Meeting with my mentor

I forgot to take the photo with him today so recycling this horrendous photo from last year, in which i am making a strange face.

Kal decided to meet at Starbucks at Fountain Park. It was lovely to meet him as he had been (still is) my mentor ever since my last employment. After the discussion about my current role and my concerns, I moved to bug him about some of the mentoring he had given in the past, as I still had questions about expressing emotions, knowledge development and imposter syndrome.

I am an emotional person; I even cry when I am happy. Kal had previously suggested not to express emotions, but I found him awfully wrong then. I was also advised the same by a past tutor. He said expressing negative emotions is wrong, as people might exploit me. As I see my history, that has been the case. He suggested being wary of the people who I expressing to and gave me an exampe of 'know your client'.

I also asked him when he said about taking 5-10 years to build knowledge and then tailoring it. As I understood before, he meant that I should work to experience different things and then channelise them when I am at a senior position.

Next, we discussed about Imposter Syndrome. I don't face this, or maybe I do, but I don't realise it. He mentioned that despite not being a psychologist he feels like this has to be tackled by confidence in yourself and understanding that you are not your project and I have to understand that I am replaceable. I realise that whilst I might not be suffering from it yet, I do take and do things personally, and realising that the project is greater than me is important to understand as I do take things personally. .