Great Mentors make themselves unnecessary.
When I was teaching artpreneurship, the first thing I told every student was how to measure their success with me. It was simple. I told them, “The day you can stand on your own, without needing my guidance, is the day you have succeeded as my student.”
This is not only how I mentor. It is how I show up in every role I play. As a parent, a founder, a co-being, an educator and a son, I equip people to stand on their own, instead of holding them, controlling them, or quietly making them depend on me.
Even as a mentee, I hold myself to the same principle, I never become a burden to my Guru, the one who shaped me into who I am. In those mentoring years, I did not ask him for individual time or attention. Instead, I have worked to put his teachings into practice in my own life. I do not need his constant attention to keep learning from him. And everything I am, I will be, I owe to him.
But I have seen the other side too: mentees who, once equipped to stand alone, believe they have outgrown not just their dependence but their mentor’s wisdom itself.
A mentor must nurture independence, not dependence.
A mentee must become independent without believing they know it all.
Both require humility and maturity.
