Femme Hive

Reaching out to older, more experienced people can be pretty daunting to young professionals. We are oftentimes intimidated by individuals who are very accomplished on paper and are wondering what value we can even add with our limited life and work experience.

And yet everyone around us keeps stressing the importance of having mentors. But how to find them?

This week, we are joined by Sanyin Siang, Executive Director of the Coach K Leadership & Ethics Center at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and adjunct associate professor with Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. Sanyin is currently ranked as the world's #1 Executive Coach by Thinkers50 and she is the author of the Launch Book.

Sanyin is not only an incredible mentor herself but also loves debunking some common mentorship myths. On this episode, she shares advice on how to best approach potential mentors and how to be a good mentee. Sanyin strongly believes in the power of paying it forward and shares some beautiful anecdotes on how her mentees have added a lot of value to her life.

This episode also features some endearing moments as our host Thamina admits her "girl crush" on Sanyin and how she had been admiring her from afar for years. Don't miss out on a touching exchange between the two women as Sanyin offers Thamina some incredibly kind words of encouragement.

Most women hate self-promoting themselves because we live in a society where women talking about their accomplishments is still frowned upon.

Unfortunately, accomplishments do not speak for themselves and if we women don't speak up, we risk falling behind our self-promoting male peers and missing out on job opportunities.

On this week's solo episode, Thamina is emphasizing the importance of self-promotion at work and is running you trough an interactive exercise to help you become more comfortable talking about your achievements.

Did you watch Marie Kondo's show or The Home Edit on Netflix? We sure did. So if you find color coded bookshelves and drawer dividers highly satisfying, then this episode is for you.

This week, Thamina is talking to Lucy Milligan Wahl, Founder of LMW Edits, a professional organization company based in San Francisco. Lucy's mission is to bring common sense organizing solutions to modern urban living and has a lot of clients in their 20's who are fed up with the way they're living.

On this episode, we find out how an organized home can be the foundation of a beautiful life that prioritizes the relationships, activities, and commitments that matter to us the most. Lucy also talks about the most common mistakes people make when trying to get organized and how we can set up a great "Working from Home" workspace.

Bad luck with dating? You are not alone.

Our host Thamina has had her fair share of bad experiences with love interests, including emotional and physical abuse. Fortunately, she has been in a very happy and successful (cross-continental long-distance) relationship over the past 2.5 years and has become her female friends' go-to person for relationship advice.

On this week's episode, Thamina tells us how to identify whether someone you are seeing is actually interested and what qualities to look for in a good partner.

What role do you want to play in this world? Many young professionals have absolutely no idea how to answer that question. And how would they in a world where our education systems are driving us towards specific professions rather than teaching us how to have an impact?

Not knowing your purpose in life can cause a lot of frustration and overwhelm to people in their 20s, for some it might even lead to an existential crisis.

To help us get closer to finding our purpose, we are joined by Dr. Leanne Armitage this week. Leanne’s mission in life is to inspire people to be the best version of themselves. She is doing so by sharing her story of the obstacles she has overcome in order to walk in her purpose. With The Armitage Foundation, Leanne is helping to increase diversity across UK medical schools and for her incredible work she was awarded the 2018 Queen’s Young Leaders award by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

On this episode, Leanne and Thamina talk about social mobility and how one traumatic childhood experience changed the trajectory of Leanne's life, allowing her to set course on becoming a doctor.

Have you been lacking motivation at work and elsewhere lately? If so, you are not alone. After a year-long pandemic it is completely normal to experience a low.

This week our host Thamina is opening up about her motivation slump over the past couple of weeks where she even considered changing jobs but a perspective shift helped her regain her motivation. Thamina vulnerably talks about a tough start to 2021 and shares some tips that have allowed her to get back on track. If you want to indulge in some shared misery or need a bit of a pep talk this week, hit play.

When to take a risk if not in your 20s? As young professionals, it can sometimes be difficult to challenge societal norms and expectations in exchange for our pursuit of fulfillment and happiness.

Priyanka Venkannagari joined prestigious Bain & Company as a Consultant after graduating from Duke University in 2017 but temporarily left the company after two years to pursue an externship with the Africa Healthcare Network (AHN) in Tanzania. Instead of returning to her coveted job in the United States upon completion of her externship, Priyanka decided to stay in East Africa and is now working as AHN's Senior Director of Growth and Expansion.

In this episode we talk about Priyanka's experience as a Consultant and what motivated her to leave Bain. She walks us through her thought process when she was confronted with making a tough decision and shares some great advice for anyone who is considering taking a leap of faith.

Investing in the stock market has a bad rep. It either seems too complicated or too risky. But that's actually not entirely true.

Our Founder & Host Thamina is here to demystify the process of how to get started with investing in the stock market - explained in under 15 minutes. Spoiler alert: It's less complicated than you think it is and investing in stocks was absolutely crucial in order for Thamina to generate a ~70k net worth. She also explains why investing in general is absolutely crucial to building wealth and what types of brokers are available in the US and Europe.

Should I go to grad school? Should I quit my job? Should I pivot in my career? Should I go to a bigger company? Should I join a smaller company?

As young professionals who are at the beginning of our careers, it can be tough trying to figure out what we should do next on our quest towards a fulfilling, purpose-driven life (that also pays the bills!).

This week we are joined by Melanie Okuneye who is currently pursuing her MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to joining Stanford, Melanie worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in London and New York City. While she never planned for a career in finance, Melanie firmly believes that not limiting your career options early on is key to sustainable long-term success.

Ever since Melanie joined the world of finance, she was very strategic about her next steps, including returning to school. After Stanford, Melanie would like to further build out the infrastructure around African music to empower African artists and show diverse images of Africa to the world, empowering those in the diaspora.

Does preparing for your performance review seem like something you always do last minute without strategic preparation?

It certainly used to feel like that for our host Thamina. In this episode, she walks you through why it is so important to come prepared for your performance review conversations in the first place and how you can put a strategic process in place that allows you to increase your chances of receiving a higher performance review rating without feeling too overwhelmed.

Thamina recommends a few easy steps to take 6 months, 1 month, and 1 week before your performance review self-evaluation is due, which has allowed her to move from an "achieved expectations" to an "exceeded expectations" performance rating one review cycle later.