Paying it Forward: How Mentorship Pushes Us to Success

There’s a theory of success that suggests each of us is the average of the five people we hold closest. This sphere of influence is a reflection and foundation of who we are, what we do, and what we can achieve. The right people can build us up, push us to excel, and persevere when we think we can’t go on. The wrong people sink us.

I started looking for the right people in my early 20s. I found two of my five at my first job out of college.

That first job was a rude awakening. I was one of two female engineers in a company of 110. I felt overwhelmed, out of my league, and didn’t know how I’d manage to not get fired. I did what I knew to be my best to push through it, but at 23, I didn’t know much.

Jim Kuras, a few levels senior to my position, saw my struggle. But he told me he also saw my potential. He liked that I wasn’t afraid to fail. He could’ve watched me drown in my ignorance and uncertainty. Plenty of other people in the office were doing just that. But he threw me a lifeline—he started offering me guidance, encouraging me, and letting me know where I was screwing up. He became my first real mentor. Now 25 years later, Kuras is vice president of Clinical Affairs and Operations at Centinel Spine LLC. He continues to be one of my most trusted friends and advisors.

He says he benefits from mentoring me as much as I do from his guidance.

“Over time, the student and the mentor always benefit if it’s done right,” he said. “You grow in respect for one another. In the long run, it pays off because you have a great friendship in the end.”

As Kuras was supporting me in that first job, my husband and business partner Chris was working at that same company for Sam Owusu-Akyaw, who saw past immaturity and insecurity to the drive and brilliant mind that were often, ironically, at the root of many of Chris’s early mistakes. When Chris and I left that company to start Empirical Testing Corp., Owusu-Akyaw became part of my sphere as well. He strongly encouraged us to take the risk of working for ourselves because he believed in us and our idea for an independent mechanical testing lab. Recently, he pushed us again to expand our business and pursue biologics, so we’re now developing a new company specific to that. It’s an exciting project Chris and I are passionate about, one we never would’ve thought of without a nudge from Owusu-Akyaw.

He said his job as mentor is to encourage us to take appropriate risks based on our talents and goals.

“[The mentor] take[s] something they know how to do best and opens the horizon and says, ‘Why don’t you try that,’” he said. “The mentor pushes, directs, and leads the person to see the potential of his or her vision.”

As I know very well, that push is often uncomfortable. But it’s well worth seeking out and developing relationships with people you trust to be brutally honest.

“You have to be willing to say things the person needs to hear, not what they want to hear,” Kuras said. “Find people that are capable of delivering the message that way without crushing you, without taking all your self-confidence away. They value you as an individual, but they’re providing you information you need to hear.”

It’s also about helping people develop a set of personal and professional ethics that will support long-term success, Owusu-Akyaw said. He recalled a time when he was CEO of a major medical device company considering a product recall after an instrument broke during surgery. Initially, his executives were reluctant to recall. So he gathered his team for a tough meeting about what they should do and reminded them this was about more than the company’s bottom line.

“After sitting in that meeting for two days, I had to come to a decision,” he said. “I told everybody to pick a piece of paper. [I said] ‘I just want everybody to stop what you’re doing and I want you to think about being 70 years old. You’re thinking about all of your accomplishments—how will you judge this situation?’ Based on that, everybody voted to recall.”

Kuras encourages his mentees to get really clear on their priorities. For him, it’s his family first, himself second, and his career third.

“If I can convey that to people starting out, maybe they won’t have some of the issues I had,” he said. “Originally, it was career first—I was willing to sacrifice health and wife. Very few people on their deathbed look over at their family and say, ‘God, I wish I had another week to work.’”

I’ve called Kuras and Owusu-Akyaw for almost every difficult decision I’ve had to make. Having them in my sphere, knowing they will listen to understand, never judge, and offer a clear perspective without emotion has enabled me to make smart decisions and recover from stupid ones.

While I still lean on my mentors, I’ve also found myself offering advice to young engineers, friends’ children, and students who tour our testing lab. I used to wonder how my mentors could be so patient, so supportive, and so accessible.

But I get it now. It’s about leaving this profession—this planet—in better shape than we found it.

“For me, it’s passing on what I’ve learned and the camaraderie involved,” Kuras said. “It’s deeper than just professional. The fact that I could pass along some advice and help [someone] in the long run, it does make me feel better that I’ve helped someone.”

Owusu-Akyaw agreed.

“The whole thing is this: We have to leave something behind. That’s the goal,” Owusu-Akyaw said. “It’s the joy to see people succeed, especially if what they’re doing contributes to the world. It’s more of you try to bring something into the world that you yourself can’t do it, but somebody else can. There’s a joy in it.” 

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Dawn Lissy is a biomedical engineer, entrepreneur, and innovator. Since 1998, the Empirical family of companies (Empirical Testing Corp., Empirical Consulting LLC, and Empirical Machine LLC) has operated under Lissy’s direction. Empirical offers the full range of regulatory and quality systems consulting, testing, small batch and prototype manufacturing, and validations services to bring a medical device to market. Empirical is very active within standards development organization ASTM International and has one of the widest scopes of test methods of any accredited independent lab in the United States. Because Lissy was a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, she has first-hand, in-depth knowledge of the regulatory landscape. Lissy holds an inventor patent for the Stackable Cage System for corpectomy and vertebrectomy. Her M.S. in biomedical engineering is from The University of Akron, Ohio.

For more information about Empirical Technologies Corp. visit www.EmpiricalTech.com