I’ve been participating in the 90-day mentoring challenge from Mark Smith (nz365guy). In this blog post, I will be sharing my experience and why you should attend this.
The challenge is divided into 6 cohorts, where Mark takes us in-depth of each cohort. Every other week a new cohort was announced and we could start work on the next cohort. Each cohort represents key content, but you will have to use a good amount of your time to process (or at least I had to).
During the cohorts, Mark took us through how to communicate and the importance of communicating. He inspired us to read books that involved self-improvement and presented how the world’s best speakers were presenting. He also inspired us to get involved in communities where we would be able to learn how to speak. And communities where you were actually able to speak in front of others in your part of the world.
In the next cohort, he though us much about consulting. Here we were also inspired to read a couple of books about consulting. He also gave us a task to review Microsoft Catalyst upon completing two courses on design thinking. This topic was very helpful for me to learn more about, as I daily work with my customers which has needs for a lot of different persons in the company.
Cohort 3 covered technology and the focus in this cohort was to find out which technology you are going to primary aim for. This could be anything from Power Automate to a module in Dynamics 365. This was and is probably the one cohort I find the most difficult because I am not sure which technology I’m going to focus primarily on right now.
In the next cohort, we stepped into the topic of community and how to get involved. Mark showed us the different communities for each technology and gave us tips on how to engage and help others, as well as getting help on our own issues we meet. This is probably the one cohort that you really have to put in the extra time because engaging in the community isn’t just done over the night. I personally am taking this cohort over a period of a couple of months, because it requires action.
Cohort 5 Mark took us through career paths, this is the cohort where we got an introduction to the different tasks and responsibilities each role has in practice. He took us through which career paths cover which interests and the further paths you can go beyond that first choice you take. We also got some background histories from Mark’s experience in his career.
The final cohort was about creating your own brand, and how to get your name out there. Mark took us through why he choose his alias (nz365guy) and the meaning behind it. This will be the cohort where you are creating your own website, where you will publish your own brand. This could also be the place you want to share your blog posts and share your experiences.
My review and experience
After attending this challenge one thing is for sure, I didn’t put enough time into this challenge. Mark is giving us great content and opens our eyes, but we have to put our time into this and process every content he is giving us. Then turn this into something of our own. A lot of this challenge also focusing on which career paths you want to go for, Mark presents what many roles involve and what the different roles actually do. Then it is up to you what interests you the most, and what you want to focus on doing. Since we were multiple people attending this, you were able to meet people that are on the same journey as you.
My overall experience from this challenge is very good, and I will recommend going through this. Even if you are comfortable in your role/position and already have the right directions in your career. Mark offers this challenge for the price of nothing, the only thing you have to give is your time. Which I experienced I could have given even more of.
Thanks for reading, and big thanks to Mark Smith for giving us this opportunity.
Relevant URLs and not least the form for attending the 90-day mentoring challenge 2020(!)