Mentorship is a Lifelong Journey

Mm-hmm. Just us three for it. There the numbers go. Hey everyone. Hello everyone and welcome to this month’s Global Gaming Women’s virtual masterclass. We’re excited for you all to join us. As normal, we’ll get started with a few updates from Global Gaming Women. It’s a busy time of year for us all, so we’ve got a few updates. Next month, we’ve got some exciting stuff happening at G2E. So just want to give everybody a quick reminder. If you’re attending any education sessions at the conference on Monday, the 7th at 10, 10 a.m., we have a panel as well as at 11, 20 a.m. in the Titan 2205 room. And I’m not going to share the details with you, but you might recognize a few of our
the 10 a.m. panel. I’m excited for it. Then we have another panel on Wednesday the 9th on the main stage in Venetian Ballroom F at 1 p.m. It’s going to be another great panel, so I hope you can make some time to stop by and watch that panel. And then for the fun stuff, on Wednesday the 9th, we have our annual Kick Up Your Heels fundraiser from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at XS over inside the WYNN. actually kind of right in between the Wynn and Encore. And then Thursday we have Sip and Social from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. And just to note there, we are moving up to the second floor versus being on that bottom level like we normally are. We’re going to be on the second floor. And I apologize, the ballroom numbers have slipped my mind, but you will see it on our website if you go under our events calendar, it’s posted on there.
And then the last bit of exciting news is applications for Lean In Circles open today. So if you have been dying to be on a Lean In Circle, now is the time to fill out the application. And this would be for a 2025 Lean In Circle. And if you’re interested in moderating, please select that box. We’ll do moderator training and get you all prepared for the upcoming year with a circle. And then last but not least, we’d love your feedback. So if you could take the time to fill out a survey after this session, we certainly appreciate it. So I’m not going to take up too much time. I’m going to hand it over to Lori to introduce our guest. Thanks, Kelly. Hi, everyone. Thanks for checking in with the Global Gaming Women virtual masterclass today and this evening. I’m super excited to have Lauren with us, Lauren Westerfield, to talk about all things mentorship.
So Lauren has over 15 years in the hospitality and gaming industry, both brick and mortar and online as a veteran marketing executive. Lauren specializes in assisting the hospitality world to converge into the omni-channel space, owning their brands and to create a memorable guest experience. Lauren has a lot of really great experience serving in many roles, to help build and develop online gaming, sports betting strategies and products. to blend together and bring together land-based and digital experiences. Fortunately for us, Lauren has also served as a guest speaker on many topics and in many avenues and channels on the topics of online innovation, sports betting, of course, leadership, mentorship, which is what we’re going to focus on tonight, and sponsorship for Global Gaming Women, WISE, and other notable chapters focusing on elevating
future female leaders in the gaming hospitality and sports space. So we’re super excited to have Lauren here this evening to talk about mentorship. And I love how she coined it this way, that it really is a lifelong journey and that, you know, a mentor provides guidance and encouragement and knowledge, no matter where you are or on your journey, on your career journey, which sometimes it’s a linear timeline, but many times it’s not. And so Lauren’s going to kind of walk through, you know, no matter where you are on the timeline of your journey or where you are in your job, that mentorship is important. And so how can you capitalize on that? What does it look like? What are the ups and downs of it? And Lauren’s going to share her experience with us tonight. So I will be monitoring the chat and the Q&A. And Lauren, I will turn it over to you. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, guys. It’s also important to note that I am a dog mom of two very noisy dogs who just erupted in a large cacophony. So I apologize if some of my topics are interrupted with a quick audio stop so they can get their barks out. But the magic of working from home. Thank you, Lori, for the intro. Thank you, Global Gaming Women, for having me, for inviting me. This will be, I think, my fourth session that I’ve hosted with Global Gaming Women as a Masterclass. And the last topic I did was mentorship versus sponsorship, which was… particularly impactful at that moment in my life. But now today will be a little bit more focused on mentorship and kind of that journey. And I also want to just tell personal stories about when mentorship has totally shown up for me in the most unexpected ways and the most expected ways, and then kind of journeying into the path of
becoming a mentor to mentees and what that looks like as well. So a lot of personal narrative here, a lot of stories, and hopefully you guys enjoy it. There are natural pauses kind of built into the presentation that I have today. So happy to take pause if you have questions or specific comments, you can drop in the chat. I know Lori is helpfully looking out for me. And then I’ve built in to the end of this session to have any semblance of conversation that you’d like to have. I wish I could see all your beautiful faces, but I’m just staring at me talking. So anyway, Kelly, if you don’t mind sharing my My
slide, I’ll tell you a little bit more about me. So I actually am a little closer to 20 years in the gaming industry, which is really scary. But I am a lifelong Las Vegas. I’m actually fourth generation Las Vegas, which truly, truly.
has shaped a lot of kind of my experiences, my lived experiences and who I am and how I’m super attached to the city itself and kind of this gaming space of ours and entertainment space. Grew up here, went to school here at the same school my whole entire life, very small classes, 53 kids. So really had built kind of through mentorship with teachers, coaches, even friend groups through those formative years from kindergarten on. And I will share a story of a couple of those moments that created the first experiences of mentorship with me. Ended up going to USC for college, which one of my major mentorship moments was there, which I’ll share a little bit today. And then came back to Las Vegas to be
with my family and also be in the public relations space was quickly kind of dazzled by this whole entire industry, which is gaming, entertainment, and really kind of bringing glitter to everybody’s experience who came here. So I had this opportunity to work on the Hooters Hotel Casino, which is now OYO. on their grand opening and as a separate PR agency and was completely bit by the bug of entertainment and gaming and was quickly kind of swooped away by station casinos where I lived a lot of my experiences, a lot of my mentorship moments and mentee and mentorship moments and grew through that process from. coordinator to manager to director to VP and worked on so many different exciting product or projects, excuse me. And also, um, then just kind of took the pivot to go work in manufacturing where I got a great semblance of what the digital space looks like and what the manufacturing space looks like. So have worked on a lot of different projects, but now currently, um,
I’m serving as the vice president of Interactive, so override gaming, sports betting, anything that touches that, but also have the public relations and communications and investor relations function for Queen Gaming, which is publicly merging with Bally’s. So we will be Bally soon, going from four properties to 16, which is super exciting. And Recently, as of Monday, get to work on the Tropicana Implosion Project, which is just another one of those dazzling moments of merging my history and knowledge and experience in the gaming industry with historical moments. So super excited to be here. Who I am as a person, I love, I have rich backgrounds. friend group that is just so interesting, so dynamic. I have a ton of lovely ladies and gentlemen that I’ve curated across the way and have been lucky to call them friends. Sometimes they serve as mentors. Sometimes they need my mentorship. And that’s the great baseline that I have is the accessibility to those women and those men. And it’s incredible to have that.
I also serve a lot in volunteer capacities. I sit on the board of directors for Goodwill of Southern Nevada, for China Light Foundation, which serves our homeless population here in Las Vegas, and was a volunteer cheerleading coach for my alma mater, which, again, mentorship moments coming full circle of once being a mentee and then being the mentor. Also on some of the committees on my alma mater of the Meadow School for different causes. So super involved here and have a lot of rich history kind of going through life lived experiences with mentorship, mentees in different moments that kind of blessed me through this whole entire experience. So going to talk a lot about give back. kind of these contextual clues as to what the way that I see mentorship and how it served me throughout my career and throughout my life. And let’s be very clear. I’m still learning. I am still curious. I am still a student of life. I still have major missteps and I still have major advancement moments. And all along the way, I need people to give me advice. And it’s
great because throughout, like I said, this safety net of friends and people that I call mentors, I have very different, very different kind of menagerie of humans and of shared lived experiences that I can pull from that help make me successful. So I’m hoping that I can share some of these little nuggets with you and I hope that they resonate. And I hope too that it inspires you into seeking for mentorship opportunities or seeking for opportunities to serve as a mentor to someone. Ms. Kelly? So mentors are a compass of success. So I like to I’ve kind of created my own personal impact statement. And what I was always measuring to was my North Star. Where do I want to show up in the world? Who do I want to be? What do I want to touch? How do I want to affect it in that impact statement, which is something I love?
encourage all of you to kind of go through that process and whatever is meaningful to you. The North Star is kind of where you want to be. And the way that you’re going to get there is not alone. So it’s always been through support systems, through safety nets, through networks, and a lot of this through mentors. So utilizing this thought process of mentorship is the compass and to help you get to your North North star, it becomes kind of a religion. It’s an ideology of, okay, we know we need this. Now, how can we mobilize this thought, this ideology of mentorship to really push us into the right direction or to really help us get to that North star that you define. And what that looks like is so individual and so different, but it’s,
as long as you have that vision and that North Star of where you’re trying to get to, building that safety net and building those mentors and those people who will help you get there is the compass in the right direction. So mentoring a person who is a mentor is a brain to pick, it’s an ear to listen, and it’s a push in the right direction. Sometimes that ear to listen or that brain to pick, or even the advice to give is a little bit of tough love. And sometimes we need to hear that. But sometimes it’s just the right comfort space, or like I said, safety net that you need to put you in a mental state to get you to that North Star. And sometimes it’s a girl, just get up, get moving, push towards the right direction, see where you end up.
It looks different in all forms, but really the goal is that it is that support system. It is that compass. It is the pivot in the right direction. It is the kind of seedling to get you to grow. It is something that helps you continue to develop and mature. So a mentor is someone who provides guidance, encouragement, valuable knowledge and resources for exponential personal growth. I think exponential in that statement is kind of the key because we only have so many years in growth and we only have so many opportunities in front of us to really capitalize on. So really being able to kind of compact all of that help and that assistance and that knowledge and that lived experience to propel you forward in a highly competitive world, that is what you want to look at for in mentorship. Is this going to inch me along or is this really going to catapult me into that level of
into that growth of that North Star that we’re all searching for. Mentors are life-changing key characters in your personal executive steering committee. In past talks, I talk about the executive steering committee. The thought of this is, kind of funny when you take a step back and look at it, but we all have executive boards or C-suites or kind of that group of people that we report up to, or that we have to answer to, or that we have to lean on for strategic direction, for any semblance of kind of the path forward. So if we have that in business and if. Different boards do this. If different companies do this, why don’t we do it as people? Why don’t we create our own executive steering committee who you know and who you trust to get you to that North Star? You can have somebody who is absolutely wonderful at maneuvering through political kind of weird, crazy waters. That can be a person who is on your executive steering committee.
You can have somebody who is a great empath and who can really tap into the emotional side and really get you to kind of process through all of those emotions that you may have. That could be a person on your steering committee. Whatever it looks like, know that you have the ability to identify people who are in your world or in your access orbit to be able to create your ideal executive steering committee. So kind of a challenge and a takeaway, maybe take a look at who is in your network or who is in your direct line of contact and who is not and who you would want to kind of slate out in an executive steering committee towards your North Star in your life. It really is a valuable exercise. And sometimes you’ll see that through some of the people that you’ve slated or may not necessarily have access to, someone already on your steering committee
may have access to that person and open up a lot of doors. So meaningful mentors show up throughout career journeys, which is what this whole conversation is about. Often creating a clear path to success and inspiring action. I think it’s really important to understand that there’s not an age or there’s not a certain position that you go, oh, I’m switching into being a mentor now. I’m no longer a mentee. It’s very fluid. I would say that a lot of times in my life, some people who have become mentors may be younger than me. Maybe a 27-year-old who just started his own company and I can lean on for how to create business plans or how to create meaningful investments. It can also be maybe you are helping somebody mature who is higher up than you, but maybe you’re helping them to emotionally develop or to develop empathetically. There are just so many different touch points where you can flip-flop that
that role in that relationship because it doesn’t have to look super traditional. And sometimes some of these people who come into your orbit may surprise you, right? Like for me, serving on a board for a nonprofit, I had no idea about nonprofits. So we’re really leaning into some of the other mission services people or some of the recipients of our programming people became mentors to me to help see the business in a more clear path and how to react with it and how to involve with it to make meaningful change. So sometimes it just doesn’t look linear, which is a key point that I think a lot of people overlook. And that’s a lot of the specialness of what creating your North Star will help you get the mentors or the mentees that will really help guide you towards that.
And then the only way to reach our full potential is to learn from people who have been there and who have done that. Sometimes it’s not necessary to completely recreate the wheel. Or sometimes it’s really refreshing to have somebody who is a lived experience that is something that you have just gone through. And sometimes it’s another great proof point of understanding that wow, I actually can get through that. This person went through something similar. I’m not alone. So having that lived experience that I’m talking about is really key in identifying, okay, here’s where I want to get. Here’s people who have experienced this. Maybe they can help me share, or maybe they can help me be vulnerable to talk about what I’m going through and see if it’s something that they could lend an eye on. So-
Mentorship is kind of a religion, truly. It’s an ideology. It’s ever fluid. It’s ever moving. And it is what you created and what you want it to be. So next slide, please. So I’ll take pause real quick for any questions or comments that may have come through. Lori, if you see anything. Again, yeah. Yeah, no question. You just have lots of fans. You have a lot of fans, a lot of fan girl. I wish I could see you guys looking at my talking head, but I love that I have fans. I love that there are people here and they’re probably a lot of my safety net. So excited. Yeah. Yeah. I had a quick question. You were talking about developing an impact statement. Yes. Can you talk briefly about kind of what that exercise looks like?
Yes, I can. And you know what i’ll do because it has been in a past chat. Let me dig that up and i’ll be able to send it to you guys and you can distribute it however you want. That’s great. Really, it is um for me i’m a very creative thinker and i like to write words like i resonate with words. I resonate with music lyrics. I resonate with things. So I kind of did a deep dive and just compiled all these things that tugged at mine like, oh, that’s a lived experience. I love that quote. I love this. I love that. And really measured kind of what those words were saying and pieced together a statement of this is how I want to show up in this community. Mine was specific to community. You can do an impact statement that is specific to community.
your career path. It could be a specific to a weight loss journey or whatever that is. But mine was specific to what called to me artistically. And then I compiled it and wrote it down, put it out to the world. Um, and it’s something that I try and do every year. Um, here’s another quick example. I do personal vision boards every year, and this is like my one for the year. OK, and then on the back, I do my one word and kind of what that describes. So this is another visual example of what you can do. But I’m happy to share that more. That could be a whole talk and a whole like activity in its own. But personally, I was thinking I was thinking this is probably another virtual masterclass program for our members. So.
Here’s a question from Kate White. How do you approach someone about being a mentor? Is there a time commitment you should ask them for? I’m sure that’s probably coming up in your materials. Yes, we will get there. I talk about kind of how to be effective in both service points and being a mentee and a mentor. So I will address that. A lot of that answer comes down to being vulnerable being honest and creating clear expectations upfront. So why the hell am I talking about mentorship? Like, why is this important? And why do I want to tell you guys stories about different experiences that I’ve had? Well, because we are all female leaders or we are all aspired to be female leaders in today’s current environment.
And so understanding what we’re up against and why lean in circles are so great or why tapping someone on the shoulder to say, hey, advocate for me or finding sponsors and mentors. Why is it so important? Because next slide, when you see kind of the deficit that we’re at, we really need all the help we can get. So. Next slide. So this is from. a McKinsey leadership study that was done late 2023. And this is just kind of generic. I didn’t get the opportunity to deep dive into just the gaming space. I think these numbers may be a little bit different and the percentages may be a little bit lower, but that’s just a thought. This is just generically to how we show up as leaders. So for me,
Every 100 men being promoted, 87 women will be escalated and not at a proportionate level. 48% of women are in entry-level positions. 24% of women occupy C-suite roles, which that number to me is so upsetting, breaking glass ceilings. 45% of workers believe that women follow their emotions to make decisions. 38% believe that women outperform men in leadership roles. I believe that that is so low, but this is belief, right? This is not actual output. So understand the mental state that we’re working with here. 55% believe that women are held to a higher performance standard than men. I would venture to say no. maybe we’re not even being measured by the same yardstick. And that’s kind of my experience. And that’s what I say. 59% believe women are underrepresented in executive roles. I would love to see that number a little bit higher of the belief system that we’re in. But then
Almost 80% of the younger workforce, and this comprised the millennials and Gen Z, oops, I put Getsy, that’s funny, see mentoring is crucial to their career success. So at least with the deficit of us not thinking or others perceiving us as not equal, at least 80% of the up and coming workforce understands the importance of mentorship and why we should give a shit. and why we should really start leaning in, whether being a mentor, a mentee, or being both at the same time is completely important. So next slide. Why mentorship matters. It enables us to cultivate not only our heads and our hearts, but it also are basically it kind of gives us action points. Okay, I feel a little bit clearer because I’ve been able to bounce some thoughts off of somebody with lived experience in order to take action. And you can take used knowledge and use wisdom of people who have been there before and apply it to actionable steps.
And it connects and exposes really great people to really great people. If I have somebody who comes up to me who is ambitious and focused and serious about what their North Star is, and they want to tap into my network and utilize kind of my lived experiences, I trust that if they’ve given me proof positive for that, it helps me connect with really great people who I may have not otherwise connected with. So it just kind of creates that safety net of really great people. It ensures a workforce of equity that honors past successes and learnings of others, but focuses on improvement for the future. So, hey, we all learn from our mistakes. Why can’t we be honest about it and talk to those who are younger and who may go through it to help prevent them from maybe making some grave mistakes and maybe even inspiring action for them to improve work processes or outcomes or, you
just negotiations for yourself. And then allows for diversity, opportunity, equitability, visibility, and a different workforce. And it provides a platform for the mentor, the mentee to learn from the mentor’s lived experiences. And it also expands their network. It doubles their network by leaning in together. So next slide. Mentorship is the value exchange of wisdom from an experienced one. So this is the time of the session where I’m going to tell you a couple of lived experience moments for me and moments of mentorship. Some of them funny. Some of them are like, OK, well, and hopefully you learn from this or maybe you see a glimmer of wisdom. kind of something similar in what you’re going through right now. So next slide, Kelly. To kind of hop back into what I said, career path is not always linear. I was trying to find these slides and these two spoke to me a lot. The top one is like, when you Google career path, upward career mobility,
the majority of the images that came up was just this happy little ladder and this person just easily bounding up the ladder. That’s bullshit. Everybody knows it. How many times have we had ebbs and flows in our career? How many times have we been at the top and then fallen from grace quickly or been pushed off a ladder or had the ladder taken out from underneath us, had to start again, had to build again. It is not a linear path. Then the bottom one I thought was super fun because it, It shows and it demonstrates that just clear cruising of upward mobility, that there’s no obstacles, no anything. That, again, is bullshit. So this is the down arrows of like you’re going to have more raining down on you during your escalation points. So this is why mentorship is important.
is really crucial. It helps with the mentality of what we’ve been taught about what a career should be and looks like. And it is like, we need to learn from our experiences and yet it’s not going to be clear cruise sailing. And I will have to say this as much as I love our industry and I’m excited about it. We get a lot of crap and we get a lot of rugs swifted from underneath us as women and as leaders. And it really is a tough ride for us. And if anybody tells you differently, you might want to relook at the source. Employment lifecycle has ebbs and flows. Macroeconomics, microeconomics have something to do with career too, something that can be completely out of your control. Life happens, people get sick, people may go through things, go through life-changing traumatic things, that changes the path. Advocates are key to your moments. So making sure you have those advocates in place and that safe ear and that brain to pick, that is why career paths and mentorship is key.
And I would say that sponsorship above all, taking that mentorship to the next level and knowing that somebody is going to advocate for you behind your back. If you’re not inside the room, if you are not even knowing that they’re talking about you, it’s super important to have that advocate and that sponsor. So next path, next, next path. Okay. So this, this is story time and I had a lot of fun. through thinking about this. I had a lot of cringy moments of being like, Oh my God, I can’t believe that I did that. Or I went through that. Um, but everything I I’ve turned out fine at this point in my life. I’m like, okay, I’ve made it. I’ve had really bad times. I’ve had really great times. Um, so hopefully,
maybe you take some semblances of my stories and the lessons learned with this through some of my different mentors. And then we’ll kind of go to the call to action of how to become one or how to be good at it or how to ask for someone’s help or advocacy. So the first, let me take a drink of water first. Okay. So, the first natural person that came to my mind and as of probably a lot of you, um, your mom, your mother, like she, my mom showed me how to be a girl, a woman, and kind of, they end up teaching you all of the base, some of the basic needs that you need also put a lot of perceptions on you of who you should be, how you should act, blah, blah, blah. But, um,
So my mom is a redheaded Gemini. She is an absolute character. She is hilarious. She’s larger than life, but she had this list. So when I first went to kindergarten, she would give me this list and every year before I would go to school that in the next year, she would add onto the list and the list would get more and more intense, it would get a little bit more specific, and it would get a little bit more applicable to what I’d be dealing with in that year. So some of it was funny, like, always make sure to go to the bathroom before you get in the car, because you don’t know if you’re going to get stuck in a car accident or stuck on the freeway and have to pee your pants.
Her other one, which I thought was great, was always be nice to the nerds because you never know when you’re going to end up working for them. Well, I’d like to tell my mom, sorry, your daughter became a nerd, but she also was nice to people. So it makes it even easier. But the one thing that she continually was on, it was the last point of every list. But I’ve said this before in one of my previous chats, but to thine own self, be true. And you kind of think about that and you’re like, yeah, well, sometimes you go through things as a teenager. You’re like, who am I? What am I into this week? Blah, blah, blah. But again, that’s where that North Star comes. That’s where that moral compass, that’s where
you’re learning all these things from examples, from mothers, from teachers, from coaches, from friends, from everything. And you’re gathering that. So really at the end of the day, you have yourself to rely on. So take examples from everybody else who’s around you and create what makes you feel that true. So that was a great learning moment. And my mom is still alive to this day. And she still calls me with little nuggets every morning. Some of them are truly insane. And some of them are absolute gems, like to thine own self be true. So through growing up through school, obviously, you have coaches, you have teachers, you have people that Find hopes and talents and help you kind of maneuver through murky waters with mean girl moments or mean boy moments through breakups, through loves, through everything. And taking kind of pause and really looking at those moments and seeing who the people were who were operative and maybe those lessons. That’s kind of a special exercise too of like, oh, well, yeah. Yeah.
Someone, Mr. Kukin told me that I should really focus on my written skills because I have a gift and maybe I should take a little bit more and sit with him and actually develop that skill. If he wouldn’t have come to me and said that and tried to take me under his wing, I don’t think I’d be as great off as I am in my written and my oral skills. Just things like that of writing. oh, this is how this is kind of turned out for me. So my very first job, I had just turned 16 and it was, anybody who’s super old school Vegas will probably remember this, but it was a place called The Sporting House. And The Sporting House was like a gym, a spa,
It’s like a lifetime fitness, but the first of its kind for the Las Vegas community. And fun fact, it is now Sapphire, the strip club, but it was once a sporting house where Lauren Chelsea Westerfield as a 16 year old worked the pro shop. So my boss was probably in her forties and she was a lovely entrepreneur and she They were having a lot of problems trying to move the merchandise, trying to sell stuff in this pro shop. And she hired me and said, I want your fresh perspective. How can we make this look better? How can you sell this? How can you attach to the members here and really make them want to buy these products that you are selling? a lot of what she taught me was more to be, to sell myself and to be confident in what I was saying and what I was selling and kind of giving the hook to be able to increase merchandise sales. So I did that, but my most memorable moments was Siegfried from Siegfried and Roy came into my pro shop,
every single day. And every single day he would just buy a power bar and he would make the joke. He would unwrap it and say, would you like to see a power bar disappear? Yes, Siegfried. And he would eat the whole thing. So magician humor. But one day I kind of got, I had my boss in my ear and said, you know what, Siegfried? I love seeing your power bar disappear, but I’d like to see some of this merchandise disappear. So was able to have the confidence to kind of try to get him, try to merchandise it more and just really engage with him to see how I could start selling him or how I could start with that authentic relationship. And Siegfried of all people would come in every day and his purchase was not only a power bar, it would be a pair of socks, it would be a sweatshirt. So having that kind of push to
A, not be intimidated by someone because of who they were, their stature, but being able to kind of take a chance and win at the humor of it or win at the charm of it was really something that was great. A second thing as I was going through college, I had the ability, a sorority sister who was older saw something in me. She saw kind of a little bit more of the ability to engage with people and organize thoughts and organize people into action. So she was graduating and asked if I wanted to take over her very coveted job at the USC School of Cinema, working for the dean of the school. And the dean of the school at the time, his name was Larry Auerbach, and he was one of the original founders of William Moore,
William Morris Agency. To someone who is 21 years old, you don’t really understand that capacity of how cool that opportunity alone is. But he was probably in his late 70s, early 80s. He was retired from being an agent, but this was kind of his last swan song. So he would go and smoke a pipe every single day. And I saw that opportunity. I was like, he has 20 minutes of of uninterrupted time. And he left to smoke his pipe and probably clear his head. So I would start going out there conveniently during that time and sit on a bench kind of near him and start just engaging him about his life. And at first it was five minutes and got a little bit of nuggets, but then towards the end, it was like,
30 minutes of the full pipe smoking time. And Larry taught me some gems of just being in Hollywood and being an agent forever. But I guess the, the cool moment was being able to show an interest, I think in Larry and seeing him at a human level rather than he’s this big, you know, Ari gold figure. And, and, really being curious about him. He followed up and until I think he passed away, gosh, when I like 15 years ago, um, but he would call me every year, Blondie, how are you doing? Do you need anything? Can I help you in your career? So that was, you know, taking a chance and being a little bit more open to hearing about someone’s life that gave me just
total focus and total monumental relationship with this larger than my figure that I just kind of stumbled upon. Then I’ll talk about, so my first PR job, this is right as I was taking into Hooters Hotel Casino. My first boss was a complete and utter hard ass. I mean, she was scary. scary as shit to all of us. She was beautiful, well coiffed, totally put together, would drop the hammer at any moment when she needed to and expected nothing but perfection. I was fresh out of college. I was 22 years old, you know, learning the industry, learning the who’s who’s who of Las Vegas, learning what the PR landscape looked like. And Kelly scared the absolute daylights out of me. But I learned from her. I was, again, open and curious and as scared as I was. I tried my hardest not to kind of piss her off. But the fact that I showed that
ability to learn and that curiosity to learn. And I honored kind of the way that she worked and complimented her style of kind of towing that line that she wanted, but also asking her, tell me your ways. She advocated for myself and my fellow team member at that time, so much so that she escalated me within my two years with that company through three raises. through three title changes and through all of these different projects that I would have none other been able to rely upon. So sometimes the tough as nails ones, you can crack them down, but you have to meet them at their moment. That’s what I learned through her. So through gaming, I’ve had a lot of mentors and I want to be very clear. And I think I’ve demonstrated this, that it’s not just, you don’t have to seek out
just female mentors or just female mentees. Men can be great too. And they kind of evolve in a whole different way. It’s just really that authentic relationship and what you’re comfortable with and what you honor most in your North Star, what you’re trying to get at. Maybe that person is not a woman. Maybe it’s a man or maybe it’s someone not in your industry. So really want to make that clear that you don’t have to have a set background box of mentor, what they look like. It just doesn’t happen that way. So in the gaming space, I’ve had a ton of different mentors and mentorship opportunities to give me the chance to escalate. And that’s what really contributed to my high escalation. But I think my greatest example is a
I was very young in my career in my gaming industry. I was a little coordinator and the GM of the property that I was at for, I think, two weeks at that time was moved and I got a new GM. And that GM saw some promise in me and we created a relationship, a really strong, great relationship. And I moved along, you know, moved up through the company. They moved to many different properties, always would keep in contact with this GM. This GM ended up leaving and after three or four years of not working with him, got a call one day, we’re starting a new project. I want you to come and run marketing for us and gave me that escalation point. And ironically, I
That project was the project that introduced me to our current owner, the project that I’m on now, our current owner and our venture capitalist owner, and the CEO of my company today is that GM that I first worked for. So full circle moment, and he is the one who literally just advocates for me, ensures that I am protected, in the best way possible, ensures that I’m on the projects that have the most visibility and the most meaning. And in exchange, I do a hell of a good job for him and he has my loyalty. So cool moments like that, that in the immediate, like, oh, I don’t know how this is gonna turn out. Well, almost 20 years later, it’s turning out for me. And I think that’s just such a cool opportunity. Anyway, so I see that,
Cynthia, has your hand raised? I’ll take pause before we go into kind of the tough moments and moving forward. Cynthia, I don’t know if you mean to have your hand raised. Let me see if I can. No, she said, but there is a question. Actually, I think this is kind of what you were just talking about. And, you know, when we talk about the term mentorship, someone notes, you know, that often suggests a power imbalance where one person is positioned as the expert and the other as merely a learner. Can we foster real development when we aren’t on equal footing? I think that’s a perception. I mean, truly the relationship that you establish, and this is kind of in the future slides, is establishing clear boundaries and expectations. If both sides are aligned on that and discuss that in a vulnerable, true state,
I don’t think that indicates a power imbalance. I think it indicates a, okay, we’re both on the same page of where you wanna get, and this is how, given my learned experiences, I can help you, but you have to be open and honest and willing to tell me where you wanna go and what your pros and your cons may be so I can help you get there. I think going at it in that traditional kind of combative sense, with calling it a power imbalance already sets you back and may not be the appropriate approach. That’s my perspective. So do you want to move along? So like the North Star that guided sailors through the night, a mentor can help us chart a course to our goals, provide direction, clarity, and inspiration when we need it the most. I’ve had tough times in my career. I had a very public fall from grace where I decided to exit a very high-profile project simply because my mental state was not where I wanted it to be.
And the project had kind of led to a place where I felt my skills could not kind of overturn that. And my moral compass felt compromised. So I left. And that was a really tough, tough, probably year for me was that. having to take a deliberate pause, reassess what I was doing, and really find a new safety net of people who could help pull me out of the mud and help me stand back in my power and stand back in my conviction. And those mentors and those people came from very different places, came from people who worked for me to understand my management style and what I could do better, how I could respond politically better. It came from friends, it came from family, it came from people who I had never met and connected with on LinkedIn, who sent me diatribes of how they had been in that same circumstance, and this is how they got through it. So really, mentorship shows up in any kind of capacity. And sometimes when you really need it, it shows up in spades. So
I would say, and this is on the next slide, go ahead, that being vulnerable and being willing to express that and express, hey, I’m not okay, or hey, I might be down on my luck, or this happens, this wasn’t a lived experience that happens. I think people have more grace towards that than pretending everything’s fine and kind of covering it up and withering silently. So in identifying mentors or mentees, find your purpose. So that goes back to the North Star of what is it that you really want out of this? What are you struggling with to get to your North Star that someone else, that another brain or another set of eyes or another inspiration can help you get to? Find it, define it, be obsessive about it. Define your attachment to your career.
So define your attachment to your career and define people who have demonstrated that target. That’s a group of people that you want to be kind of honed with. Be clear in your ask and your expectations. Like I just said, that helps establish boundaries and clear expectations from both sides as what you want out of this relationship and how the other person can help you. Compulsively be prepared in terms of information share. Be overly communicative and understand that that may take a shift or that you may need to redirect that. But if you are willing to share your progress and to share what may be getting in the way, that opens up the two-way street and the two-way conversation for feedback. Identify your network and see alignment with a potential mentor. Looking at your network, you could find someone in there who may not be necessarily
100% connected to you, but one of your network is and may offer you a warm intro for a conversation and for a consideration. Dig in and do the work. Just be willing, be curious. Like I said, curiosity oftentimes led me to so many successful paths just because I was willing to open my mind and my viewpoints. Prepare to be vulnerable with experiences, the good, the bad, the ugly. If you were wrong, if you were right, if you were wronged, or if you were righted, you have to be completely clear and honest if this relationship is going to work. Flexibility and willingness to change. If you just want to issue out expectations and you’re not willing to change, that kind of just resolutes the whole entire project.
Practice grace and compassion. Know that your mentor or your mentee may be really busy or may be going through things. So instead of kind of creating a hostile environment, maybe check in and be graceful with yourself. Be compassionate with yourself and with others. And gratitude for your path and for your mentor. Just a simple thank you. Like, thank you for your time. Thank you for giving me that advice. And just… Just a thank you is really sometimes the best. So mentorship is the value exchange of wisdom from an experience one. Sponsorship is actual advocacy and the advancement of a protege. So this is where, you know, mentorship versus sponsorship. kind of takes over, which is a whole other topic. But mentorship can, the point of this was mentorship can pave the path to something a little bit more meaningful and a little bit more driven in advocacy, which is sponsorship.
Make the most of your unique ability. Again, define your purpose in your North Star. This is just a summary of everything we talked about. Express it meaningfully, authentically, convincingly, and you will get fans. You will get people who want to be on that journey with you, who want to help you advance. Live it with proof points and enlist advocates. Talk about it. Talk about your successes. Talk about your bad times. Talk about your lived experiences. Know your individual benefits and worth and what you bring to personal relationships. That’s good. What are your pros and your cons? And embrace the full process. Tell me, teach me, involve me, guide me. And then when it’s your turn, do that for someone else. So that’s it. That’s what I have. And I took a little bit longer than I expected,
in my storytelling. But thank you guys for being here in this space with me. And hopefully you took away some goodness. We could talk about this for hours on end. But connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m
pretty responsive and happy to help you with any additional questions or thoughts or conversations you may want. But hopefully this was good for you guys. And thank you. I’m sad I couldn’t see everyone’s faces, but appreciate your time. This
great. Thank you, Lauren. Don’t forget to send us your impact statement and we can share a link to that document for anybody who wants to review it. And as you were talking about it, I was like, wow, what a great idea. Like, cause you always think, oh, that’s really cool. I love that, that statement or that phrase or this thought or idea. And then life happens, right? And you forget about it and you don’t focus on it anymore. And I, so super great idea. And then when you pulled out your board, I just was like, aha, you do all these things on top of your nine to five, giving back to the community, right?
you know, and all the stuff that you listed, and then you find the time to do that. Pretty, pretty awesome. But one thing I just want to quickly share is that you said it, and so it still resonates with me, but finding mentorship through just friend groups has been huge. And I can speak to that, you know, I would say maybe this past year for me has been, that’s been a really big part of my mentorship journey is through friend groups that I’ve just gotten some really great friends and they haven’t been lifelong friends. They’ve been friends that I’ve just recently met within the past few years, but we’ve just connected and they’ve become mentors to me. So I see that how you can find a mentor anywhere and it’s just really kind of cool how, what comes out of that. So. That was great, Lauren. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you for everyone for listening.
I appreciate you all. Good luck in your journeys. Thank you. We’ll see everybody next month. No virtual masterclass next month because we will be at G2E. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.