How to Get Mentored By Anyone You Want
The power of a mentor is many-faceted.
When I tell the story of my life, some of the most crucial moments have been when someone saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.
The drama teacher who picked me to play my first main part.
The arts centre trustee who took a gamble on a young man with ideas and creativity.
The coaching trainer who offered me a discount to make training possible.
But the power of a mentor is more than just that.
The most significant mentors in my life have become a voice in my mind. I can hear what they would say to me, or to others.
When I have worked extensively with one of them, I see their ideas and frameworks everywhere in the world from then on.
And I know this isn’t just me - when my father studied with the late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, he would refer to what Thay would share on a regular basis.
It brings to mind the beautiful and tragic way that cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter began to form his theory of consciousness, explored in depth in his book I Am a Strange Loop (for more on that book, check out this old article of mine, which I love).
Shortly after Hofstadter’s wife had died tragically young, he found her voice coming out of him as he parented their child - her consciousness, her soul, somehow contained now in his after all their many years of close work together as spouses and parents.
And this - the sense that the soul of my mentor is now somehow included in mine - is so moving to me, because these people can’t know the impact that they have had on me.
When I have spent significant time in the company and work of Rich Litvin or Robert Holden or Jennifer Garvey Berger, their ways of thinking, ideas and distinctions help me see the world with more depth and texture. They help me navigate the challenges and predicaments of my life with more skill.
Noticing this reminds me of story Derek Sivers told in one of his appearances on The Tim Ferriss Show. Sivers says he has three mentors - but they are all highly successful people, with many calls on their time, so Sivers doesn’t want to bother them with just any query.
So before he reaches out to them, he sits down and imagines what they will say when he outlines the problem. He knows them and their work well, and so he knows the questions they will ask. He writes down the answers in a document, imagining what their follow-ups will be and answers those, too.
Not only does this help him prepare to only take the real, core question to the mentor, but it helps his thinking.
In fact, he says, after doing that, he never actually has to reach out at all - because by thinking it through as if he would, he works through the dilemma.
The punchline Sivers delivers is this: none of his ‘mentors’ even knows that they are his mentor. They don’t need to.
This is because, in my words, through really engaging with the creative work of someone - their talks, books, ideas - a part of their consciousness is now contained in his. And by slowing down with that consciousness, he can explore challenges he faces in ways he wouldn’t have imagined possible.
This is one of the most amazing parts of being a human: if you have a dilemma that you can’t break through, and I ask you to imagine a friend had the same dilemma, and to imagine what advice they would give… almost always fresh ideas emerge.
We can give ourselves new perspectives by inhabiting the souls, the consciousness, of others. By taking new perspectives.
Rich and Robert, who I mentioned above, wouldn’t bat an eyelid to hear me call them my mentors - we’ve worked together closely in different ways.
But whenever I talk about Jennifer Garvey Berger’s work, I often hesitate: ‘my mentor, mostly from afar,’ I say.
Jennifer and I have met or been on calls together many times (including this one for more than two hours!), but mostly the way she has become a mentor to me is from afar: last year I decided to spend a year reading her books, listening to her interviews and those of her colleagues and attending one of her training programmes. I wanted to learn from her but also, inspired by Sivers, I wanted to give myself the frame that she brings to her work, which I find so compelling. I wanted to be able to think through things through a Jennifer Garvey Berger lens. And just because it was mostly from afar doesn’t lessen the impact - it doesn’t mean her ideas, frameworks and ways of thinking don’t have sweeping impacts on the way I see the world.
And so the question for you is: who is your mentor? And who do you want to be your mentor next?
You can pay someone thousands of pounds to be on a programme with them.
But if you simply choose to spend a year marinating in their work, the transformation may be no less important.
That is one of the gifts of the 21st Century.
Through bookshops, podcast apps and online programmes, you can have any mentor you want, anywhere in the world.
Who will you choose?
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PS My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now! Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose
This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.