I’ve never particularly liked the traditional idea of mentorship. It usually suggests someone older passing down wisdom to someone younger. That feels a little dated to me. Some of the most interesting relationships I have today are with people much younger than I am. I have experience that they don’t. I’ve built things, screwed things up, watched ideas succeed and fail, and learned a few lessons along the way. But they have something I don’t.
They see the world without my history attached to it. They introduce me to new technology, language, culture, and different ways of thinking. They question things I’ve simply accepted. The exchange works both ways.
Experience provides context. Youth challenges assumptions that experience has quietly turned into rules. Maybe the better model isn’t mentor and mentee at all. Maybe it’s simply two curious people from different generations asking each other:
What do you know that I don’t?
That’s something I want GenHouse to encourage. Different generations coming together through work, culture, art, and conversation. At this point in my life, I’m not only interested in what I can teach.
I’m much more interested in what I still have to learn.