Connie Thanasoulis recently left her job at Merrill Lynch and has been chronicling her experiences for The Glass Hammer…

Week 4:

I’ve decluttered my own house so much that I am now helping my mom with her projects. She’s 74 years old, and part of the reason I left work was to spend more time with her. She’s been a cigarette smoker all her life and I decided I didn’t want to wait to spend time with her when she had an oxygen tank strapped to her back, so we are spending more time together now. Today, we went to visit my aunts (her sisters) and had a few laughts. Later on we went on a good shopping trip. I promised not to rush her, which she liked.

Last week, I enlisted my sister’s help and together tackled the disaster in my mom’s walk-in cedar closet. We sorted through the piles and threw out about eight bags of very dusty, very old things. We found a message box from when we were kids and games we used to play with. We found about ten free give-away tote bags, which we had no idea why our mother saved. I swear, companies should stop giving those things away. The entire population of New York has about ten each, just taking up space in their closets.

My mom is always one to stash away money in crazy corners, so we had to open EVERYTHING before tossing it away. She didn’t disappoint us. Sure enough, there in the bottom left corner of the closet was her stash. After the massive clean up, we put her money right back where it was. She’s a riot.

She’s the best mom I could have every hoped for and I’m thrilled I get to see her more. I think she is too! This is what life is all about.

All of you savvy women in finance know how important it is to have a mentor in your field. Someone you can look up to, confide in, work with and learn from. If you are like me, you probably picture your ideal mentor as an accomplished woman who looks just like you in ten or twenty years. (Minus the wrinkles and a few extra pounds, of course. You will still be young-looking and stylish at her age!)

But your ideal mentor match might not be someone exactly like you. The “Mini-Me” approach to mentoring often does not work well for women, for several reasons. First, the demand for high powered, qualified women to serve as mentors to bright promising young women outstrips the supply at most companies. Why? Because there are fewer women in positions of power in finance and law, though that is changing. This is especially true for women of color. Second, being mentored by a woman who is too much like you can cause tension and competitiveness when the star pupil begins to outshine the teacher. Third, you can often learn more about your industry by working with someone whose style and background are different than yours, rather than reaffirming what you already know.

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