You don’t need a mentor. You need a village.

Emma Bassett
Nov 4 · 5 min read

There’s a risk with mentoring that I’ve been mulling over, and I say we need to talk about it.

To rely on one single person comes at a cost. You aren’t looking for a mentor.

Instead I propose being uplifted by the community around us, with an open mind and curiosity. You are looking for a collective, for a village of different people and different types of conversations. There might be more there already than you thought. Here are five points to help us get there.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash

1. If there’s one person who knows your life and what you are seeking: that is you.

Look inwards for the answers. These will not come from one person outside yourself. They come from you. Put the work into considering you.

May I propose that you start with your values. These are grounding. Life changes. But your values are in you. Know those and harness them. I used to say: “Be stubborn in your goals, and flexible in your methods”. Now I would say: Know yourself, and know your impact.

Mentors and coaches will not give you answers. (The good ones won’t). What they will do is offer you wider perspectives, insight into other worlds, and help you get yourself to the answers that matter — for you. Start now.

2. You need multiple perspectives, not a single one.

We are a mosaic of all the people we’ve met and the experiences we’ve had. Some people, and some experiences, have been more impactful than others.

I deploy curiosity when I don’t understand something. I seek information. I reflect. I reconsider. To do that we need multiple perspectives and to be challenged. To then agree or disagree, anchor ourselves based on what we know, and align it with what we are learning.

Consider the same for the people you’re looking for in your life professionally. If you look for a single person you risk hearing only their answer, and miss out on additional perspectives. Listen to many. There’s a saying of “strong opinions, loosely held” — know yourself, and opt into being challenged purposefully.

3. You have people in your life already who may help you get there.

Start by looking at your day-to-day. What’s your relationship with your manager? What about your team? Who do you listen hard to, who do you want to spend more time working with, who challenges your views (with kindness and dignity), who is there professionally when things get hard? Consider those people who are already present. Ask yourself what you would like to learn from them if you had extra time together.

Look incrementally further. Who do you see outside of work on a less regular basis? Who have you worked with in the past who you purposefully kept in touch with? Again, consider what you have learned from them and what you would like to continue to learn in your time together.

Yes, there are great benefits in getting an outside opinion. But I encourage you to look closely at who’s already there offering additional perspectives and learning opportunities. Bring a lens of curiosity to that next conversation.

4. Advice can be heard, but not necessarily actioned.

Let me use the example of another world that I get a lot of joy from. Running. I’ve met and learned from hundreds of runners. We are all different. We take with us where we’ve been, where we are going, our personalities, our entire lens on life. But oh my. To hear some of the advice on running? Some is risky. Those may be things that they have worked on over many years, and they know they can sensibly apply that training to themselves. There’s a but.

Instead: I hear the advice, I listen to it, then sometimes I choose to send it away — or to take it on. I know myself well enough to know that if I ran 160 kilometres in a week, my body would not be happy about it next week. Similarly if I were to do something vastly different with weight training. (Even if it’s working very well for someone else). I hear everything, but apply based on who I am and what I know.

Listen to the professional advice that you are given. Ask open questions with an open mind. And then align it with who you are and what you are optimising for. But with a filter.

I was given terrible advice early on in my career to “make myself indispensable”. It lasted for two months before I cast it away. Perhaps it wasn’t universally terrible advice, but terrible-for-me.

Now, one of my key threads at work is around building resilient people, resilient teams, and resilient organisations. People can purposefully go away for a day or a week or indeed move on. They can be proud of what they build together, but not be the sole source of expertise.

5. Consider what you’re asking of one mentor.

To ask one person to be this source of expertise is a big load to carry.

Consider what you’re asking of this person before you start the conversation. Include the reasons that you approached them, what you had been thinking about including in the sessions, and how you’d know that you had been successful together. Will you have topics? Will you have six sessions, then finish? Will you summarise key learnings in between sessions? Will you work together forever? Will you seek all the answers of the world in this one human?

Mentoring is an honour. It is also a duty of care with profound responsibility. The time and personal energy have a cost. There are people around you proud to opt into that. Set them up for success in helping you, framing what you’re seeking and how you know.

They may say no. But even in that ‘no’, they may point you in the direction of a next step.

So to conclude: your village may include a mentor, among others.

Know yourself first. Gather multiple perspectives, including those that challenge you. Find learning opportunities already around you. Listen to advice, but filter based on who you are and where you’re at. And when you do find those people to help you? Know yourself well enough to distill what you’re seeking, and what success looks like for you as a partnership. Start now.

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Life lives here. Stories about how we're building Trade Me.

Emma Bassett

Written by

Global citizen. Life enthusiast. Always curious. Cares about delivery, people, and impact.

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Life lives here. Stories about how we're building Trade Me.

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