decide
who your ideal adviser is, we go through our algorithm and we match you with that person."
He believes TurtleWise will provide essential guidance to an audience that may not be able
to find it elsewhere.
"And so what we're trying to do at TurtleWise is to create that kind of venue and opportunity
for I think the thousands or hundreds of thousands who are in that same situation that I was
and to try to level the playing field.
"Our tagline says, 'A better life through better decisions,' and that's what we're
trying to achieve."
DeMartino agrees that there's a large population that may miss out on mentoring opportunities.
"One of the things that the research has demonstrated is that people from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds — particularly disadvantaged family backgrounds — don't have the social
networks of someone that's middle-class or higher."
While DeMartino still considers face-to-face mentoring relationships to be the best, he
sees benefits to digital offerings, especially since the one-time traditional mentorship
model found in large companies has been largely lost.
"I think what we're seeing now is you're beginning to see efforts to find that over
the Internet, over communities, digital communities.
That has opportunities, and that has challenges, too, because you don't have that face-to-face."
The most important thing, he says, is for someone seeking guidance to get it.
"I think almost everybody has a mentor; they just don't realize it.
And if they don't have a mentor and a role model, then I feel sad for them because that's
so important.
That's how you learn life."
In Rochester, I'm Denise Young, for the Innovation Trail.
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