By Michelle VanWeelde, Marketing Intern
In school, feedback wasn’t always good thing. A page full of red ink and comments in the margins meant poor performance. That’s the mindset that I carried into my marketing internship at Kent Companies, but thanks to the support of my mentors, that’s not the mindset I’m carrying forward.
When I first began at Kent, I used the feedback I received as proof I wasn’t good enough. The first article I wrote was simultaneously the most frustrating and eye-opening. There were so many edits that I struggled to see how my work contributed. It would have been more efficient for my mentor to write the article herself. But that’s when I started to see that her time and edits were an investment in me and my learning. So, I embraced every opportunity with motivation to keep growing – after all that’s why I was here.
The feedback kept coming, and when I let it guide me instead of defining my doubts, my confidence (and skills) started to grow.
A few months into my internship, my mentor passed along this saying to me: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.” What I didn’t realize was that my tree was already planted - on the first day of my internship. While I may have doubted myself, my mentors never did. They believed in me enough to invest time in my learning and help me plant the seeds for my growth. Perhaps that’s the gift of a place like Kent. Growth doesn’t happen alone. It takes people willing to invest in your potential, and the willingness to listen when they do. Because the feedback along the way was proof someone thought I was worth teaching.
If you are an unsure young professional looking for ways to grow, be assured: you will plant your tree, find mentors who help you water it, and the confidence to see you’ve been growing all along.
