💃 There Are No Shortcuts In (Salesforce) Life 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! There are no shortcuts in (Salesforce) life.

Except…

Mentors 🦉.

Make no mistake, you still need put in the work.

But search out mentors, and you will have an advantage over those who do not.

Let’s dive deeper ⬇️

Agenda for today includes

• There Are No Shortcuts In (Salesforce) Life

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

There Are No Shortcuts In (Salesforce) Life

Today we will discuss-

💃 Scenario 🕺

💃 Mentors 🕺

💃 Do’s and Don’t’s 🕺

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SCENARIO

Devin the developer is thankful to have a job. But she really wanted that promotion to senior developer.

When she asked Derek the director why she didn’t get the promo, and what she needed to improve on, Derek said, “You’re almost there, Devin. Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep improving, and you’re gonna get there.”

Encouraging, sure. But not really actionable stuff 🙄.

Devin reached out to her mentor, a Technical Architect at the company she previously worked for.

Devin updated her mentor on what had happened.

Her mentor listened intently. When Devin finished, her mentor asked…

Mentor: Do you think you deserved the promo?

Devin: I do. I hit all my utilization goals. I built some quality Apex classes. And we had this one client who everyone said was really mean, but I had a great relationship with their developer.

Mentor: Nice, that is good stuff. Did you get any certs this year?

Devin: No, but I’ve been studying for the Integration Architect exam, like we discussed.

Mentor: Oh, ok. And did you do any API work?

Devin: Not yet. One of my clients needed a custom API, but our senior dev took that jira card.

Mentor: Did you ask the senior dev if you could contribute in anyway? Or did you review their work when it was completed?

Devin: No….

Mentor: Devin, it’s great that you hit your utilization targets and all that. You did your job, what you are paid to do. But you still dunno how to build an API. Do you know any senior developers that can’t build APIs?

Devin: I’m gonna go back and look at what that senior developer built. And see if I can get a meeting setup with them to walk me through their design and build. And I’ll let them know I would love to be included when they build their next API.

Mentor: That’s a good initiative. It’s the kind of initiative you showed often, when we worked together here. It’s why I wanted to be your mentor. You showed initiative, you did the work, you followed up. You exceeded your role as a functional admin, learned Apex, and pivoted to a developer. That is hard. That takes work. Continue to do hard things. Continue to put in the work.

MENTORS

Yes do the work!

Also, yes - get a mentor 🦉!

Mentors have accomplished the things you seek to accomplish. This can be very broad, like make a lot of money 💰. Or it can be very specific, like become a magician 🧙.

Mentors have made mistakes, learned lessons, and achieved success. They’ve traversed the road you are on. They know where you’re at, and they know what is next for you. That kinda prescience is incredibly valuable 💯.  

Mentors are all these aforementioned things. But it’s also important to understand not all mentorships are alike 👀.

Here are some perfectly normal scenarios-

💡 Mentors don’t have to be “official.” You and your mentor don’t have to sign a document ✍️, or have a secret handshake 🤝, or even acknowledge that there is a mentor/mentee relationship 😗.

💡 Piggybacking off the above, you can “choose” your mentor, and this can just be observing them extra closely. Copying what they do. Asking them lots of questions. Maybe there’s that Senior Consultant who breezes through projects that you would most certainly drown in, and you pay special attention to how they go about their business 🔎.

💡 Some mentors cost money 💵. They may want you to have skin in the game, if they are going to put time and effort into you. You need to do your diligence, then decide if a paid mentor is what’s right for you.

💡 You can have multiple mentors! There’s no limit! And they can be official, unofficial, paid, unpaid!

💡 You have probably picked up ⬆️ what we’re putting down ⬇️ - there is no right or wrong way to have a mentor.

With all this said, why would you have an “unofficial” mentor, who doesn’t even know they’re mentoring you 🤔?

One reason is- they may not be comfortable with being an official mentor. Imposter syndrome, capacity, bandwidth…there're a number of possibilities.

TAKEAWAYS

1) You still must do the work. Mentors can help identify which work to focus on!

2) Mentors have walked the road you’re walking. They know where you are. They know what is next 🔮.

3) There is no singularly right way to have a mentorship.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes