Pro tip #4: It takes a village to mentor a person

You need a mentor.  Scratch that, you need more than one mentor.  Regardless of whether you are a student, a postdoc, a faculty person, a very senior faculty person, a manager, an employee, a parent, you need a village of people to help navigate your way through your career and life.

There are always things you need to learn.  You will always need feedback.  There is no one person who can give you everything you need.  It is important to have your bases covered.

It is often hard to figure out who these people might be for you.  I am truly fortunate to be at a giant university with a huge number of colleagues I trust to go to for advice.  I also reach out to many people outside of my institution.  I have friends I can lean on, and a supportive family.  But it can be very difficult to find your village, to find people you trust.

This is where I give advice to people who should be mentoring you: Hello, Slightly or Very Much More Senior Person: find those people around you who could use some aspect of your accumulated knowledge.  Reach out.  Don’t force any advice, but signal that you are open to talk.  That person may be geographically distant, or down the hall.  Be genuine.  Be open.

Coming back around to you: if you are at a university, there are often pockets of people around you can consult for specific things.  At my university, we have a center for people who want to learn how to teach better.  For students, we have writing centers.  We have therapists.  There are people whose job it is to help you.  The issue with my university is size, in that we have so many centers that it can be difficult to wade through the list and identify the right one, or to even realize that some services exist.

I am constantly finding myself in situations I don’t know how to deal with.  I am always grateful for the people who give me solid advice.

This day’s post is inspired by a number of people who have provided wise counsel at key moments in the past couple of years.  In particular, shout-outs to John Beacom, Julianne Dalcanton, Andrew Heckler, Manoj Kaplinghat, Paul Martini, Todd Thompson, Risa Wechsler, and Beth Willman.  There are many more people to whom I owe debts of gratitude.  Thanks!