Work Besties Who Podcast

The Power of Connection

• Season 1 • Episode 21

Share episode

Send us a text

On this episode of Power of Connections, we dive deep into Urmi's passion for finance and how her journey from university to the workplace has been fueled by mentorship and meaningful relationships. We explore how building strong connections can enhance job satisfaction and retention, and why mentorship is a two-way street where both parties learn and grow together.

From the power of women supporting women to the importance of networking with diverse individuals, Urmi shares how stepping out of her comfort zone and engaging in community events, Toastmasters, and workplace socials helped her forge impactful friendships and mentorships—including with her work bestie. Tune in for insights on how personal connections drive professional success and why fostering these relationships can open doors to unexpected opportunities.

And dont forget to find yourself and also be a mentor/friendtor!

To learn more about the charities mentioned in this episode, click on the names:
Femme Influence
Women in Leadership

To follow Urmi:

You can watch the full episode on Youtube
Follow us on IG and TikTok
Please rate, comment and provide suggestions for upcoming episodes

Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Claude:

Hi, I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.

Jess:

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties Hello everybody. Welcome back to our podcast. We are super excited to have a very special guest today. I'm actually just going to let her fully introduce herself.

Urmi:

Yes, of course, it will be my pleasure. My name is Urmi, I am based in Montreal and I work full-time in the financial sector. It's been eight years that I am in the industry and I have a lot of passions besides working full-time I am a self-published author, speaker, blogger, mentor and I'm a big advocate of women's empowerment. I am currently part of two organizations. One of them is called Women Leadership, which is based in Canada. I am the social media lead, and the second one is called Femme Influence and I am the campaign manager, and the organization is based in South Africa.

Jess:

Do you ever sleep?

Urmi:

I do, I get my eight hours of sleep.

Jess:

That is very impressive. You've given us a lot to chat about. One thing you did not highlight though I don't know if you want to talk anything about it is your actual background, which is finance. I believe. Right and kind of. How did you get from starting in finance to where you are and all these other adventures that you're in?

Urmi:

Yes, I am still in finance and I'm very I'm very happy of being in finance. How it started was we have to go back to my university time so I majored from a finance degree and finance has been really my passion. I enjoyed finance when I was in university. Finance was my first love. I loved going to university, studying, taking finance exams, and even after I started to work, I was still studying, and I'm still studying, like for a bunch of financial designations, and I started my career in the industry in 2016.

Urmi:

I started to work for this company based in Boston. I worked there as a client support administrator, did that for two years. Later on, I moved to another company where I worked there for four years. There was I've grown a lot in that company and I was working in compliance, and now I am working for another company. It's been two years and basically the work is in portfolio management, which is what I have studied, what I always wanted to do. So now I am where I'm meant to be and so I work in portfolio management and the different things that I do right now. These are some of the things that I have. I've started to do, let's say, in 2019, it started with few things, but then later on, in 2020, I started to do more and more as I became, I would say, better at managing my time, and I feel like life is not just about you know working. It's also about fulfilling and pursuing your passions.

Jess:

I feel like you've got a lot of passions and somehow you're managing them all very efficiently, which is impressive. The cost, these different companies you've worked at. Knowing the ethos of our whole podcast, do you have any examples of individuals that became work besties and what did that do or bring to your experiences in your different companies.

Urmi:

Yes, I actually do my first company. I met this woman and I guess I still remember the day she walked in because basically the way I compare her. I don't know if you guys watched this movie called Inside Out. It's a cartoon. I don't know if you have ever watched it.

Jess:

Oh yes, we love that movie we love that.

Urmi:

So you know the character sadness, yes, okay, this is how my friend or my co-worker looks like like, really like, literally, she has this round glasses, she's petite, she has a round face like sadness, and um, I remember the first day she, she, she working. She was working on my team and I didn't speak too much with her at the beginning, but she was always very curious to speak with me and I started to open up to her because I somehow looked up to her more like a mentor. And I can dig a little bit further about this because from her I started to learn like different things. Like she knew that English wasn't my mother tongue, so she would like throw me some words there to like pick up some new words. So there are some words that I have learned, such as pioneer, eclectic. And then it was actually thanks to her that I learned about podcasts and I remember one day she was saying how she like listened to this podcast and I was like what the hell is a podcast? So then she taught me about all of these things. So I feel like with her there was a sort of like a learning process, like I feel like I very much enjoyed her company because I was learning so much and she was willing to teach me and we worked together for two years.

Urmi:

We were basically co-workers, like I was working directly with her. We would go for the morning coffee, then we would have lunch together, and one thing that I very much liked about her was the fact that she understood me, because basically, she's married. She's Vietnamese and she's married she's Vietnamese and she's married to an Indian man, and I am South Asian ethnicity. So she was curious to learn about me, but I felt like we could understand each other because she was married to an Indian man. And what happened is I always shared to her all of my let's say things that I wanted to do, and so for my birthday, she actually took me to do karaoke, and so we went there all together and I was singing. These are some of the things I very much remember from the times we worked together.

Urmi:

And then, when I had to change jobs, it was so sad because I was like, oh my gosh, we will not see each other as frequently. But she was also telling me that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter where I go, as long as we make an effort to be in each other's life. That's all that matters. Do you stay in contact with her? Yes, yes, I do. I don't see her as much because she's been busy with her family, but I send her audios to give her life updates. Busy with her, you know family, but send her audience to give her life updates.

Urmi:

Um, they often talk about pop culture because she's very much into like music and celebrity, so she taught me about that too, so I send her like feels about. You know, this is what happened right now. I don't know, eminem this didi dad, you know these things, and so we keep each other like informed about what's happening and we share also our point of view with a lot of things. There's some of the things. I can go on and on and on definitely with the pop culture stuff.

Claude:

There's a lot right now yeah, what would have been your experience in this work without her? I?

Urmi:

think it would have been as informative as it as it was, because I feel like I've really learned a lot. So we have like 10 years of age difference.

Jess:

Difference okay.

Urmi:

And she also forgets sometimes that I'm so much younger than her. But I have friends that are much older than me and we are able to get along really well and I feel like she was always sharing a lot of wisdom. She was really guiding me. I did a presentation about her actually for Toastmasters and I said that she's not just my friend, she's not my mentor, she's my friend, or which is the combination of the two words, because I that's fantastic, that word, that is yes, you know you're the first person to bring that one up.

Jess:

I've heard other variations of it the friend, that's a mentor, but I've never heard anyone say the friend, or I love that very cute and um.

Urmi:

And then what happened is um wasn't just my friend or my mentor, she was a combination of both, but she became, let's say, informal. She became my, my mentor. You know, like I would always go to her for guidance, even when I had to, like, switch jobs and I had to get a promotion, like I would tell her openly like this is how I'm feeling, and she would always guide me. So for me she was really like a point of point of reference.

Jess:

I think that's one of the things about mentors. It's almost like a misnomer, it's like a one-way thing. It sounds like you two were friends like work besties, friends and then became so close that you're adapting your conversations to mentorship relationship. But I'm going to assume correct me if I'm wrong she probably comes to you just as much for some type of inspiration and conversation a mentor would do.

Urmi:

Actually yes, she does. When it comes to not work-related things, but other things, she does.

Jess:

Come to me for free things so it does sound like a typical mentorship relationship, where you both leverage each other to help better each other's opportunities too. So, speaking of mentorships, one of the things you commented on at the very beginning of this podcast was how you are very active across different organizations and very supportive of encouragement of women in business and in their career pathing, and one of the things I know that you're passionate about, too, is mentorships. Do you care to share some more insights on that?

Urmi:

Yes. So I still think that this whole thing about me being a mentor came from her, from my friend, I think. She was like a source of inspiration for me that I also wanted to give back in other ways. So for me, mentorship is valuable. Like everywhere I go, like when I change jobs, I'm always seeking for mentors, like I feel like that's one way to learn, like that's one way to learn, and I do think that mentorship is not a one-way street. It's a two-way street, like you learn as much as your mentor learns from the mentee, and I do think it's literally a two-way street. Both people, like both individuals, learn from each other and it's not about title, it's not about positions, it's really about two people sharing their experiences.

Urmi:

And I am part of different organizations as a mentor, especially for women who are studying finance and want to work in finance. I have mentored a couple of young talents who are studying finance and want to get a job eventually in finance. And I also mentor for other organizations, like in the Women in Leadership organization. I am an active member and I do think that for me, since mentorship is so valuable, I do like the woman of leadership organization, I am an active member and I do think that for me, since mentorship is so valuable, like I do, like the power of connection, I do, like you know, sisterhood that creates, like you know, uh, you're part of a tribe of women who want to thrive and I feel like we're really learning from each other. We're like sharing skills, we're talking about our talents. You feel very much motivated when you see that there are women who are willing to achieve greater things in life, and this is why I do love mentoring, because I feel like I also get motivated by these connections that I get, especially like there's this girl in particular, like an example.

Urmi:

So a mentor, I was a mentor for this organization called 100 women in finance and I was mentoring this girl. She's in her 20s and, honestly, she's such an ambitious woman. She comes to me telling me all these things that she wants to do and I'm like, damn, you just want to achieve things. And you know what I like seeing people that are driven, especially in finance, which is so dominated. I want to see women being go-getter and like breaking the ceiling.

Urmi:

And so when I like, when I mentor her and I still talk to her, even though we don't have that mentor formal relationship anymore. I still talk to her, I still do some catch up, I ask her how things are going and I push her to basically go out of her comfort zone and to go and achieve the things that she wants to do. I try to encourage her as much as possible to basically pursue all her goals. And when I see that, I also automatically feel motivated and encouraged to also do my own thing. And the reason why also I am a mentor is because when I was growing up I did not have a mentor myself. I always looked up at people but I didn't have any point of reference. I only have it right now, so I try to give back by being a mentor myself.

Claude:

How, when someone is looking for a mentor, what do you think the steps they should do?

Urmi:

Here's the thing I think that some mentors just happen to be in your life. Naturally You're just not aware of it. I'm just going to give an example. I had a boss who was not normally my mentor, but I would go to her for many, many questions and questions. She would always like share advice, you know. So because of the relationship that we had, because she was my boss, she was actually my mentor, like. I never told her that, but she was like I always look up to her.

Urmi:

But then for other people who want to have a mentor, there are actual programs in a company where you can enroll into this mentorship program and then you get paired up with someone who you know have your, your same interests, or maybe you have a particular goal that you want to achieve, and then this system pairs you up. So this is from the workplace perspective and it usually goes more about career. But then there are organizations out there where you can actively look them up and see if there's like a mentor program or mentorship program, like like, for instance, the women in Leadership has just opened their mentorship program for the upcoming year, and so any woman around the world can sign up to be a mentor or a mentee. So it's an open opportunity for both individuals mentor and mentee and you can sign up and then be paired up with someone. So, basically, those are some of the ways that you can have a mentor. You can do it informally or you can do it formally, so it depends whatever you choose to do.

Jess:

Do you have examples that you've done informally, besides the boss, for those that are starting in a company and maybe your boss isn't the best stylistic approach for you as a mentor, but you do see somebody else in the organization or if there's other examples?

Urmi:

yes, I actually have two good examples.

Urmi:

So, basically, the boss was more informal, but then there was a mentorship program at work, like my past the company. We had a mentorship program and then we had a list of people that we could choose from and these were people that I did not know at all, like, like these were from other departments. I didn't know them. They were not really the people that I have chosen if I had the choice, but I was still paired up with them and, honestly, it was a great experience because the fact that we didn't know each other I think it helped us to not have biases. You know, like he was not influenced by me, I was not influenced by him and he was my mentor for, I think, two years and that was because, like, the relationship lasted for two years and I would go to him for work related things, but I would also go and talk to him about not work related stuff, and that's because he wasn't my boss. I think that helped a little bit because I could openly talk to him about other stuff as well.

Claude:

There was a trust, right, there was a trust yeah.

Jess:

But Claude and I have that debate a lot about how close you can be with somebody that is your direct manager or somebody that you directly manage, because there's a little bit of sensitivity around that, right, you, you still want to have a friendship and relationship, but knowing the dynamics of work you still have to walk that fine line you can't share everything exactly, you cannot share everything and ideally you don't want to share everything, especially if it's your direct boss.

Urmi:

You know some boundaries there, I agree. And and then the other thing that I'm doing right now is the we call them coffee chats. I don't know if you are familiar with what these coffee chats are, but basically it's not an actual long-term like mentorship relationship. It's more like a speed mentoring where basically, when you sign up into this coffee chat program, you put all your information and then what happens is, on a regular basis, you get matched up with someone from the company. It could be based in anywhere in the world, as long as the company has offices there and then what happened is you have a 30 minutes or an hour of conversation with this person.

Urmi:

So it's someone from a different department, different role, different path of like, different like uh, from a different position of the company, and you have a conversation, and actually with one of them I got so much like valuable information. He actually helped me to basically pursue a designation. He convinced me that I should be like investing my time in learning, and so because of him I actually like enrolled into like a course and I finished it, and now I go to him, like for further education. I reach out to him and I ask him, like, oh, can we chat? And so that has been like another type of mentoring relationship.

Jess:

That's fantastic. It just reminded me that during COVID the company I was working at at that point in time they started that program. It is value added it's really cool.

Jess:

It is, yeah, it's really cool and it really especially when we went back to work and you got to see people again it really made being in the office that much more enjoyable, because there's so many people you walk by and you're like I don't even know what they do, let alone who they are, and it made a really big company feel smaller. I love that idea. Coffee chats are awesome, yeah.

Claude:

Because you do it remote, yeah, and especially you can even speak with people from other countries right, and learn and share processes, thoughts or anything from another side. So that is really good.

Jess:

We should do that yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. I completely forgot about it. But you're right, one of the coffee tests that I had I wound, wound up continuing an informal mentorship with the individual. They left that company and I kept up with them and we still sporadically chat Because, to your point, you never know, you connect over very different things and everybody's background may be different, but there's always something that you can learn from each other. Yeah, that is a really great one. So you also mentioned you're very active in the women's leadership. And what was the other one? The FAB influence.

Urmi:

Yes, it's called FAB Influence.

Jess:

Yes, and what is the focus of that one?

Urmi:

organization based in south africa and what the organization does is educate communities, smaller communities of women or girls to be more educated when it comes to mental health, hygiene, also other things such as leadership, and so they joined pretty recently and we're still trying to, you know, develop a lot of like the things we want to do, but our job is really to promote as much as possible basically this kind of topics mental health, women in leadership, hygiene and we want to provide like workshop to this community eventually. But it's really about educating them about these daily things that happen in our lives that no one talks about. And when it comes to women in leadership, which is the organization based in Canada, we do so many things. We have seven chapters all around Canada. Each chapter does its own thing. I volunteer for the chapter in Victoria and basically what they do is they have a program which is a leadership development program, and we also have a mentorship program so anyone can sign up to this program. They have a certain length and we also provide webinars throughout the year. These webinars are for free most of the time and they are delivered virtually like you can, anyone can watch them, and the webinars are about, you know, public speaking for women about how to, you know, get a promotion. So they're about different things, but the job again is to educate the women, help them to get the confidence, help them to get out of their comfort zone, find their voice, and it's. It's been a great experience so far, like I volunteer with a group of five other women and it's so nice to see how ambitious they are, and so it's been a nice experience so far.

Jess:

I feel like that's a great example of in an environment where you don't quite have your work bestie yet, how can you still get the same benefits, right? Right, so that support that we always talk about, the camaraderie, the encouragement, and then education as well, because those are some of the best qualities. There's so many qualities from a work bestie, but those are some of the top ones that we consistently hear, and it sounds like these organizations are a great supportive addition to having a work bestie. I think that's fascinating and a really smart idea, because one of the reasons we started this podcast was our we're a little older than you.

Jess:

Our generation is very supportive of having work besties, but we noticed with, especially the return to work after COVID, we didn't see the younger generations gravitating to, creating such a close bond, and we were trying to figure out ways to start that back up again. And while obviously we want to do it in our company, we want it everywhere, because it's one of those things that you can do even remotely, like the coffee test, as you just mentioned, and these other organizations are other great ways of doing that too, knowing that you kind of are now a little bit more seasoned you're not freshly right working. What have you seen as successful ways to navigate in a new company when you are new? So you don't quite have that work bestie yet you don't quite have the mentor company when you are new. So if you don't quite have that work bestie yet you don't quite have the mentor, what would be your kind of recommendation or ideas for kind of those individuals that are seeking to?

Urmi:

try and find those two things tell you and I think this could work for the newer generation because I've seen it definitely a lot of companies. They have a lot of social events. We have the. We call them Sankaset here. These are the happy hours where people go to and these are organized by the companies and all the newbies go there, even the people that have been in the industry for a long time. But I do think those are great ways to find, you know, a mentor, or to even, like, have a work bestie, because you know you are more, are more into. Yes, it's still like it's a work setting, but it's more informal.

Urmi:

So you're not like yeah, so you don't have to like think about work, you can talk about other things. And I think social events is is are great to attract people, especially the newer generations. When I've seen it with the younger people, they have been going to these events and they connect really well with people that are not necessarily from the same age and they can see how these connections keep going forward even afterwards. You see the people chit-chatting in the corridor, you see them talking to each other and I think it makes it even a great way to decrease the turnover in a company. You know they, if you find a friend, you're more willing to go to work, you're more willing to stay longer, you're more like willing to actually do the job. So I think it's a good way, it's a good tactic for companies to implement the social life, because I think here's the thing I've seen companies that don't have too much of a social life and I don't think that's a good strategy. Like I think the other is a bit of work-life balance.

Jess:

Yeah, exactly, we definitely agree with you, and there's studies out there that show the happier you are at work usually relates to feeling like you have a close knit of friends there or really close connections with individuals, and that's really what makes you thrive every day. Because work is hard. We're all there to do a job, but you do need that little bit of reprieve from somebody.

Jess:

Yes, I do want to hit on two quick things that you did comment about. I think it's great what you said to the younger generation if there's social activities or things that are less work related. So if there's a volunteer day, definitely participate in that. In essence, what you're saying is some of the things that we've been kind of promoting too is put yourself out there. You're going to need to be a little vulnerable in the beginning and it may feel awkward, but it's worth it. And then the other thing you hit on, especially with your example of your work, bestie don't judge the book by the cover.

Jess:

You never know who you'll be friends with. It could be that individual that's 10 to 15 years older, it could be younger, or 10 to 15 younger. It could be somebody in a completely different department that you never thought you'd get along with. Um, it's just, it's one of those things where always be open, because you'll be very pleasantly surprised, more so than you. You'll think yeah, honestly, one of the things that you had talked about with your work, besties you did is you did a Toastmaster. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about that program?

Urmi:

I love Toastmasters. I joined the organization in 2019 with the goal of delivering a TED Talk. I've already become 35.

Jess:

You heard it here first. She's going to be in a TED Talk everyone, I hope so. I hope so you are Positive thinking.

Urmi:

I was very much inspired by a speech that I have watched of Meghan Markle that she gave basically during the United Nations, and then I told myself this is what I want to do. I want to be able to speak the way she does. So I joined Toastmaster, which is an nonprofit organization with the goal of creating leaders and also helping you with public speaking. This is the thing that people do not know is that it's not just about public speaking, but you also get to learn a lot about leadership. You get to learn a lot about mentorship, because they do have a mentoring program. You get to learn a lot about mentorship because they do have a mentoring program. You get to learn about other skills. They learn about active listening active listening skills. You learn about critical thinking.

Urmi:

You also network with people, because the people there are not necessarily from your same you know background. These are people from you know, different ages, different education, different cultural backgrounds. It's an opportunity for you also to network with people and with Toastmasters. Basically, every country has a Toastmaster club, every city has a Toastmaster club, the area of the city has a Toastmasters club and you basically have to pay for a membership fee and everyone meets at least once a week and during this meeting, which are very structured, very organized, you have a chance to speak and there is actually a program that tells you like what speech you have to give, the length of the speech, the objective of the speech. So it's an actual, like educational program that you actually get to learn a lot about it. And this year we're celebrating 100 years of those masters, so we have oh wow, we came a long way.

Claude:

Yes, yeah, I didn't realize. Do they give you what theme you need to speak?

Urmi:

about? Yes, so here's the thing during the meeting. Basically we have these meetings on a weekly basis you have a team of the meeting. You know, like all everything, like all these roles that everyone will be performing, has the team and you know it beforehand. And then, when you're delivering a prepared speech, you choose the team, but they tell you the objective. So you have to make sure that whatever you're trying to say has to be within those objectives. So, in because we have an actual mentorship program, you also have the chance to be paired up with someone who has been a seasoned speaker, someone who's been there for a long time, and you can basically go and ask them for, like guidance and tips on how to deliver a speech, and they help you with how you can improve your speech. That's fantastic.

Jess:

I know of others who have gone through it that, to your point, did it more so because of public speaking, but felt what they got out of it was tenfold compared to that. While the public speaking was super helpful with so many other things that they were able to master and networking was definitely one of them the imposter syndrome was one of them, so I'm so glad to hear that that is still relevant, prime, and another example of how that helped elevate you too. Um, is there anything else that you might want to share with us, ermie, that, um, we didn't talk about or get a chance to bring up?

Urmi:

because we touched a lot about mentorship. Um, I would say that for anyone, especially who's working in a corporate world, that if you want to make your work day much more enjoyable, always seek for a mentor and, you know, get out of that comfort zone by going to coffee chats, by going to social events, by enrolling into mentorship program, by doing, you know, a volunteering day, by participating in events like fundraising or, you know, charity events, because I think you will have a chance to meet people that share your same values, especially when it comes to charity events, and you know volunteering things. You will not see everyone, but you'll see people that share your same value, and I do think these connections are a long-term investment because you never know how they can come helpful one day or another. So I do want to encourage people to basically go out of the comfort zone and meet people from that space.

Jess:

That's fantastic parting words. Ermi, you were very impressive.

Claude:

Inspiring, yes, inspiring.

Jess:

We're going to see much more, bigger and better things. We're going to see your TED Talks soon, hopefully, and I love how you are. A great example of work is important to you, but you don't make that the only thing about yourself. You're active in promoting across all these different organizations, the women's leadership Communities yeah, your communities and how you're giving back to other women out there is so impressive. I think that more and more people should be like you, and you're making me want to go join more things. Right after this, I was thinking the same thing. I feel like my men, the people I mentor, isn't enough. I got to step up my game a little here.

Jess:

Thank you so much, remy, we so appreciate you being on here and sharing your stories about your work, besties and examples, and we'll link all of some of the information that you provided on the organizations you support, your blog and your social media, and we again look forward to seeing you continue to rise and we'll all be there cheering you on when your TED Talk does occur.

Urmi:

Thank you.

Jess:

Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude:

So keep lifting each other up, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Claude F

Co-host
Head Shot

Jess K

Co-host
Head Shot

Urmi

Guest