How To Find The Right Tech Mentor
It Is More Easier Than You Think
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What if I told you?
You can get the best of the best in any field.
To mentor you 24/7
For free
What level of impact do you think that mentorship will have on you?
How well do you think that your tech career would grow as a result?
Well, enough imagination.
Let me show you how.
My tech journey started in 2011.
Even though I was living in Lagos then, Nigeria’s Tech capital.
I didn’t have any form of access to anyone in the tech world.
There was no form of Tech Meetups in Ijegun, Ikotun where I lived.
I didn’t even know that tech was a thing.
I had just discovered the power of the Internet by reading newspaper articles and decided to dive as deep as possible.
After much reading, I decided that whenever I got an internet-enabled device I would learn Information Marketing.
My Uncle gifted me a phone some months later and my adventure online started.
Since I didn’t have the reach to be an information marketer, I started learning how to blog.
My first online mentor was Jon Morrow.
He was the founder of SmartBlogger (formerly Boost Blo Traffic) and was paralyzed Neck down due to a disease.
Apart from teaching me the foundations of writing and building an online brand, one of the greatest things I learned from Jon Morrow was resilience and a no-excuse mentality.
For someone bedridden and who could only move his face, Jon achieved so much.
He wrote using speech-to-text software and ended up building one of the biggest blogs on the Internet.
Many of the popular bloggers on the Internet today were trained by him and started their careers guest posting on his blog.
Once I saw how Jon carried himself, I made up my mind to not anything limit me both mentally and physically.
This is the first thing that you need to realize. There is no limit to what you can achieve if you put your mind to it.
The first company that I worked for was a Foreign one and it was in a period when people were complaining about losing access to opportunities due to things like Racism or the Nigerian Factor.
Yes, these things are real and affect Africans a lot, but don’t let that live in your mind, focus on becoming the best in the world at what you do and every other thing will fall in place.
You can read an article about this that I published earlier this year.
The Principle of Permissionless Mentorship
I first applied this principle for years unknowingly.
It was in 2020 that Jack Butcher gave it this name.
The normal process of getting a mentor is this.
You discover something that you want to learn
You do research and find people who are a master in that thing.
You approach them and ask them to mentor you.
This process is good but it rarely works.
Most people who are masters in any field don’t have much time on their hands.
And even if they accept, you might need to pay a good sum of money for their time and attention.
However, I have tested and taught a process that has time and time again never failed.
Discover something that you want to learn
Do the research and find people who are a master in that thing.
Look for the ones that teach that thing online.
Start consuming their content in a practical way.
This was what I did and discovered Jon.
His blog Boost Blog Traffic (now Smartblogger) was a top three blog for learning how to blog.
His content taught me things that I still apply today.
I even leveraged some of his principles to make money on WhatsApp.
People who clone themselves with content in various fields are one of the greatest gifts to humanity.
For years, my life has been greatly impacted by the content of people who don’t even know that I exist.
I became their mentee without asking them for permission.
I just study and act on what they post on the Internet.
Now, this does not mean that you will get value from just choosing anyone.
There is a process to it.
How To Pick a Mentor
The fact that someone creates content online doesn’t mean that they are your best option.
Learning is long-term, you will want to optimize so that you can get significant compound Interest.
These are things to look out for.
Engagement Level
The best type of person to pick is one who engages with their community.
The easiest way to check for this is in the comment section.
Do they respond to questions and comments from people consuming their content?
Do they create content based on feedback from their community?
The answer to these questions will help you know the people to focus more on.
But also understand that no one owes you a reply.
So if you see someone who doesn’t respond, don’t antagonize them.
Creating content itself is already a helpful action.
Most people don’t even attempt.
Skill Vs Earning
Learning a skill is very different from knowing how to make money from that skill.
When picking mentors, look for people who share the process they take to make money from that skill.
Doing this early would help you a lot and would teach you how to monetize yourself the right way.
There are people out there who think that making money from skills involves learning as many skills as possible.
But the truth is that if you don’t figure out how to make money from one skill, adding one or two more won’t help.
I made money from each skill I learned in a shorter period than normal because I learned how to sell myself.
The Fewer The Better
The maximum amount of mentors that you can have for each skill is two.
And even picking two has a condition.
Many people distract themselves by following so many mentors.
And the major reason for this is that they are looking for shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts.
The shortcut is to stop taking shortcuts.
Find one person who teaches both the skill and sales aspect of what you want to learn and follow them exclusively.
There were a lot of blogs online teaching blogging.
But I focused on just Jon’s content for a long time.
But if you find someone who teaches only skills that you connect well with.
You can follow them, then find a second person that you can learn monetization from.
Conclusion
Finding a mentor is one of the first steps to building a great career in tech.
It is one thing that you need to be very intentional about.
And always remember that the process is what matters the most.
Seeking shortcuts won’t help you in any way.
Really beautiful ✨