Twice a year, Tucson Young Professionals (TYP) partners with Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) to provide mentorship to Tucson’s best, brightest, and most motivated future leaders in our community. The selected mentees are paired with experienced regional leaders and CEOs for a twelve-week program that is a terrific learning experience for both the mentor and mentee.
Dr. Patrick Marcus was recently paired with Malcom Critcher, Associate Creative Director for BRINK. BRINK is a creative agency for activist brands that has content studios in Washington, DC and Tucson, AZ. Over the past several months, Dr. Marcus and Malcom met on a weekly basis and discussed new challenges and opportunities to grow as leaders. “At times, it can feel like our growth is predetermined by the leaders and individuals we know, or the sector in which we work. The TYP mentorship program provided us with an opportunity to break outside of that, and for an Engineer and a Creative to both look at leadership in a new light.” Said Malcolm about the experience.
“The mentoring/mentorship opportunity is like anything else in life, what you put into it is what you get out of it. The learning never stops”. TYP’s curated mentorship program has weekly themes on topic areas to connect, grow, and thrive. The themes focus on varying career, personal, and career goals such as; understanding themselves, understanding their community, Personal SWOT analysis, setting SMART goals, personal narrative, professional development, networking, and much more!
Malcolm is an established Creative Director with many years of experience in a leadership position. Having recently made a shift to a more traditional organization compared to freelance capacity, he was provided with new opportunities to grow as a leader. “Patrick was the perfect pairing for this mentorship experience. A steady handed leader who puts people first, the insights he shared were countless, and invaluable.”
The mentorship relationship is a two-way street, and the mentor gets just as much out of the investment as the mentee. Malcom shared, “I went into this experience expecting to spend most of my time listening, but it always felt like a continuous exchange of information. We learned from each other, shared in one another’s weekly struggles as leaders, and helped each other grow. I left every conversation we had with a grounded, but high-level piece of advice that was applicable across the board as the leader of an organization.”
Dr. Patrick Marcus has been in industry for nearly two decades, and the hard-knock lessons of firsthand experience can sometimes really knock the wind out your sails. “I’ve been fortunate to have some really great mentors and advisors over the course of my career to bounce ideas off of and helped me navigate the hard times.” Some of the top key lessons that Dr. Patrick Marcus has learned over the years are:
Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is part of the learning process. In engineering, we want to fail fast and often early because that means our learning curve will flatten out much more quickly.
Build your network. It is never too early start building your network. Your network is the net of resources throughout your career that helps create opportunities and supports your through the challenging times.
Help others succeed. In a tech ecosystem, we are all connected. Altruism is a key element in professionalism, and is essential to economic growth. By helping others succeed you are strengthening your brand and your community. We all need help, and we should all be ready to give and receive it.
