Everyone wants a “mentor” to coach them through their business, academics, or career.
How do you get one? How much would it cost? Is there going to be work involved?
Like with anything else, you get out what you put into it. The quality of input determines the quality of output.
Why should you get a mentor or coach?
You could figure out everything yourself, but why reinvent the wheel? Ever since we were born, we’ve learned from others.
Our knowledge—our very DNA—is the product of experiences stacked upon one another, the winds of the past blowing our sails toward new discoveries.
Relying solely on your own trial and error is like trying to discover physics again by dropping two balls from a tower, while others are working to figure out subatomic particles.
By having someone of authority in your corner, you have built-in social accountability. A social contract that holds you accountable, lest you experience shame and embarrassment, is a powerful incentive to exceed their expectations (even if only in your mind) and in turn become more knowledgeable .
By standing on the shoulders of giants, you can accelerate your growth and become the proof of work of humanity.
Types of mentors
A mentor is anyone you can learn from or be inspired by. It could be a person who’s older than you, younger than you, poorer than you, more of an asshole than you, or a fictional character even.
You might also call them a teacher or a coach.
A mentor could also be an object or words. A phrase that inspires you (but you don’t necessarily know who said it) could teach you or move you to act or think differently.
At a cancer center I used to work at, the motto was, “There is always hope.” Its optimism stuck with me for over a decade now. Our future is greater than our past.
Typically, though, a mentor is a guide you develop a relationship with. It could be in person who watches and evaluates you (at school, work, or gym), virtual (business coach, friends you make online), or most often, unknown.
That is, they don’t know you exist.
I find these unknown types of mentors to be the most interesting. They come in the form of media, such as articles, email newsletters, podcasts, courses, and books.
Then, after this whole process, I realize I don’t need to bother them because the answer is now clear.
If anything, I might email to thank them for their continued inspiration.
Truth is, I’ve hardly talked with my mentors in years. None of them know they are my mentors. And one doesn’t know I exist.
It’s like asking, “What would X do?”
There may not be an official relationship. You may never have a conversation with them (only an imaginary conversation with yourself). But you can learn so much from them forever.
How do you get a mentor?
Hiring
First, to get this out of the way, there are plenty of coaches you can find online. You can easily hire one on places like Thumbtack, Clarity, or even on Instagram where you can follow a pro and decide if you want to work with them privately.
Time is money. If you can’t be bothered to watch the free blogs and videos littering the Internet and want someone to hold your hand, give you personalized advice, and hold you accountable, someone will always be available to help. But this personalized guidance takes time and expertise, which is money. Harsh but fair. There’s help, and then there’s tuition.
Building a dossier
But these free resources can be exactly the place to start if you want to start collecting a dossier of unknown mentors you can always draw inspiration and ideas from.
You start by reading articles, finding books and other media (e.g., emails, podcasts), and eventually running into recommendations to expand your (unknown) circle.
Forming direct relationships online
If you want to build a direct relationship with a person, an online community of people with similar interests as yours is a great place to start. It used to be that a school club might connect you to someone, and you had no choice in the matter. But you should be free to choose who you learn from.
There are plenty of places. You can find a Facebook group, a Discord channel, private communities offered via an email newsletter from someone you follow—all for free.
You can even ask questions in YouTube comments! I left a comment in one of Noah Kagan’s videos, and someone asked me a question and patiently waited for my answer.
We connected on Instagram, and I started coaching him (a 15-year-old boy in India) because he already had the self-motivated drive to educate himself with books, the commitment and make money online, and the will to act. He took action and was able to make his first $30 online.
Why should you be a mentor or coach?
Why am I writing this article? Why do I painstakingly craft a series of emails to help my readers taking the bar exam? Why does Steve Jobs demand even the inside of the device to look beautiful?
Simply put, it’s satisfying to share your knowledge and watch it influence the world. We’re meant to create. I prefer not to keep secrets, especially if useful.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about freedom (from wealth) and happiness.
Jeff (The Happy Philosopher) had this to say on the Financial Independence Podcast by the Mad Fientist:
I think my one piece of advice is to not focus on financial independence, but instead to focus on happiness. When I started down this path, I used to think that freedom, or more specifically, financial independence, leads to happiness. And I think it can. But I think it’s reversed. I think happiness leads to freedom.
And the reason I know this is because I know a lot of people that are financially independent that are 100% miserable. They’re lonely, they’re anxious, they’re fearful… but they’re free. Financial independence is not the end goal; happiness is the end goal. So we need to always keep that in mind. We just need to internalize that message. Happiness leads to freedom.
And to be honest, it’s not that expensive to become happy. When you can cultivate happiness in your life with really simple things that I write about like gratitude, getting rid of negatives from your life, decluttering all the physical things you don’t need, the mental baggage and the obligation—like I said, stop watching the news, just walk and meditate—those things don’t cost anything, but they’ll make you happy.
Happiness is freedom. You have to practice. It’s a skill. Happiness is definitely a skill. It’s not something that we just blunder into for the most part.
Hmm! So happiness leads to freedom? Yet another counterintuitive reverse order.
I want to take that in a slightly different direction.
I think our pursuit should not be happiness but satisfaction. My current view (I will edit this as necessary) is that satisfaction comes from doing what pleases you, what satisfies you, what matters to you.
Everyone will have different things that satisfy them: Some want to have more money than others, some want to raise children, some want to create art, and some want to listen to ASMR videos.
Satisfaction is based on the past (could be the immediate past), and happiness is a current emotion. Someone who has had many fleeting happy moments may not feel pleased on the whole. But satisfaction can bring happiness and is easier to find and maintain.
Hence, rather than seeking happy moments, if we find satisfaction, it comes with happiness anyway as you look back retrospectively.
Mentorship and watching your advice come to life may bring satisfaction.
Also, networking should include people who are a step behind you, not only ahead of you or next to you. Find your “plus, minus, equals.” Remember, you can learn from anyone.
So to recap, what are the benefits of having a mentor or coach in your life?
You can shortcut your way to your goal faster.
You can call upon anyone to coach you (via inner conversations) by building a dossier of “unknown mentors.”
You can develop a meaningful mentor-mentee relationship if you can prove yourself worthy of that accelerated growth.
And then, you can complete the cycle and pay it forward by becoming a mentor yourself.