Mentoring Others: How Did It Impact Your Growth?

I discovered I'm learning the most by teaching others. When I want explain some subject I need deep understanding of that, it often push me to read more about it. It's some kind of extra motivation to level up and test your skills.

Mentoring others was one of the most important inflection points in my career.

We Remember
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we personally experience
95% or what we teach others
- Edgar Dale

I used to absolutely devour books of all shapes and sizes. I found it relatively difficult to actively recall much of what I read, but I noticed that the more I engaged with the content while I was consuming it the more I was able to internalize it.

Switching from isolated learning to learning in a group was a massive jump (10% -> 70%).

Switching from isolated learning to active practice as I was reading was a massive jump (10% -> 80%)

Switching from isolated learning to teaching was jaw dropping (10% -> 95%). It takes this shape because, if you approach the responsibility appropriately, then you need to prepare not one explanation but potentially many just in case your mentee needs alternatives so the concept can land. Not just that, they might need other foundational topics to be enable them to grasp something... and you'll need many potential explanations for those too!

I have mentored a lot of people during the last two years. And surely, it has helped me a lot. One important thing for all here is to note that many times we assume certain information as expected or known. And skip over those parts, but while helping other people, I've got the opportunity to break down such blind spot barriers in my communication and help people start with the basics. This is the most important part of my mentorship experience.

TL;DR: Start with the basics, don't assume other people know anything about the subject.

I like the Feyman Technique as in "I learn better when I teach", however I find "metoring" is 80% of the time just "solving junior devs problems" and said juniors see things fly way over their head and don't even care. It's a huge drag for me. Sometimes it's wonderful to see people succeed and learn, but mostly it destroys me as, I think, most people trying (or being forced) to mentor.

It helped me create easier to reach goals, then making it possible to create more success at a more sustanable pace.

it help me learn fast and grow faster and reach my goals in less amount of time.