What Can a Squirrel Learn from an Eagle? Mentorship: The Qualities of a Teacher and a Student

AVAlexander Volchek

At Business Molodost, we once even came up with the slogan “Anyone can become anyone.” But I can see that this person's business will close in six months. And they need to start preparing for that right decision now. I guarantee that many people would burn out in the very first hour. How can I reach the heights this person has reached?

DMDmitry Mugenov

When you start learning from someone who's strong—imagine a squirrel learning from an eagle. We're all different. The squirrel starts learning from the eagle and realizes, “I'll never be able to fly like that. Absolutely guaranteed. I'm completely screwed. I'm worthless.” How do you deal with that?

AVAlexander Volchek

There's an enormous amount of content available now: so many teachers, coaches, instructors, all kinds of people. A person asks—and many people ask—where can I find that faith, and how can I take steps myself? How can I do anything at all? You listen to someone and tell yourself, “It worked for them because that's the kind of person they are.” There's a good metaphor someone just shared with me: how can a squirrel learn from an eagle if the squirrel knows from the outset that it won't be able to fly like an eagle? This is actually a very deep and important question, because it underlies our everyday lives and our consumption of an enormous amount of material. People consume so much material now. On the one hand, they may never ask themselves this question at all, and it seems to them that anything is possible. That message is often spread. We know many authors, bloggers, and coaches who say anyone can do absolutely anything. At Business Molodost, we once even came up with the slogan “Anyone can become anyone.” On the other hand, some people watch many videos but don't have the strength to believe in it at all, and their ego won't let them move over to that first position.

They have an enormous fear inside that they won't succeed. When we talk about the squirrel and the eagle, the first thing to understand is: what will the eagle do as a teacher? If a squirrel learns from an eagle, many people will start thinking the squirrel has to learn how to fly properly, how to fly like an eagle, how to fly at all. When I hear this, though, I think a person can learn wisdom, love, freedom, a sense of space, interaction with another world, and relationships from another person. There is always something you can gain from a strong person. The question is, why am I coming to the teacher? Am I coming to become them, or to be myself while strengthening myself in terms of my own growth and expansion? Because I speak about many different subjects outside my own businesses, people often ask me, “Give us an example from your own life. How did you do it?” Or, “Alexander, if you were starting a business, how would you do it? If you were in my situation in this particular real estate business, what would you do?”

“Alexander, what exactly do you do with your wife? How do you act with your child?” With these questions, I always focus the person very clearly on the reason for asking, rather than answering the question. Where did the question come from? Why are you asking me? Do you want to understand how the world works and study it through my example? Or do you want the same thing to happen for you as it did for me? Do you want to understand the nature of truth? Do you want to understand how the world is structured, or do you specifically want to copy the model so that the same thing happens for you? When you want to copy it to get the same outcome—and in most cases, ninety-nine out of a hundred questions are asked for this reason—then you have a state, an illusion that you and that person are the same. That assumption is fundamentally there. In asking the question, you fail to distinguish yourself from them, especially when you're asking a teacher. You come to a teacher and ask this question. In doing so, you're saying, “I'll become like you, teacher.” If a squirrel truly wants to become an eagle, then any eagle who is a genuine teacher will refuse to teach that squirrel. They will refuse.

That's a quality of a teacher: how genuinely capable they are of recognizing what a person is really asking for, giving them a real answer, beginning to work with them or deciding not to, and recognizing and seeing what they can and cannot do. How well do they understand that this person won't be able to fly, that they won't be able to reach certain figures or parameters? How well do they see it? How well do they know it? I often give this example: people come to me in business and ask, “Alexander, how do we...” Life has worked out so that I come into contact with an enormous number of businesses of different sizes. They ask, “How do we change the automation system in sales?” Or, “How do we build the right relationships with our partners in terms of motivation?” But I can see that this person's business will close in six months. I know it will close. That's the position I'm in. What do I do? How do I deal with this person? Do I give them an illusion and offer solutions for sales automation or working with partners, knowing none of it matters, because they're doing this so their business will grow and they'll get a result in two or three years?

But it's clear here that in six months, this person won't be there. Should I tell them? Should I explain the automation they asked me about? Or highlight things they genuinely need in their business right now for their real next step? Because soon they'll face the next step, when they leave this business or job. That's where they'll need to make the right decision. And they need to start preparing for that right decision now. This is a teacher's ability to see another person's real next step. And there's a student's ability not to want to become the teacher, but to be a genuine student. A genuine student will never, never measure themselves against another person with the aim of copying them. They'll never do that. They won't make that comparison. Unless it's a specific task—as happens in sports, for example, with certain details—they won't do it. Especially when we're talking about serious things: someone watching serious videos about business development or personal growth, or going to a serious person for spiritual development or expansion.

Any question asking for specifics—“How exactly did you do this in your own experience?”—is based on an illusion. I'm a unique person. What I did, my relationships in my family, with my wife and children, are my life, not someone else's. What's more, only I can truly understand my own lived experience, my entire psychophysical system, my whole hormonal state, all my particular emphases and sensations. You can make an enormous mistake by asking questions this way or wanting to attain that, because you never know what you'll encounter. I guarantee that many people, if they began living my life, would burn out in the very first hour. For someone else, it might seem like a very easy way to spend their time. These comparisons come from the world of chasing achievement, the world of gain. They don't come from truly hearing the world or from genuine learning. So if a question arises in you—“Could I do that? How could I reach the heights this person has reached?”—or you find yourself thinking, “Once I hear this person, I'll do the same thing,” then at that moment...

At that moment, you need to stop yourself and look at why you truly want to do something, and whether you really need to reach some arbitrary heights. Or is there something you can always simply learn from a good person? We live in such a world of falsehood: an enormous number of people don't try to take the role of a student and find something they need, something useful, in every moment of life—something that helps them develop not just for themselves, but to help the people around them. We constantly judge other people, discuss other people, take jabs at them, look for difficult points. What did they say wrong? Where did they make a mistake? If I've come to learn, I need to forget all the surrounding circumstances. I shouldn't compare anything. I need to truly take the role of a student. That isn't easy, especially in a world with counterfeit teachers. Teachers who really are eagles, but have one of two convictions: some are convinced they can make a squirrel fly, while others simply want to eat the squirrel. I suggest you always remember that. Stop yourself. Stay in a place of freedom and a real understanding of what's happening. Don't rush through life. Love the people around you.