While conventional wisdom praises mentorship, advice from others is inherently based on their "yesterday"—their past experiences and market conditions. To truly innovate and build for "tomorrow," you must trust your own vision instead of applying potentially outdated models to a new landscape.

As a Black woman building a spirits empire, Fawn Weaver had no direct role models. Instead of being deterred, she looked outside her industry to historical titans like Andrew Carnegie. This allowed her to find relevant, industry-agnostic patterns for scaling and risk-taking from proven winners.

Top entrepreneurs don't just build a product; they become historians of their domain. They study predecessors, understand market evolution, and learn from past attempts. This deep historical knowledge, seen in founders of Stripe and Airbnb, is a key differentiator and trait of the very best.

A common trait among exceptional founders is a deep, almost academic, understanding of their industry's history. They learn from every past attempt, success, and failure. This historical context allows them to innovate with a unique perspective and avoid the pitfalls that doomed their predecessors, a sign of true commitment and expertise.

Disagreeing with Peter Thiel, Josh Wolf argues that studying people who made willful mistakes is more valuable than studying success stories. Analyzing failures provides a clear catalog of what to avoid, offering a more practical and robust learning framework based on inversion.

Treat mentors as a collection of traits, not a monolithic influence. Actively adopt the qualities you admire while consciously rejecting the ones that don't align with your goals. A person can be a great role model for one area of life but a poor one for another.

When learning from successful people, model the obsessive work ethic they had during their rise, not the work-life balance they enjoy after achieving success. Their current state is the result of past imbalance, not a template for getting there.

Wisdom is not tied to professional status. True insight often comes from individuals whose vocation doesn't reflect their deep understanding. Seek mentorship from people you want to emulate as a person, not just those with outwardly successful careers, as vocation is not identity.

Truly great ideas are rarely original; they are built upon previous work. Instead of just studying your heroes like Buffett or Jobs, research who *they* studied (e.g., Henry Singleton, Edwin Land). This intellectual genealogy uncovers the timeless, foundational principles they applied.