Label: Interview
(I think you get an idea of this is about mentorship.)
1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else? Are you shadowing? Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic? If so, what? Are there other people who are experts in the location? Etc...)
- At this stage in my project I am not spending as much time with my mentor as I would like. One of the main reasons for this are the legal issues of being exposed to his clients information. I am going to try and devise a plan to try and work around this, so I can become more familiar with how he works and see if I can work on some of his daily tasks. There are additional experts in his office who may be able to assist me in addition to my mentor. Whatever help I am able to get will be under the supervision of my mentor.
2. How did you find your mentor? How did you convince this person to help you?
- My parents knew my mentor since they have worked together before. They then told me about him when helping me come up with my topic. My mom told him about my senior project and my topic of becoming a millionaire was all about. She told him that we were looking for a person who was skilled in his field and who has worked with other millionaires and she though of him. My mom then made an appointment with him so that he and I could meet to discuss my project in more detail. We met at his office in Corona and I explained to him what my goals were with my topic and senior project. After listening to my presentation and asking me more questions about why I wanted to do this topic, he agreed to be my mentor.
3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship? How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person?
- While I feel I have a good relationship with my mentor, I need to have more face to face time with him. I am comfortable talking to him about many financial issues as he has a every easy going personality. When I conduct interviews with him over the phone, I am still a little too formal. I believe more face to face time will help me develop a closer understanding of how he helps people become millionaires.
4. What went well in this interview? Why do you think so? What do you still need to improve? How do you know? How will you go about it?
- The interview went very well because I was able to find out more information about him on a more personal basis. Before this point I had no idea of what my mentor did. All I knew about him was that he was a financial adviser, worked at Trilogy Financial, and his name was Eric Myre. Now I know he was into sports, liked mathematics and wanted to help people. I still need to improve upon developing follow-up questions. While I am listening and paying attention to what my mentor is saying, I still find it difficult to come up with follow up questions. I believe the reason for this is that I am being too formal in my approach to the interview. I end up not knowing what to say and just move on to my next question. To try and over come this I plan on putting more focus on conducting my future interviews on a more informal basis. Since my mentor has a easy going personality, trying this approach may make it easier for me to come up with additional questions.