It took me a long time to understand why mentors are useful. I think it’s because I’m a visual person, and no one ever visualised a major aspect of what makes mentors useful.
First, there’s the stuff you know:
Like for me, I know how to ride a bike. I also know where London is on a map.
There’s the stuff you know you don’t know:
I know that I don’t know how to do a wheelie on my bike. And I know that I don’t know where Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is on a map.
There’s the things you didn’t realize you didn’t know:
I’m sure there’s bike skills that I didn’t even know you could have. Let me find one… “Riding on rollers.” And I’m sure there are genres of locations that I don’t even know about. Let me find one… The location of Earth in a map of the milky way. See, I just shattered my understanding of maps and realized that they don’t have to be 2-dimensional. This map of the Milky Way is 4-dimensional - objects in 3d space that move over time. The map is a video. A few minutes ago, I didn’t know that I didn’t know that some maps need to be 4D.
Then there’s your unknowns unknowns that you would find really useful to know about:
I’ve exhausted all my “useful” unknown unknowns within reach, so if you see any that I don’t, please let me know. That’s what mentors are really great for.
Mentors are usually aware of your unknown unknowns, and help you turn them into known unknowns. In contrast, teachers usually help you turn known unknowns into knowns (of course, they can act as “mentors” too).
