With all that happened in 2020, the world is increasingly moving towards the digital age where we’ll enjoy contactless information transfer. A Lot of things will obviously be affected by this sudden change, including mentor-mentee relationships. Being remote and unable to access your mentor physically should not halt your search for a mentor. Virtual mentorship is a thing that’s taking root in today’s society, and I believe it’s time you jumped on board too.

Anthony’s Relationship With Mentors – 05:50

For the most part, first-gens often find it hard to seek mentors because they don’t have any close relatives who’ve done what they’re doing. Like most of us, Anthony worked on getting good grades and only realized how important mentors were when he got to grad school. Unknown to him, mentors are the people you seek when faced with life’s challenges since they most likely faced what you’re facing now. Although Anthony did seek mentors a little later than his peers, he viewed grad school as a second shot at taking advantage of every opportunity presented to him. 

Virtual Mentors – 08:41

As earlier mentioned, mentors are as crucial to your professional life as your academic life. However, most people think it’s tough to find mentors. Well, it’s not, and with most people on social media, it’s now easier than ever to land yourself a mentor. A virtual mentor is someone you’ve never met or only met one time but virtually holds your hand as you navigate through life. Once you start following your mentors via social media, you get to experience their way of life, how they do things, and how they stay motivated. If finding face to face mentors is out of the topic, you should probably consider finding virtual mentors. 

How To Ask for Help – 14:25

The professional space is full of experts willing to help the right people hold their own in this competitive world. Unfortunately, most rarely get responses from their potential mentors for several reasons—the most common ones being the use of wrong channels or lacking professionalism. If you’re after a mentor on social media, the best advice I’d give you is to use LinkedIn. It’s a well-known fact that LinkedIn is a professional space, so it’s easier to get a response there than on any other social site. If you can’t use LinkedIn, shoot an email, but strictly remain professional and proofread as many times as possible. You don’t want to lose your shot at an excellent first impression by sending an email full of errors. 

Personal Development – 18:35

Personal development is a term often used but rarely practiced by some people. Nonetheless, if you’re genuinely serious about your ambitions, you need to think about personal development. Personal development is the act of continuously assessing your life’s values and goals and using that to improve your skills and fulfill your dreams. It can be as simple as reading an article every day or watching videos that teach you something. All in all, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re bettering yourself every day. 

The Social Media Culture – 23:35

It’s a familiar fact that social media can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time. But, it all comes down to how you’re tapping into its power for your benefit. Social media is built so that people only highlight their winnings and never their losses, which can potentially dent your ego pretty severely. So, instead of looking at what other people are up to on social media, ask yourself this question, is what I’m doing going to benefit my future in the long run? I asked myself the same question in December first and noticed that I’m spending way too much time on Facebook and Instagram that I decided to quit. If you’re feeling like social media is eating into your productive time, I think it’s time you quit the platform you’re on, even if just for a little while. 

Anthony Parker-Gills is from Chicago and grew up the majority of his life in a single parent household and has one younger sibling. He met his wife when he was 16 years old but they did not get together until he was 20 years old and they recently got married this February 2019. He loves sports and loves to work-out and also really into business professional fashion. 

Being a first-gen student all he thought he had to do was go to school and get good grades and the jobs would come calling and that did not happen. During his first two years of college he did not join any organizations nor did he have a job on campus. He also took out more loans than he needed. Lastly, he did not take advantage of any internships or the opportunity to network. 

Now, he wants to share the importance of taking advantage of opportunities in the lifetime of those opportunities. Connect with Anthony Parker-Gills on LinkedIn.

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