Hi! So, you're going the wrong way about seeking a mentor, which is completely understandable because no one ever teaches us how to seek a mentor, so how could you possibly know the right way?
This will sound like work, and - well, it is. Mentorship involves a lot of work.
Gretchen McCulloch wrote a great piece about how to get a mentor. I'll repost the highlights, but basically:
Mentoring is a type of relationship, so I'll use the analogy of a romantic relationship, because we do get taught a LITTLE bit about how to do that at least.
When you're interested in a woman, you don't say "will you be my girlfriend?" because that's too big a commitment when she doesn't know you - you ask her out on a date first, a one-time thing to see how well you get on.
And you definitely wouldn't say "will anyone here be my girlfriend?" -people want to feel like you had a reason for wanting a relationship with them, specifically, not like any girl would have done.
So it's the same with mentors. You find a specific person (for eg, based on what they've posted on WF, find someone you respect and think you align with), and you ask them personally. But what is the "mentor" equivalent of a date? It's asking for one specific piece of advice/mentorship.
I will now let Gretchen McCulloch go into more detail:
Getting a mentor
One does not, generally, get a mentor by asking “will you be my mentor?”
Instead, the effective mentoring question is, “I’ve done X and Y towards Concrete Goal, do you have any suggestions for what I should do next?”
This is a much easier question to answer, and many people are willing to do so if you ask it in a setting where they have time and are in a social mood, especially when you have genuinely already taken some steps towards that goal. How do you know which first steps to take without a mentor? My suggestions are google, following your would-be mentors for a while on social media, and looking through their website/archives for anything that might be relevant (such as what they were doing when they were at your earlier stage).
Even if your concrete step is “I read all your posts about X and Y, and I’m still wondering about Z”, this at least shows some initiative. (Though actually having tried something from the posts is better.)
The next step is equally crucial. Often, the would-be mentor will give you a very concrete suggestion. Sometimes it is just strongly encouraging you to do the thing you already mentioned. Sometimes it is a concrete thing that hadn’t occurred to you.
You should go do the thing and then report back to the advice giver with how it went. This crucially shows that you’re a person who’s worth giving advice to and not someone who’s all talk and no action, so now it’s worth them giving you more advice and maybe even sending opportunities your way. Any time you write down advice, also write down the name of the person giving it to you so you remember who to follow up with. Don’t skip out on the reporting step, even if some time has gone by or it didn’t quite go as planned or you’re not sure about how good your thing is. Make a good-faith effort to do the thing; report back on how it went.
V
oila, you’ve now completed one mentorship cycle!
People sometimes don’t report back because they’re worried about annoying a person they admire. This is valid, but untrue: reporting back is actually providing emotional gratification. The report back is the absolute best part. Advice-givers love to feel like it was actually worth it rather than throwing their advice down a bottomless pit. Don’t bother them with excuses about not having done the thing, but even if it’s been a year or two later, a brief “I know it’s been a while, but I wanted to say that I took your suggestion to do Thing and…” is a delightful message to receive.
People often love the idea of mentorship more than the execution part of actually taking the mentor’s advice. But if you want to be able to ask this person for advice or help again in the future, you need to actually try doing the advice they’re giving you now. Even if it’s a really tiny piece of advice. Especially if it’s a really tiny piece of advice. People like feeling like they’re investing in someone who’s going to do them proud; people don’t like the feeling of throwing good money after bad (in this case, more advice after untaken advice).
This might sound like a lot of complex steps if you’re thinking about it for the first time, but I’m writing it down very explicitly because I think that mentorship norms are often part of a “hidden curriculum” and I want to especially encourage people who don’t have access to this tacit knowledge to develop satisfying mentorships too.
THe whole post is here, I've cut a lot of details out - it's not about magic/occult mentorship, but you can easily apply it to your situation.
