October 21, 2021
I’ve recently taken on a new mentor from afar. This is very exciting news for me.
I’ve written before about how important mentorship is—especially for a recently Deconverted Man. It’s a fantastic way to invest in yourself.
For me, mentorship goes all the way back to my Christian days. They called it “discipleship” and it’s fitting that they used a different word because discipleship is not mentorship. Discipleship is all about an older, more experienced Christian “pouring into” a newer Christian to make him exactly how the Church and religion needs him to be. Basically, the goal is to produce a near-carbon copy of the older Christian.
Mentorship is different. Usually, a mentor is there to help you develop a singular part of your life that the mentor has mastered. You emulate and learn from him in regards to this singular aspect only rather than trying to make your entire life exactly like his.
An example of this would be having a personal trainer as a mentor for your health. From this guy, you learn how to work out, eat right, and become healthier overall. But this personal trainer has a terrible relationship with his girlfriend. Therefore, you learn about health from him but you ignore literally everything he says about how to have a relationship.
The great thing about mentorship in the modern era is that you don’t actually need to ever meet your mentors in person. Your mentors don’t even really need to know who you are. With the power of the internet you can find people who have mastered aspects of their lives and who you would like to emulate and then begin doing the work yourself. These are called mentors from afar and they’re totally valid in my opinion. Mentors from afar played a huge role in my bouncing back after my faith deconstruction and deconversion.
So how do you find a mentor from afar? Here’s what I do:
-
Decide an area in your life where you’d like to do better.
The best way, in my opinion, to do this is to run down the list of the seven life areas. Are there any that you want more out of? Maybe one area has been especially damaged by your deconversion from religion. Identify it and make the firm decision that you’re going to put in the work to make the positive change.
-
Determine your goal.
Once you’ve decided what life area you want to work on, take some time to sit down and write out exactly what you want this area of your life to look like. Don’t get caught up on “what’s possible” or “what’s reasonable” or “what’s good enough.” Actually write down exactly, with as much detail as you can muster, what you want that area of your life to look like.
Don’t take anyone else’s opinion into consideration (at least not yet). This is all about you and what you want, even though I understand getting into this frame of mind can be difficult after spending so much time in a religion that literally teaches that this “selfish” mindset is wrong and sinful.
-
Begin searching.
Once you’ve clearly written out what you want your chosen life area to look like, you can begin looking for your mentor.
You can certainly actively look by sitting down and using Google to search specific keywords in your written vision. But in my experience, the searching often becomes more like a “waiting while on high alert.” That means—with my clear vision in hand—I always have an eye open for someone who has achieved exactly what I’m looking to bring into my own life.
It can take some time for this person to “appear” but eventually they will. This is some Law of Attraction work here. You know exactly what you’re looking for so your eyes and ears are going to be attuned for opportunities that cross your path in the near future.
As they say: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
-
Vet potential mentors.
So you find someone who seems to have accomplished what you also want to accomplish. Great! Don’t forget to vet them. Make sure they’ve actually done what you want to do.
Seems strange to say on a website about faith deconstruction, but Jesus was right when he said, “You will know them by their fruits.” That stands true today. You will know someone is the real deal by what they do (not by what they say) and the results they get from their actions.
If your potential mentor is only claiming to have accomplished what you’re seeking to do yet declines to demonstrate consistent fruits, then this person might not be the best mentor.
A great example of this are guys on the internet who say they’ll help you make tons of money trading crypto, or will teach you how to become rich flipping real estate, or whatever the hell. Do they really have a long track record of bearing fruit in something, or did they have some minor success and now they’re just really good at promoting themselves with paid advertising on social media?
Your gut and intuition will come into play here. Listen to yourself. Try to feel whether this guy seems on point or not.
The guy I recently took on board as my mentor from afar is not shy at all about demonstrating the results of all the things he talks about.
- He consistently shows screenshots of his phone from his earnings from his investments and businesses over a long period of time.
- He consistently shares his travel pictures and videos to prove he’s done the things he says he has.
- He’s consistently giving as opposed to taking.
Those are only a handful of examples. In this instance, it was clear to me that this guy was the real deal, not just someone on the internet trying to make a name for himself or build a business around hype alone. That, and he just felt right to me on an intuitive level.
-
Dive in and begin the work.
Usually the person you’ve chosen will have some kind of content. Whether its books, videos, podcasts, online courses or whatever, there’s usually something. These things are some of the fruits that I talked about earlier.
You’ve already committed to making the change, so the only thing left to do now is dive into this person’s material and learn how they were successful at doing what they accomplished. But learning is the easy part. There will come a time when you need to take action and make things happen in your own life.
Don’t forget this key thing: you’ve chosen this mentor for a singular life area. Your goal is not to wholly become this person. That’s very dangerous and threatens your own unique personality and identity. Rather, you’re learning to improve one, maybe two things from his person and that’s it.