The Break School

Transcript of the Snippet

Hello and Welcome,

Hello and welcome, I’m Sanjay Khandelwal and this is the Break School. A self learning podcast to enable you to do what you love, everyday and make a living out of it.

Why do I say, make a living out of what you love? Just in case it wasn’t obvious, because just doing what you love doesn’t pay your bills. But for somebody to pay you for a specific skill, you must be really good at it. Considering most of us have realised what we love quite late, or may be, we are still figuring out, we really need to find ways to accelerate our process of learning and mastering our craft. One of the most powerful ways to learn is to find a mentor. A person who knows what you want to learn and is willing to teach you.

Now you may ask, isn’t that a Coach? Well yes! But there are few important differences between a coach and a mentor. A coach is a person you hire for a fee to teach you a specific skill like writing, playing guitar or tennis etc. A mentor on the other hand, cannot be hired.  You can only convince someone through your sincerity and hard work to be your mentor. Moreover, a mentor doesn’t just teach you a specific skill. He/she knows you as a person and they shape your life. A coach stays with you for a short period, generally a few days, weeks or months. What ever your contract is. A mentor – mentee relationship on the other hand is a long term one. In fact, you can rarely convince someone to be your mentor without having spent considerable time with them. In most cases your coach may become your mentor, if you have spent considerable time working with them. 

In this snippet when I say finding a mentor, I don’t mean finding a person who will just teach you a specific skill but finding someone you may be your guru, for a long time to come. 

We will have 2 parts to this snippet – One, why would someone mentor you and two, where can you find mentors. 

One disclaimer before I begin. I don’t claim this is the best way or the only way to find mentors. This is what I know from my experience so far. I would be more than happy to hear your thoughts in the comments section of your podcasting app or you can write to me at sanjay@sh048.global.temp.domains

Alright. Let’s dive in. Why would someone mentor you? What do you really need to convince a person to be your mentor? 

There are 3 things. I call them the 3Cs

1. Commitment or Fire in your belly or How badly do you want to learn or how desperatly do you want to learn? Very often, new members at my Toastmaster club ask me if I can be their mentor. I happily agree. Then the person dosen’t show up for months. They are busy, family vacation, kids annual function, boss is not nice etc etc. I eventually recommend them to find someone else. When I’m mentoring someone, I want to see that eagerness or that desperation to learn. If you ask a stand up comedian to teach you the art of humour, he may ask you how many open mics have you done? Or if you ask a writer to teach you writing? She may ask you how many article have you already written? Good or bad. Doesn’t matter. I’m not talking about quality. I’m talking about effort. If I were charging you a fee, then it’s okay. You pay me money, I teach you what you want to learn. You learn or not, it’s your problem. But because I don’t charge a fee. My basic criteria to mentor somebody is this – Would you go ahead and learn even if you don’t find a mentor? Do you just complain that you don’t have a mentor or do you go ahead and learn whatever best you can? If yes, then you have a fire burning in you. You will be committed and any mentor would be happy to mentor you.

2. Curiosity – If I had two people, one who sincerely implements everything I say and two, a person who asks me a lot of questions, tells me why some of my ideas don’t work, and sometimes, shows me a better solution than what I recommend, I would prefer mentoring the second one. Remember, your mentors are guides not gods. Very often, what a mentor says is a hypothesis rather than a concrete suggestion. When you test your mentor’s ideas and give her feedback, or when you come up with new ideas, you help your mentor get better. I like to consider both my mentors and mentees as peers. By being curious, asking questions and giving feedback you create a healthy cycle of learning for both you and mentor. 

And yes, if you have a mentor, who gets irritated when you ask questions, then change your mentor. 

3. Contribution – The chances of you being mentored is high, when you are mentoring or helping other people. The best way to give back is to join a community. For example, If you are good at writing, join a writing group, either offline or on the Internet, and help people who are completely new. This will benefit you in multiple ways. One, it will establish your credibility as a knowledgeable person. Two, it will help you identify the kind of questions people have and use them to sharpen your own learning. Three, if there are more experienced people than you in the community, they would be happy to help you or work with you because of your sincere effort in helping others. 

So, the 3 criteria’s you must fulfill to find long term mentors – 1. Commitment, having that Fire in your belly. 2. Curiosity, help you mentors learn and 3. Contribution, willingness to give back. 

One word of caution – Don’t try to fake any of these. Remember, how in college we joined clubs or did some random projects to enrich our resume and fake to the world that we are the most well rounded individual? Don’t try that here. Mentor-mentee relationship is a long term one. You cannot sustain it by building it on fake display of sincerity or commitment.

Okay!. So now that we know what you need to convince someone to be your mentor, let’s look at where can you find mentors.

1. In your own circles – There is a misconception that mentors are these esoteric creature you need to go looking for in another universe. Or mentors must be older than you, or more educated than you. No. That’s not true. 

I studied in a school where we rarely spoke in English. Hence, When I started college, my English was very poor. I got better only because of a few wonderful class mates. They not only corrected my mistakes, They also helped me understand common patterns in my mistakes. Similarly, at my work place, I have learnt a lot about work ethic from people who are much younger than me. I have learnt to appreciate little things in life from my dad, who has never had the kind of education I did.

So the 1st place to look for mentors is in your closed circles. Find people who know what you want to learn and convince them to teach you. Even better, if you can find opportunities to work with them or assist them in solving a common problem. That way, you will have the opportunity to see how they solve problems using their skills and that’s a great way to learn. 

2. In communities – As I mentioned earlier, one of the best ways give back is to join a community. They are also a great place to find mentors.  By communities, I mean a group of people who are trying to learn what you want to learn. For public speaking, you have a community like Toastmasters. For writing, you have a community like the Himalayan writing retreat, for podcasting, you have the Indian Podcasting Network. Joining a community, helps you in multiple ways. One, it helps you find peers you can learn from. Two, It gives you an opportunity to teach others. Each of these communities has people who are deeply passionate about the craft you are trying to learn. When they see you sincerely participate as well as help others, they would be more than happy to teach you. In fact, you may even find opportunities to collaborate with them on some project. I say again at the risk of repeating, working with your mentor on a common project is a great way to learn.

3. On the Internet  – Some of my best mentors are people I don’t personally know but I have learnt immensely from them. I read Paul Graham’s blog to understand how start ups work. I read Farnam Street blog by Shane Parrish to improve my thinking. I listen to Naval Ravikant’s Podcast to understand fundamental ideas around business and tech companies. I follow these guys on Twitter. I don’t agree with everything they say, but when they write something, I do take out time to read. In most cases, I have either learnt something new or found a new idea to explore

Now you may ask, Sanjay din’t you say a mentor is a person who knows you personally? Well yes. However, considering the number of people who want to learn from Shane or Paul Graham, it is incredibly difficult for them to know everyone personally.  Unless and until you do something extraordinary. Moreover, people like Paul, Shane or Naval realise the number of people who can benefit from their knowledge are far more then the people they could meet personally. That’s why  they use platforms like blogs or podcast to make their knowledge accessible to the world. 

I agree it is not as good as having a personal mentor but it is certainly a millions times better than not having them at all. I’m extremely grateful to this technology called internet, for making it possible for me to learn from them.

So depending on what you want to learn, find people on the internet who are sharing their knowledge. If a person you admire doesn’t write a blog but has written a book, may be you can read that, although I personally find learning from a blog much easier than Learning from a book. If over time, you feel blogs you are reading aren’t adding much value, unfollow them and move on. Finding good blogs or podcast involves a lot of trial and error. Listen to as many as you can and filter those that don’t add any value.

So those are three places where you can find a mentor – In your closed circles, in powerful communities and on the Internet. Of course, in addition to this, you can find a paid coach and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, the chances of you being sincere and curious is higher if you are paying someone. If you intend to have this coach as a life long mentor, then you need to have the 3Cs- Commitment, Curiosity and willingness to contribute. 

I hope this snippet helps you find someone who could teach what you really want to learn. I hope you will find a guru, a peer and a friend who will make it easier for you to do what you love and also make a living out of it.

If you loved this episode, don’t forget to share this with your friends over WhatsApp. If you like to receive future episodes, Then subscribe to the break school podcast on Spotify, stitcher, Castbox or Apple podcast. 

I’ll see you again next week with the story of another path breaker. Until then do what you love, everyday.