The Three Reasons a Mentor Says Yes
Mentors show up for one of three reasons — and you only control the third.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Banayan asked Will McDonough, then a VP at Goldman Sachs, what makes a mentor want to spend time with a mentee. McDonough gave three reasons: the mentor sees part of themselves in the mentee; the mentor wants to make the mentee more like them; or — the most interesting one — the mentor sees something in the mentee they want to cultivate in their own life. That third one made no sense to a 19-year-old Banayan, who couldn't imagine what a successful person could want from a young nobody. Having watched hundreds of stories unfold, he now says executives in their 60s and 70s are often missing a sense of possibility, of hope, of there always being a way — the dreamer they used to be. Sometimes it's as practical as being shown how to use an iPad. The first two reasons aren't in your control. The third is: you can choose to be positive, kind, a dreamer, excited about life.
Origin
The three reasons came from Will McDonough, a Goldman Sachs vice president Banayan met early in his journey. Banayan only understood the third reason years later after watching how his relationships with Elliott Bisnow, Cal Fussman, and Larry King's circle actually worked.
Core principles
- 01Mentors engage for three reasons: they see themselves in you, they want to pull you their way, or they want something you have.
- 02The third reason is the one nobody expects and the only one you control.
- 03What senior people are often missing is a sense of possibility, hope, and dreaming.
- 04The best mentor relationships have all three reasons operating at once.
- 05You can't choose whether someone sees themselves in you, but you can choose how you show up.
- 06Target mentors before the world discovers them — availability beats fame.
How to run it
- 1
Drop the selection fantasy
Banayan says he did almost no selecting — he was a beggar taking whatever he could get. Chasing famous mentors ignores their real constraints.
Pro tip Elliott Bisnow and Cal Fussman worked as mentors precisely because nobody knew who they were at the time.
- 2
Diagnose which reason applies
For each candidate, work out whether they'd see themselves in you, want to pull you their way, or want something you carry.
- 3
Work the third reason
Identify what you genuinely have that they're missing — possibility, hope, energy, a dreamer's belief that there's always a way, or plain generational fluency.
Pro tip Banayan taught Larry King's friends how to use an iPad and what Snapchat was. Practical counts.
Watch out Faking it doesn't work. The mentor is looking for something real to absorb.
- 4
Choose how you show up
You can't control whether they see themselves in you. You can control being positive, kind, dreaming, excited about life — every single time you're in the room.
- 5
Run it at scale and accept the hit rate
Approach a hundred. Ninety-five may think you're an idiot. The five who don't will change your life — and that's all you need.
In the wild
Spending time with Larry King and his friends, Banayan found himself showing them how to use an iPad and explaining what Snapchat was — a concrete instance of reason three, where the young person carries something the elder wants.
→ The exchange became mutual rather than one-directional, which Banayan identifies as the structure of the best mentor relationships.
At 19 Banayan wanted Tim Ferriss to take him under his wing daily — an impossible ask given Ferriss's constraints. The relationships that actually worked were Elliott Bisnow and Cal Fussman, neither of whom was known outside a narrow world at the time.
→ Both became genuine long-term mentors; Fussman later gave Banayan the advice that launched his year-and-a-half of free daily Zoom coaching during the pandemic.
Common mistakes
Only pursuing famous mentors
Famous people have real constraints and already broadcast their knowledge widely. The mentors who said yes to Banayan were the ones nobody had heard of yet.
Assuming you have nothing to offer
Banayan couldn't imagine what a successful person could want from a young nobody. In fact many senior people are missing exactly the hope and sense of possibility that a young dreamer carries by default.
Is it for you?
Best for
Young or early-career people trying to build relationships with people far ahead of them.
Not ideal for
Formal, assigned corporate mentorship programmes where the pairing is administrative rather than chosen.
From the transcript
“number one the mentor sees a part of themselves in the mentee number two the mentor wants to make the mentee a bit more like…”
“you can choose to be kind and nice and a dreamer and excited about life you can't really choose if the mentor sees themselves in…”
From the episode
Alex Banayan: Unlocking The Third Door To Your Success
Alex Banayan