Mindful Mentoring w/Tom Martin

Send us Fan Mail Hannah Robinson is a College of Charleston Communication graduate from the class of 2017. At the age of 7, she played a younger version of Hilary Duff in the movie “A Cinderella Story.” Today, Hannah is a business strategist, brand consultant, and founder of HVR STUDIO, a boutique consulting and creative studio built at the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and meaningful co...

Send us Fan Mail Ever heard of Ludwig Beethoven? Probably so. But how about Joseph Haydn? He was Beethoven's mentor. Ever heard of Michelangelo? Yes? Well, how about Domenico Ghirlandaio? You guessed it, he was Michelangelo's earliest mentor when his most famous student was just 13. The world of art is filled with mentors, going back to Socrates, who mentored Plato in ancient Greece. In...

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to win a Presidential Award? Can you speak at Commencement and still admit your failures? How do you snag and keep that first job? David Byrd has the answers. At the College of Charleston’s Spring Commencement ceremony, David was a featured speaker as a recipient of the college’s Presidential Award for Scholarship, Leadership, and Service, the highest award given...

Send us Fan Mail You're about to make the transition from college to career, and you're probably getting more well-meaning advice than you can handle. Parents, grandparents, friends, coaches, and professors are all eager to pass along words of wisdom to you. But wouldn't you rather hear from people who have made that transition themselves? What do they have to share? In this episode...

Send us Fan Mail Commencement. It means a beginning, but for some, it's a scary end to their time in college. In just a few days, the College of Charleston Class of 2026 will walk across the stage at the historic Cistern Yard and receive their diplomas. As they're about to launch into this new world, how should they be preparing? Lancie Affonso says they should be focusing on adaptabilit...

Send us Fan Mail Do you need 12 internships to succeed after college? How can you make AI your friend? What is an "expander?" Does curiosity matter? How long should you stay at the same job? Dakota Kate Isaacs answers these questions and more on this episode. Isaacs, the head of brand strategy and narrative at Quince —the rapidly growing, affordable luxury clothing brand—recently receive...

Send us Fan Mail Kelli Parsons has led global communications agencies as a CEO and corporate communications departments as a chief communications officer. But she is perhaps best known as a keen developer of talent. No fewer than twenty-five of the women and men she has personally mentored have gone on to become founders, agency CEOs, and Chief Communication Officers at major companies. She is the...

Send us Fan Mail For the past six months, one of last year’s Martin Scholars graduates, Blakesley Rhett, has been pursuing her dreams of becoming a journalist as a graduate student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She recently posted on LinkedIn: "Six Lessons from Six Months in Grad School." I was so impressed by the post that I invited her to...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Season Three of "Mindful Mentoring." We kick off the new year with a special episode featuring our own Dr. Bethany Goodier, the director of the Martin Center for Mentorship in Communication at the College of Charleston. Beth delivered the Winter Commencement address at the College last month, presenting four life lessons to the graduates, their families, and f...

Send us Fan Mail To celebrate our second year of the Mindful Mentoring podcast, we are re-releasing our first episode from two years ago. We had a very special guest for our inaugural Mindful Mentoring podcast. Dr. Andrew T. Hsu is the 23rd President of the College of Charleston. President Hsu has had a long and distinguished career, first as an aerospace engineer working on NASA programs, then mo...

Send us Fan Mail How can I find purpose in my career? That's the question my students and recent graduates ask me all the time. They want a job that provides them with more than just money. They want a sense of purpose, a job that is doing something to help people, the environment, or society in general. Ann Reinking Whitener has found that sense of purpose in her career. For the last nine ye...

Send us Fan Mail How do you build a personal brand, one that reflects who you are, what you stand for, and what you have to offer? Ask Dakota Kate Isaacs, a 2015 graduate of the College of Charleston. She's an expert on brand building as Senior Director of New Global Ventures at Deciem. This Canadian beauty company is part of The Estée Lauder group, and is best known for its brand, The Ordina...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve learned an important truth: career paths in communication rarely follow a straight line. They are winding roads, filled with detours, occasional potholes, a few dead ends, and countless zig zags. But with resilience, perseverance, and determination, they can ultimately lead to a career filled with opportunity, interesting challenges, and fascinating people. In this episode, t...

Send us Fan Mail How do you design your life in a way that will help you reach your dreams? And how do you design your college experience so that it helps move you in the right direction after graduation? In this episode, we learn how the College of Charleston has embraced the Life Design Coaching approach first developed at Stanford University. The college now offers students and alumni in all ar...

Send us Fan Mail The final year of college can be stressful. The prospect of graduation and entering the working world can be daunting. But what you do in that final year of college can have a powerful impact on attracting the attention of employers. How do you balance all these competing forces, and still have fun? Four Martin Scholars--Casey Riley, Jacqueline Jevtich, Evan Malcolm, and Blakesley...

Send us Fan Mail What is networking? Does building a network make a difference? How do we become experts at it? To answer these questions, and more, four Martin Scholars graduates from the College of Charleston tell their own stories about how networking has made an enormous difference in their lives and careers. They’ve learned a lot, and they have experiences to share on this episode. Listen and...

Send us Fan Mail Ever since COVID-19 changed the nature of work, remote and hybrid jobs have become increasingly common, especially for graduates entering the workforce for the first time. Remote work presents its own challenges. How do you get to know colleagues and clients when you only interact with them on Teams, Zoom, Slack, or 6Sense? How do you build a network when you’re working alone in y...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever doubted yourself? Have you ever felt like an impostor? Do you think a mentor can help? We asked Geoff Yost, the director of marketing and communication for Spoleto Festival USA, and the answer was yes, yes, and yes. His mentor, Jeannie Bunton, a longtime National Advisory Council member, helped Geoff see himself in a different light. She also connected him with other...

Send us Fan Mail How do you capture a recruiter's attention? What can you do to make yourself stand out? How do you bring value to a networking relationship? Why does your tenure in a job matter to a recruiter? Today’s guest has the answers to these questions and more. He's one of my former students, Ken Hansell, who graduated in 2016. He’s the founder and CEO of Connectwork, where he co...

Send us Fan Mail How do two recent College of Charleston graduates think about the future of AI? What role can graduate school play in developing your career? Where do mentors fit in to all of this? Get answers to these and other questions from Alexandria (Alex) Cottingham and Tanner Bailey. Tanner credits Alex with being one of his most influential mentors. They both use AI daily in their marketi...

Send us Fan Mail How do you nail that first internship after graduation? What are the keys to prepare for the pivotal interview? Today's guests, Evan Malcolm and Keith Lindenburg provide the answers. Evan is a Martin Scholar who just graduated in May. He was matched for the year with Keith Lindenburg, a longtime member and past chair of our National Advisory Council. Keith recently retired fr...

Send us Fan Mail Ever feel like your personal brand is scattered like loose leaves on a windy day? Is the way you show up on LinkedIn helping you gain an audience with recruiters? Our guest today can help you turn those loose leaves into a powerful set of content pillars . Daryl Layson is an expert on personal branding. He's the founder of FAME Focus, a communications and content agency dedic...

Send us Fan Mail How does someone who graduated only eight years ago change lives? She does it one protégé at a time. Recently the Martin Center awarded its annual Emerging Mentor Award to Taylor Shawver, senior vice president and co-founder of Integral, an employee engagement consultancy based in New York. Taylor graduated in 2017 and she was a member of the inaugural class of Martin Scholars. De...

Send us Fan Mail What can a college student learn from an award-winning mentor? Plenty. Recently the Martin Center awarded its annual Distinguished Mentor Award to Glen Jackson, Jackson Spalding's co-founder. Glen has been a dedicated mentor to many, both at the agency he co-founded and in the Greater Atlanta community. He's known for his humility, his generosity with his time, and his a...

Send us Fan Mail How can a mentor help you as you face key life decisions early in your career? What can a mentor learn from her protege? The Martin Center's Mentor-Protégé program matches Communication students—usually in their junior year—with a member of our National Advisory Council or another seasoned communication executive. The matches are for at least one year and often two. On this e...