Do as I Say, Not as I Do

How young people select mentors in the modern era

Do as I say, not as I do.

Advisor, mentor, parent, guardian, teacher, and professor are all examples of people that we look up to as adolescents. But as we mature, we begin to see cracks in our mentors’ foundation.

Mom and Dad could do no wrong and from ages 0-12. But as time went on, things changed. You stop listening to Mom and Dad’s advice. You listen to your English teacher instead. She gets you, understands your problems, you admire her, and want to be more like her. She doesn’t know it, nor do you, but she’s your new mentor.

The English teacher in my story represents an idea. The idea that young people swing from branch to branch, taking advice from, and modeling their life around the various people they admire.

For me, it was first my Dad, then Mr. Curtis, my water polo coach, and now Joe Rogan. I’m joking, Mr. Curtis is fictional. 

But the key is that our mentors change as we change. I’m a fan of the concept, ‘Steal Like an Artist’. The easiest way to make progress in any facet of life is to copy someone better than you at it. Not in a shitty plagiaristic way, but in an I’m gonna try doing a similar thing as you because I admire your work type of way. It’s easy, it gets the ball rolling, and it gives you structure. But you can’t copy forever. You must break away, find your path, and deviate from your mentor.

Once you’ve broken away, be alone for a bit, do your own thing, and let your creativity push you. But eventually, a new mentor might come into your field of view. You combine your interests, goals, and routines with their wisdom to become a new entity.

But more often than not, I find myself being influenced not by people I know personally, but rather by people on the internet. Like yeah, my CTO is awesome, I look up to him, and would love to be mentored by him. But the occasional Slack huddle and awkward chat in the break room doesn’t really lead to a fruitful teacher-pupil relationship.

Now that I think about it, I don’t spend much time with people I admire. Usually, because they have more important things to do. I find myself filling this void of a mentor with long walks during my lunch break, where I plug my AirPods in and turn on a podcast.

I’ve started looking forward to new episodes. Tuesdays and Thursdays + every other Friday. My go-to podcast had a guest on who has his own show. I tuned in and loved it. Weeks and months have passed; now there’s a rotation. Five hours a week, one pod every day during my lunch break.

These people (podcasters) are in my ear. I’m a fly on the wall, listening to their every word, trying to inculcate their advice into my life. Holy shit, these guys are my mentors. But I've never met them; nevertheless, I spend 5 hours a week listening to them talk. That’s more time than I spend with my parents.

Is this time spent productive? I have no idea. On one hand, you get to listen to conversations had by the smartest people in the world at your leisure. On the other hand, these conversations are one-sided. I’m pro-podcast. Listening, learning, and reading are almost always beneficial. Cross-pollinating your ideas with the ideas of others is never a bad thing. 

But I will say this, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce. These podcasters have an incentive: retention. They spew out the content that they know will get you to come back next week. Their incentives are revenue and user growth. They care about you, the listener, but not as much as the rate they can charge on their ad read 

Now when I go on my walks I tune in to some of the most interesting conversations that occur on our planet. But instead of blindly listening, I ponder, what are the incentives of the people producing this show? Can I separate the nuggets of gold from the sawdust? And lastly, I remind myself that no amount of listening can replace action. Because as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and action is worth 6.02*10^23 words.

-Raj