Core Conversations on Start Finishing: How to Find Mentors and Beneficiaries Who Work for You

Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our core conversations on Charlie’s book Start Finishing. In our last conversation, Patricia Bravo talked about derailers. In today’s conversation, Mike Ambassador Bruny talks about mentors and beneficiaries. Below is a transcription of his video.

This is Mike Ambassador Bruny here, and I'm going to talk about a situation that I'm actually growing through when it comes to peers and guides and beneficiaries.

It's a project that I started about five years ago called No More Reasonable Doubt, and it's all about helping professionals of color, and it basically ends unnecessary suffering by sharing information and creating community.

So while I started this four or five years ago, I stopped it so I could go back and get a regular job.

Now I'm starting to think about getting it going again. And what I realized is, as I think about peers and mentors (or guides, if you will): I know a lot of people that could be considered guides, but I'm not so sure they're the right guides for what I'm doing. So I’m trying to be more specific about what I'm trying to get done and who can help me.

One thing that really hit me from Charlie's book is around beneficiaries. I'm saying “professionals of color” or “young professionals of color”. Those aren't people. I cannot see someone being worse off if I just have them as a title. There's no motivation in just “people of color”.

There's motivation — or even flip it, inspiration — once it becomes Lola or Rob or Tammy. These are actually professionals of color that I know and can help by providing the medicine that I have. And not medicine in terms of just, "Here's a pill." There's some of that, but it’s really the collective medicine of what happens when you bring people together and you share information. (Tweet this.)

Now, with that, there's a little bit of hesitation, some fear of, "Uh-oh. It's going to be real. This will make it real."

So this is what I'm growing through right now, actually getting this project back together: Who are the real people I need? Who are the real people who will benefit from what I'm going to do?

Because that information, putting that together, creates a whole other level of responsibility, accountability, and fire... So stay tuned.

Want more information on mentors and beneficiaries? Start Finishing, the book that kicked off all of these Core Conversations, is your deeper dive into all aspects of how to turn your ideas into projects, and how to start finishing your best work. In our next conversation, Barb Suarez talks about honoring yourself in your new normal of parenthood.