Mentor: Mr. Joshua Meek

Profession: Founder of Meek Industries

Location: Virtual Zoom Call

Date: August 30th, 2020

Time: 6:30 PM – 8:20 PM

Assessment:

Despite the new journey with a new topic and year, my journey of entrepreneurship and impact investing with Mr. Meek had been so fluid in that it feels natural. As our relationship of a mentor and student has gown outside of the Independent Study & Mentorship program, we naturally graduated into talking from social entrepreneurship into investments as I began taking an interest in trading and the stock market. Therefore, this first ‘mentor’ visit served as an important landmark in beginning my education and journey as an impact investor.

Through this first mentor call, I was looking to reconvene with Mr. Meek after a break of discussing Groundify and social entrepreneurship and hoping to catch up with him regarding our personal lives and how it related to my upcoming year. We began our call by casually chatting about our current political environment and any interesting business news, which itself was a highlight as I realized that Mr. Meek and I were connecting on a personal scale and that we were conversing about educated topics beyond the scope of the program’s coursework. In addition to this amazing start, the main highlights of our meeting included discussing the concepts of impact investing, how it plays into the stock market, the vitality of this concept in the future, and a potential project I can complete this year with the lens of impact investing. Ultimately, the call itself and the experiences within our first meeting have led me to a stage of excitement for the upcoming year, numerous opportunities to explore my research, and a vision of my project.

The most important aspect of the interview was Mr. Meek’s ability to communicate life lessons and teachings from any discussion we are having. While catching up and telling Mr. Meek more about my college application experience and the fact that I am targeting numerous prestigious schools, he responded with a simple yet largely impactful statement. As I expressed a sense of nervousness about the process, he mentioned how giving it your best shot is what we have control over, and we therefore must persevere to do so. In addition, Mr. Meek went on to mention the importance of diligence and proactive efforts to ensure so that an individual is prepared to achieve his/her goal. This valuable teaching impacted me in several positive ways as I understood that worrying about my application process, or for the matter of fact, anything that I want to achieve, will only make it harder. Rather, I should focus on what I have control over, which is the effort and dedication I put into my action and surround myself with an air of positivity. As I have begun to implement this lesson into my daily tasks, I have found that not only do I perform more efficiently on tasks – I was able to write a stellar college supplemental essay and negotiate a retail deal with a coffee shop – but the results themselves are better as I go in with an air of confidence and positivity. Ultimately, in addition to the content I learn at these meetings, the skills that I acquire are priceless and help me improve my character and therefore the results I receive when I take action to reach a goal.

In addition to the values I learnt from this meeting, Mr. Meek and I had a short discussion on our future in this relationship and my project. As he mentioned how you must do something that benefits someone else, I have begun to form a clearer vision on a potential project idea for this year given that I conduct the appropriate research. Through this information, I look to direct my mentor visits, informational interviews, and research towards how implementing impact investing at the stage of youth entrepreneurship and spur community growth in the lens of the economy. Although this was the first call and I was not able to dive dep with Mr. Meek into content, I look forward to future meetings focused specifically on research findings and improvement on my project ideas.

In conclusion, this journey, which began last year, has been one which has changed my life. And I look forward to receiving mentorship and guidance as I move forward on my quest to better my knowledge in these fields, fields that will drive our future.