Last week, I had breakfast with a room full of remarkable women.

We were there for the PharmaSee mentorship program, getting ready to be paired with pharmacy students. Around the tables were women leaders who had built interesting careers across different parts of our profession and were now genuinely excited to share that experience with someone coming behind them.

September is busy for me. My calendar fills quickly, and there are always meetings I could take, emails I could answer, or something that feels urgent enough to justify skipping something else. But I had put the breakfast in my calendar, and I went. I was very glad that I had made the time.

I also left thinking about what mentorship actually does.

We tend to tell stories about becoming as though it is an individual project. We build careers, develop expertise, make decisions, take risks, and slowly construct the person we want to become. There is a powerful cultural story underneath this: if we are intentional enough, disciplined enough, brave enough, we can make ourselves into almost anything.

But other people have always shaped who we become.

Sometimes someone sees something in us before we have language for it ourselves. A mentor suggests an opportunity we would never have considered. A leader gives us a responsibility we aren't entirely sure we are ready for. Someone says, almost casually, Have you ever thought about…? And suddenly a possible version of ourselves becomes visible. It is, in fact, how I ended up doing a mid-career PhD, but that is a story for another day.

I think this is one of the most powerful things a mentor can do. Good mentors offer advice and share experience, of course. But they also provide recognition. They reflect capacities back to us. They help make certain futures imaginable. Sometimes they can see us there before we can.

Later that same day, I went out for dinner with girlfriends.

This was another thing I had deliberately made room for during a very busy week. And once again, I was very glad I did. These women play a different role in my life. They know versions of me that existed before some of the titles I now carry. They know what has changed, what hasn't, and some of the stories behind the polished professional biography.

There is something deeply grounding about being known across time.

It occurred to me that the two tables represented something important about how we move through periods of change. We need people who can help us imagine who we might become. We also need people who remember who we have been.

That matters in the in-between chapters, when an emerging identity can still feel uncertain and the old one no longer fits quite as comfortably. We don't work all of that out privately and then emerge with a finished version of ourselves. We become through relationships too: through recognition, conversation, encouragement, challenge, history and belonging.

Some people reflect possibility back to us. Others reflect continuity.

And, if we are lucky, we get to sit at tables with both.

I ate out twice that day. Breakfast and dinner. I loved it.

At both tables, I was surrounded by smart, strong women. The conversations were different. So were the relationships. But I left both feeling energized, grounded and more connected to myself.

Perhaps making time for people isn't something we fit around the work of becoming.

Perhaps it is part of how becoming happens.

A question to sit with:
Who helps you remember who you have been and who helps you imagine who you are becoming?