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What’s MindFrame Connect?

MindFrame Connect is a Canadian not-for-profit focused on upskilling Canadians by providing access to expert training, resources, and tools designed to improve performance. MindFrame Connect was started to solve current gaps in the Canadian entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’re focused on the psychology of entrepreneurship – the resilience, mindset and grit required to succeed. We’re also exploring what it means to be a mentor/leader in the current innovation economy, and the skills required to be effective. Everything we offer will provide a refined, practical view on improving one’s ability to perform and is developed and vetted by entrepreneurs and mentors.
Our goal at MindFrame Connect is to curate expert research, learnings, frameworks, and resources and make them available to Canadian entrepreneurs and mentors. Ultimately, we want to see resilience training and upskilling of the essential “soft skills” required to succeed built into the foundation of Canada’s ecosystem.

Through our extensive research and discovery process, MindFrame Connect has developed a clear and effective pathway for improving the performance of mentors, leaders, employees, and entrepreneurs.
The Origin
Origin of mindframe
MindFrame Connect’s origin story is like most startups. Co-founder, Brice Scheschuk identified a pain point as he was embarking on his own mentorship journey. Lots of organizations offer mentorship programs, but rarely do they offer any support or training for those mentoring (and vice versa for the mentees). The result is many mentors do not know how to effectively support their mentee and their mentees, in turn, do not know how to properly manage the relationship – leading to inefficiencies.

This sparked a deeper exploration of mentorship in Canada. Over 150 interviews were conducted in 2020 and resulted in a draft manuscript titled “Mentoring Innovators”, which now serves as the anchor for our mentorship programming. These interviews made clear that mentors are eager to enhance their craft.

Another gap was identified during this exploration - the need to support entrepreneurs beyond the development of venture-building skills, but from a psychological and behavioural perspective. Covid-19 and its residual effect have brought prominence to the idea that supporting an entrepreneur means supporting the whole of a person (like a professional athlete).

While programs focused on prototyping, building an MVP and scaling are critical, what if they were complemented with training that built individual and team resilience so the people building our next generation of start-ups can thrive under pressure.

The need to address both of these gaps in the Canadian ecosystem became obvious (and somewhat urgent). If Canada wants to compete on the global scale in innovation, we need to produce better companies. Better companies are created by better entrepreneurs. Better entrepreneurs are developed by better mentors and support systems. And that’s why MindFrame Connect was created.

Meeting these needs in the ecosystem requires resources and likeminded people. Through funding from Future Skills Centre (FSC) and partnerships with Ryerson University, Dalhousie University, I-INC, and Globalive this idea became reality.

The MindFrame Connect Principles

MindFrame Connect is built on the foundation of key principles that have informed
the development of the program.

15 Principles of Mentorship

  1. Everyone has something to offer, an obligation to offer it, and should expect to learn in return
  2. Mentorship can be delivered in big and small ways
  3. If you want to be a great mentor, treat it as a discipline
  4. Frameworks, playbooks, and mental models are important
  5. Seek out group mentorship to make yourself a far better mentor
  6. Mentorship is not about feeding your ego – it centres on the mentee requires empathy, and is the ultimate activity for mutual learning
  7. Authentic connection, trust, commitment, honesty, responsiveness, and mutual respect are the foundations for relationships
  8. Listen without intent
  9. Ask probing questions
  10. Consider how you give advice, provide actionable insights, tell relevant stories, and talk about mistakes
  11. Use warm, radical candour when providing feedback
  12. Be constructively provocative, optimistic, and inspirational – think big (and different)
  13. Ask for feedback
  14. The next level – sponsor, ally, champion
  15. There is a time to stop mentoring an individual

25 Principles of Menteeship

  1. Build your foundation
  2. Define your goals and purposes in seeking mentorship
  3. Multiple mentors ensure diversity of guidance
  4. Seek out peer mentors
  5. Board members, shareholders, and competitors can be mentors
  6. Network
  7. Find great mentors
  8. Make the most of matching programs
  9. Watch, listen, learn
  10. Do not ignore inbound messages of support
  11. You need to ask
  12. Harness the digital transition
  13. Ask mentors about conflicts
  14. The mentor-mentee relationship centres on you
  15. Take advice with a grain of salt
  16. You can challenge your mentor
  17. Listen constructively, do not get defensive
  18. Ask good questions
  19. Jettison the pessimists, small thinkers, and unresponsive people
  20. Responsibility for decisions begins and ends with you
  21. Give feedback
  22. Follow-up effectively
  23. Entering studios, labs, incubators, and accelerators
  24. Mentors will change over time
  25. Make sure you mentor others

The MindFrame Connect Resilience Pillars

Our resiliency stream is built on key pillars developed by researchers and entrepreneurs; they inform all entrepreneurial resilience programming.

Behavioural

Sleep Well
Eat Well
Exercise Regularly
Meditate
Access Nature
Take breaks
& vacations

Emotional

Develop Emotional
Intelligence
Regulate emotions
with mindfulness
Deploy realistic
optimism
Be open-minded
Apply self-
compassion
Generate gratitude

Social

Cultivate relationships
with mentors and
entrepreneurs
Build team
psychological safety
Be kind to others
Build relationships
outside work
Engage
psychological support

Cognitive

Develop self-
awareness
Understand how
stress can help
Clarify values and
practice meaning
making
Take a Growth
Mindset
Reframe unhelpful
Thoughts
Be curious
Build identity
Beyond work
Understand mind-
body awareness

Individual Resilience

Team Resilience

Organizational Resilience

Founders: Play Your Own Game

Informed by 30 years of investing in technology and venture capital, Brice Scheschuk explores themes about fundraising including the limited scenarios where venture capital makes sense, the concepts of outlier founders and venture scale growth, and numerous alternative capital paths that are applicable to most founders.

He discusses the concept of “Mighty Middle” businesses which exist between venture capital and lifestyle businesses and provides a balancing narrative to venture capital as the key measure of success.

MindFrame Connect understands that mentors, mentees, entrepreneurs, and accelerators have different needs and so, we offer our programming via a variety of delivery options.
Learn more about our in-person and on-demand training as well as our suite of online resources.

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