A few months ago, I talked about the importance of having a mentor. Actually, it might even have been about a year ago, here. I remember having a conversation with a friend about why mentorship was so important, and I can’t remember whether I admitted this at the time, but I’m going to admit it now:
I don’t have a mentor.
And for quite a while, I’ve struggled with finding one.
I think part of the reason I’ve struggled is because I’ve had a mentor before. I had a functioning mentor-mentee relationship, and I really enjoyed what we had.
And because I’ve experienced that, I know what mentorship needs to look like for me.
My relationship with my previous mentor wasn’t simply me sitting there while this incredibly wise person poured knowledge into my head. It wasn’t me constantly chasing him, asking for meetings, asking questions and trying to extract whatever knowledge I could get.
There was participation from both sides.
I was learning from him, but he was also learning from me.
He had built things. He had years of experience that I didn’t have. He had made decisions I hadn’t had to make yet and experienced things I hadn’t experienced yet. So naturally, there was a lot I could learn from him.
But there were also things I knew that he didn’t.
And I loved that.
Because for me, mentorship has to have some form of exchange.
That doesn’t mean the relationship has to be equal in experience, obviously, I’m looking for somebody who has gone further than I have in certain areas but I don’t want a relationship where one person does all the giving and the other person simply takes.
I want us to be able to bounce ideas off each other.
I want a mentor who participates.
I want someone strategic.
Someone who has demonstrated leadership.
Someone who can look at something I’m doing and say, “That’s a good direction.”
Or:
“Have you considered doing it this way?”
Or even:
“Ayo, I think you’re overthinking this.”
Because sometimes, that is all mentorship needs to be.
I don’t need someone to structure my life for me.
I don’t need someone telling me what to do every five minutes.
I need someone whose experience gives them a different perspective from mine.
Someone I can sit with occasionally, talk through what I’m building or where I’m going, and leave the conversation seeing something I couldn’t see before.
And I think this is partly why finding a mentor has been difficult for me.
Because once you’ve figured out what mentorship means to you, you realise you aren’t simply looking for a successful person.
You’re looking for the right relationship.
And those are two completely different things.
So, What Am I Actually Looking For?
And I think that’s where I’ve had to become quite honest with myself.
If I’m saying I want a mentor, what exactly am I looking for?
Because “successful” is far too broad.
There are plenty of successful people I admire who I don’t necessarily want as mentors.
For me, I’m looking for somebody who has built something.
Someone who has had to make difficult decisions.
Someone who has led people.
Someone who understands strategy not just because they’ve read about it, but because they’ve actually had to use it.
I want somebody whose experience is ahead of mine in areas I’m trying to grow into.
But there’s something else.
I need to be interested in how their brain works.
That part is important for me.
I need to be able to sit across from somebody and think:
How did you arrive at that decision?
Why did you do it that way?
What did you see that I wouldn’t have seen?
Because I’m naturally very curious. I like pulling ideas apart, looking at them from different angles and asking whether there is a better way of doing something.
So I need a mentor who can challenge that part of me.
Someone who can make me stop and think.
But I also need somebody who is curious enough to occasionally ask me:
“How did you do that?”
Because that tells me something important.
It tells me that the relationship isn’t built purely on hierarchy.
It’s built on exchange.
Mentorship Should Not Feel Like Chasing
And perhaps this is the biggest thing I’ve realised.
I don’t want to chase my mentor.
Obviously, somebody more senior than me may have a much busier diary. I understand that.
But I don’t want the entire relationship to exist because I keep it alive.
If I’m always arranging the meetings, always checking in, always bringing the conversation, always asking the questions and always trying to extract something from the relationship, eventually that doesn’t feel like mentorship to me.
I want participation.
Maybe I send the first message sometimes.
Maybe they do.
Maybe I bring an idea one month and they bring something they want my opinion on the next.
Maybe we only sit down every six or eight weeks.
I don’t need constant access.
I just need mutual interest in the relationship.
And perhaps that is where I’ve been getting mentorship wrong.
Maybe finding a mentor isn’t about walking up to someone impressive and asking:
“Will you be my mentor?”
Maybe it starts much more naturally than that.
Maybe you have a conversation.
Then another.
You realise you learn something every time you speak to that person.
You notice that they challenge your thinking.
They become interested in what you’re building too.
And somewhere along the way, without some grand declaration, a mentoring relationship begins to form.
I think that might actually be the kind of mentorship I’m looking for.
Not something forced.
Not something transactional.
Just two people who realise:
We make each other think differently.
And maybe the mentor I’m looking for isn’t somebody I need to go searching very far for.
Maybe I simply need to pay attention to the people I already leave conversations with thinking:
I’d really like to talk to them again.
With Love,
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