Build Your Own Frankenmentor
Thanks to Dunechaser at Flickr for the image
If you looked at my list of mentors you would probably be shocked. On that list you would see a couple egotistical jerks, someone that overshares to a degree that makes you cringe, some bad parents, terrible bosses, a self-promoting lunatic, and a lot of selfish spouses. These people aren’t my mentors because I have bad taste in mentors. They are my mentors because they have other amazing redeeming qualities and I only look to them for advice in the areas that they excel.
Penelope Trunk gives great advice about how to move ahead in your career, she’s also a great blogger that shows her personality in her writing. I once sent her an email asking for advice and she wrote back and told me that she loved the language in the blog header that you see above. I got so giddy, I felt like a blog groupie. “OMG, she knows I’m alive!!!!” I love all of these things about Penelope and turn to her blog for advice when I need a kick in the butt when it comes to my career but Penelope as a wife and then ex-wife make me cringe. My biggest fear as a career-focused person is that I’ll alienate the people that I care most about, so I don’t go to her for marriage advice.
Tim Ferriss is another mentor from afar that has been so useful as I have been figuring out my career path. He wrote the 4-Hour Workweek and taught me a lot about getting to the most important part of my workday and even more about figuring out what I am working for. He is a shameless self-promoter and it’s been working pretty well for him. I don’t go to his blog for advice about modesty.
I also have a wide-range of more traditional mentors that I actually have met in person, of all crazy things. I usually ask them for more in-depth advice about a problem I am facing because I’ve seen them handle the same thing expertly or because I have heard people talk about them and that issue is something that always comes up as a strength. Most of them are older and have more experience in philanthropy or some other field. Some are younger and are just naturally gifted in that area or have been become an expert on negotiation or networking through pure will. Those are the people I like to talk to the most because they give me hope that I can learn those skills too.
Don’t sit around waiting for you fairy godmentor. Find people around you and far away that have skills that you want to cultivate and ignore the parts of them that you don’t want to emulate. You’ll get more out of the experience and you won’t be disappointed because you can’t find that perfect match.
Who has been a helpful mentor for you and what skills do they have that you want to develop?
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:55 am
Thank you for doing this website… I will look at it and keep reading. Have you seen Dean Spade and Tyrone Boucher’s work on revolutionary giving? They have a blog called “Enough”…http://www.enoughenough.org/.
All the best.
Susan
October 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Trista,
Yet another great post. Thanks for this one, it really helped me re-evaluate the way I look at or my expectations for mentors. I can get a bit starry eyed and look up to a person so much that I come crashing to earth when i realize there are parts of them I dislike. I also never thought of having a community of mentors. Maybe its the singularity of the word.
Thanks again,
chelsea
December 10th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I love this, too. I can think of several people I’ve learned a lot from, including the important lesson that some of the most amazing and inspiring people have serious flaws, too, just like the rest of us! Great post.
November 21st, 2010 at 8:44 pm
[...] 8 ) Build your own frankenmentor [...]
January 27th, 2011 at 9:55 am
How is asking someone a few questions on email called getting mentorship? Penelope Trunk and Tim Ferriss are not your mentors… they are just people who’ve answered a couple of your questions via email. Am I wrong? I believe that mentorship is a longer, deeper connection that LASTS.
January 27th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Hi Akhila,
I think you are describing the ideal version of mentoring but I don’t believe that that is the only way to get the support that you need. I think that too many of us look for one person that can mentor us on any issue. It’s great if you have that person but I don’t think you should let not having one magical person prevent you from getting the advice and support that you need. Superficial mentors can be just as important as those that are with you for the long haul.
January 27th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Certainly, I get tons of advice from different books and people, but I don’t think this is what mentorship is. This is just called learning from available resources… I still think mentorship is set apart from everyday learning. I would hesitate to call every blogger and tweeter I follow a mentor, just because I learn something from them. I do, but this is far too expansive of a definition of mentorship.