Stop looking for mentors and start looking for people you're interested in? Develop friendships instead of mentorships?
If I don't know you from the next guy, why would I be interested in mentoring specifically you? I might as well spend that time to share my experience in ways that reach a broader audience.
However, as I get to know you, I will start to care about you. (Or cut you out of my life ;). As I take an interest in you as a person, I'm more willing to spend my time mentoring you, because I help somebody I know and like.
If there's no personal connection, there's not much of an incentive to invest time.
So, always build a connection first, then do the ask.
yes, of course, i totally agree with you, therein lies the problem. mentorships aren't explicit - they are, as you say, friendships. the rub is that there is a set of people i have access to where i can begin building relationships - and this set of people tends to be the 25-40yo hacker crowd. over the course of months or years of developing relationships, i can gain access to their mentors - the 40-60yo crowd, but i am wondering if some out-of-the-box thinking can put me in a position to develop relationships with these people on a more direct manner.
as an example: i want to build relationships with the 25-40 crowd, so i get real active in the community, give killer lightning talks, etc: giving lightning talks is a "hack" to gain access to people that i want to build relationships with, to make them interested in building a relationship with me. i'm wondering what channels i might leverage to do similar things to make other classes of people interested in building a relationship with me.
i say "i want" a lot in this post, but as you point out its a "we want", these relationships are clearly mutual.
1) Who are the people you'd _like_ to meet? (There's a lot of us old fogeys out there ;)
2) What would you like from them?
3) What are they interested in?
4) What can you offer?
Take a look at those 4 questions, and you should be able to identify people that you _should_ contact. I realize that's not the question, directly, but unless you prep for success, it's hard to be successful.
So next, how do you meet those people? At this point, you're down to individuals, not a nebulous class. So, volunteer with their charity. Attend classes organized by their employers. If at all possible, do something that gets you into physical proximity. (Uh, please in a non-creepy way. Just saying ;)
But even if you're not in physical proximity - then you ask. Ideally, you get an intro from somebody they know. That opens way more doors than anything else. If you don't know anybody who knows them - cold call. Write a nice e-mail explaining that you know they probably are very busy, but you're really interested in XYZ, and you'd love to pick their brain over coffee, if they have time.
And then wait and see what happens.
In recap: Don't meet "classes of people". Find interesting people and meet the person.
If I don't know you from the next guy, why would I be interested in mentoring specifically you? I might as well spend that time to share my experience in ways that reach a broader audience.
However, as I get to know you, I will start to care about you. (Or cut you out of my life ;). As I take an interest in you as a person, I'm more willing to spend my time mentoring you, because I help somebody I know and like.
If there's no personal connection, there's not much of an incentive to invest time.
So, always build a connection first, then do the ask.