Meeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority)

Last night was the first meeting of my new Women In Film mentoring circle. I was a little nervous going in because of my experience with my last mentoring circle. While I really loved getting to know the women in my last circle who showed up, out of 10 women only 3 of us regularly attending the meetings. And while I understand that we all live busy and crazy lives, it was still disappointing.

One of my new mentors is a manager and the other is a producer. They were both so nice at the meeting and their stories and experiences were amazing to hear about.

After our mentors introduced themselves, we went around introducing ourselves. In my last mentoring circle, almost all the mentees were actors. There were some writers, but most of them were also actors (I think there was only 1 writer who wasn’t an actor as well). But in this group, there is only 1 other actor! Everyone else has such a variety of jobs. There are writers, directors, producers, and even someone who helps entertainment industry companies rent office space!

Not only did all the other mentees have a wide range of jobs, they were all super supportive and enthusiastic about the mentoring circle and what we can accomplish as a group! My old circle was supportive, but we were looking more toward our mentors as guidance to what our group should do. This time, we are taking charge of things and are planning our own mentee meetings between the meetings with our mentors (I’m actually in charge of organizing our mentee meeting).

I left the meeting feeling super positive and excited to see what the next year will bring for me and the other women in my mentoring circle. I really feeling like I was put into an incredible group that will help me reach my goals (and of course I will help them as well).

I’m not trying to put down my last mentoring circle. I learned a lot from my mentors and the other women who regularly attended the meetings. But I really felt like there was so much more that I could have gotten out of that group than I did. And maybe part of that is my fault that I did not ask to see if we could do more. But now I’m super motivated to make this next year super productive and I know that this mentoring circle will help me reach my goals.