Prologue: In 1915, American writer Elbert Hubbard wrote “He picked up the lemons that fate had sent him and started a lemonade stand” in his obituary for the vaudeville performer Marshall Pinckney Wilder. This was highlighting the actor’s achievements despite the challenges of being born with dwarfism. In time, the phrase was refined to what we know it today: “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade” urging us to look for the bright side when something bad happens. I personally don’t think lemons are bad, I love them in many combinations and dishes, I am very creative in the kitchen 🙂

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Early June, while running in the park alongside my doggo, I broke my leg so badly that I had to undergo surgery, not being able to walk for at least 3 months. Being an active person, sports in the morning and surrounded by people across the day, I felt trapped like in a cage initially in the hospital and after that at home, having no doctor’s indication nor possibility to go outside the house.

One week after surgery, I resumed work, connecting from home, but I mentally suffered for a while because of missing social interactions, lack of physical activity and not being able to do most of the usual stuff. It was the first time after the Covid lock-down that I was working from home for such a long period. While I could properly do my job being effective, something was still missing.

I always wanted to do something else alongside my main job, especially something where I would share from my own experiences and help people not repeat my professional mistakes (and there were a few). Mainly focused on people growth.

Therefore, I put it out publicly on LinkedIn that I’m offering few hours of my personal time for people who think would benefit from some 1:1 mentoring sessions, or just some meeting where they would brainstorm ideas or look to pick up my brain. And that was a blast! I did not see this coming. I could not believe to abundance of private messages asking for this type of sessions. I eventually had to delete the post from LinkedIn after a very short time so that I could accommodate the first requests.

Few hours turned into 40, one-time sessions turned into recurring ones. I’ve met brilliant people who are either in a transition in their career or they feel stuck at their current jobs. Such amazing stories and it feels so rewarding when after a few days after our sessions, I kept receiving thank you notes and nice feedback.

This kept me going on and thinking how I could scale this initiative given the amount of people needing this.

To support me better in my endeavor, I have soft-launched Bridging Gaps which will act as an umbrella for several well-seasoned, well-known leaders in the tech industry (where I believe there’s a lot of need) willing to share from their experiences in their mentoring and career coaching sessions.

I’m currently working with them to better understand how we complement each other, and better support the IT community.

I was very fortunate to have good managers and leaders at the right time of my career in my different jobs and organizations. I often received the right level of guidance, mentoring, coaching and support. And when I didn’t, I either challenged the status quo, either looking for outside perspectives to allow me to move on (be it in the same company or elsewhere).

I believe in human potential and in continuous growth. And I hope this initiative will provide a platform for many people who feel stuck in their careers, who don’t feel they get the right level of support, mentoring or coaching and feel the need of a different perspective coming with experience, empathy and, of course, full confidentiality.

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PS: Another good thing which happened since walking in crutches is that my upper body is fitter than ever 🙂