Why do you even need a mentor?

Unless you are an aspiring spy, there is very little professional knowledge unavailable on the internet.

When it comes to code, any resource that is not completely free, will be available to you as a $10 book on your favorite online shop.

So why do people still turn to other people to learn?

When I first started to teach this question baffled me, sometimes I had the urge to ask my student “you know you could have googled it or asked on StackOverflow, right?”

It took me a while to realize that the reason people need teachers is not for knowledge.

Maybe they did 50 or 100 years ago, but in the age of the internet, the actual challenge is the opposite.

If 50 years ago you would need to go to the library and find the right book, today you have so many sources competing for your attention that it paralyzing.

And I don’t use this word as a metaphor.

We have a limited capability for making choices, it is like a muscle that gets tired the more we flex it.

What happens to many people is that they start learning, and they get overwhelmed by the endless amount of tutorials, books, tools and choices they have to make, that at some point they have no capacity left for making choices.

They don’t even know if choosing between two tools or libraries is even a meaningful choice that they need to put mental effort into.

They grind to a halt end sometimes never get back to their study again.

This is the real reason to take a guide.

The best way I can describe my job is to get people unstuck, to keep their momentum, which is the most important thing in learning code.

In the age of information a teacher is not a source of information, but a guide on how to sip through information, ask the right questions and make the right choices.