I'm a product marketing leader, a mentor, and an author. I decided back in 2020 that mentoring was my purpose, my ikigai, and I wanted to give back to the community. GrowthMentor, among the other platforms I found, really helped shape who I am.

Since I last updated this, I've written books. I started with my own journey through stress and anxiety, then published Mastering the Art and Science of Product Marketing. I write on Substack about everything I'm learning around career growth and product marketing. I also teach product marketing monthly and lead mindfulness practices.

The other half of me is wellbeing. A few years ago I took a full pivot and came full circle on taking care of my health, and now I'm a mindfulness practitioner too. All of it feeds what I can give back: helping founders and teams think about product market fit, who their audience really is, and how to position themselves in the market.

They start from the product instead of the customer. So much of what I do is pulling people back to who the audience really is, the persona they actually want to target, and how they're positioning themselves in the market, before we ever touch the pitch deck or the presentation. If you don't understand your customer and become the voice of the customer, it doesn't matter what solution you have. It's just another thing out there in the market that isn't connecting with anyone.

The other thing founders lean on too hard is data. You and I both know how important data is, but data is only facts unless you bring the emotion into it. It's all storytelling at the end of the day. So I push people to really empathize, with their customer, with their team, and with themselves, and then build the positioning out from there. That empathy is also why I bring a short mindfulness practice into the rooms I teach, because grounding the people first tends to make the work better.

If all you want is data, then sure, automate it. But for us it's also customer relationships. My best customers are now genuinely good friends. Business is a relationship, not just a transaction. The minute you have AI do the interviews and hand you the data, yes, you've saved a lot of time, but you've missed the chance to foster that relationship, and I'm not convinced that's something you'd want to give away.

I tell my mentees the same thing about their own work: data is only facts unless you bring the emotion into it. Really empathize with your customer, your team, and yourself. There might be a middle ground, maybe a shorter conversation plus some synthesis, but I won't hand the whole relationship to a bot.

Apply if mentoring genuinely feels like your purpose rather than a side line. For me it really is the ikigai, and you can tell pretty quickly whether someone is here to give back or to perform.

The thing I'd ask of anyone, mentor or mentee, is to actually listen. So much of what people carry is self doubt, the voices telling them their achievements are nothing, and as long as someone is there to listen, that's most of the work. If a stranger's problem genuinely lights you up and you can sit with them in it, you'll get back far more than you give. I always have.