Finding love.

Finding a spouse.

Finding a house.

Finding Ramen.

Finding your lost phone.

There is an app for all of that. And let’s face it, it’s all abundantly easier than finding a mentor in the advertising industry.

You think I exaggerate?

I have been on a menTOURship for the last 12 years of my career. Do you remember that ad, where the father of the prospective bride imagines everyone as a groom and runs after them with a shaadi-wala-turban? I was like that; with every boss I’ve ever had.

Oh, and I didn’t just stop at boss. I’ve looked for a mentor in every senior I’ve ever met. It’s been an ad-world menTOUR, and I am disappointed to report, I still haven’t found the one. Much like the elusive and very much made-up Santa Claus, jolly, happy and too-good-to-be-true, this mentor doesn’t exist. 

I do suspect, they used to.

That one godfather, godmother, god (gender non-descript), you know, who everyone in the old-school, back-in-my-day of advertising seems to have. Those mentors you learn everything about everything from. The ones that hold your hand from agency to agency. The ones who have your back, teach you the craft and get you from the first draft to the final print ad. The ones who tell you where to go and what to do. The ad-parents I have so desperately tried to find like an adopted child looking for her biological roots...

Those were relics of that past.

Now, dear reader, don’t lose hope. Zamaana badal gaya hai. In the age of fractional CMOs and early retirements, ‘topmate’ consultations and LinkedIn personal brandings, mentoring can seem like a full-time job. I don’t blame the been-there-done-thats who don’t have the idle time to do it. After all, mentorship requires you to put in heart and soul. We’re a soul-deficit industry – the heart is being pulled in multiple directions. AI, for now, could’ve been a benefactor. Turns out, it’s a big distractor.

So, halt that mentourship. Take a pitstop. Put down your maps. Lay down your baggage of ‘I want to learn’ and I know you yearn but let’s be smart about it. Ain't nobody got time for that. You know how tour companies create packages? Four nights in Bali, five in Hong Kong, another six in Malaysia – a holiday just as fulfilling as it is long?

Do that with your menTOURships.

Don’t give your entire mentee's heart to one person. You know how they say, be practical? I’ll ask you to be fractional about it. There are a lot of mentors in the industry. Take bits and pieces of mentorship from many, many people. Learn writing from some. Leading from others. Designing from one, delegating from another. There’s one who will teach you art, another who will teach you the art of living; before you learn to thrive, there will be one who will teach you how to survive.

There’s a mentor who will make you laugh, another who will make you cry. Definitely get a mentor who will make you question, ‘WHY?’ There is no ‘one true mentor’ – we don’t have one favourite song, movie, book.

Stop looking for that mentor.

Get off that menTOURship.

Rest, weary traveller.

All the mentoring you want is on the other side of a well-written Linkedin DM. Just not exclusive or full-time.

Make do.

The author is creative director, McCann Worldgroup. This column first appeared in our June issue. Buy it here.