isiah4real asked:
I was lucky and got some really good teachers coming up, but most of my real mentors were Mentors From Afar. Here's Seth Godin:
I think that heroes are more important than mentors. A hero is somebody who you can emulate; somebody who raises the bar for you. Heroism scales, so one person can be a hero for a lot of people. Mentoring is over-rated in that there’s this myth that they will pick you, cover for you when you make mistakes, encourage you, and be at your side until you become your true, best self. There are very few of those relationships in the world.
Emphasis mine. Scale is a big problem. I can’t even answer all my email, let alone take on mentees or interns or whatever. If I did, I’d have no time to actually make the stuff that makes you want me as a mentor, you know?
Here’s a bit from Show Your Work:
As a human being, you have a finite amount of time and attention. At some point, you have to switch from saying “yes” a lot to saying “no” a lot. “The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful,” writes author Neil Gaiman. “There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby. I started answering fewer emails, and was relieved to find I was writing much more.”
I find myself in the weird position now where I get way more email from people than I could ever answer and still do everything I need to do. The way I get over my guilt about not answering email is to hold office hours. Once a month, I make myself available so that anybody can ask me anything on my website, and I try to give thoughtful answers that I then post so anyone can see.
You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.
Trying my best…
betzistar
