Why People Don't Want To Be Your Mentor

I have been noticing lately that there have been a lot of talk about mentorship and learning from your elders. This is kind of a recent phenomenon but it's always been around. It's a great way to build your skills and learn from learned experiences. The problem is that not everyone wants to be a mentor for many reasons.

So you want to be an artist, or learn how to cook. How about getting into business? There's a ton of people with tons of lived experience that can help you out in so many ways. Back in the day it wasn't mentorship wasn't really mentioned a lot but it happened. Mentorship has been around for a very long time.

Kids today are correctly looking for mentors to help guide their paths in life. For the most part a lot of people will agree to be mentors to others. It's not usually a problem getting someone to mentor you because mentors generally like what they do and want people to be involved with their work. They want to see the next generation to continue on and get better.

There are however some people that don't want to mentor anyone. We see this time and time again with a lot of movies. It's a recurring theme in popular movies such as Star Wars, The Devil Wears Prada, The Karate Kid and the list goes on. There's an element of truth to people not wanting to be mentors and it's not that they don't want to teach another generation. It doesn't have anything to do with not loving their craft either.

In fact some of these people love their craft and would love to share their knowledge but you have to understand they've been doing this for so many years. With so many years of doing it they've seen people come and go. Why would these experienced individuals want to teach the same thing over and over again to people that are just casually coming in and out of their craft?

This is where they talk about paying your dues before people really get down with you. Paying your dues simply means that you showed that you have a significant interest in the craft. It shows your loyalty to the craft and that you are not likely to quit. A lot of "mentors" are looking for that.

The knowledge that mentors have to share is cherished by the mentor. They don't want to give this knowledge out to people that are actually interested and not someone that will simply move onto something new the next month. It's extremely frustrating for people to be invested in teaching someone when that person doesn't share the same enthusiasm as you do.

To mentors this could feel like a huge waste of time to teach this individual things that you've learned over years of trial by error. It hurts a mentor when they see their cherished information has gone to waste. This jades a lot of mentors on bringing on new mentees.

This is no slight to any prospective mentee from trying. Just know that if a mentor is being tough on you it could be because they're trying to see how devoted you are to the craft. They simply don't want to feel like they're wasting their time. That information they are going to provide you is almost like their baby because they've been caring for it for years.

So if you're looking for a mentor and that person says no. Don't take that as a bad thing. It might be a good thing. They may have had a ton of old mentees that have quit in the past. You might actually be in a little initiation test. What you got to do is prove to that mentor that you're really devoted to your craft. You have to show them that you really want the help that they can provide you. Sometimes the harder it is to get that mentor means the help you'll be getting from them is really worth it.