Quantum Mentors Revives Mentorship for Pathfinders

Think about the Industrial Revolution for a second. It didn’t just put machines in factories — it changed everything. The food we ate, the air we breathed, the rhythm of our days, and the way we learned.

Before, learning was personal. You had mentors, guides, people who knew their craft and taught you by doing it alongside you. You chose your teacher, not just your subject. You followed someone you connected with, someone whose way of seeing the world made sense to you.

Then schools got “industrialized.” Rows of desks, bells, schedules, rigid curricula — all designed to produce workers. And while you could sometimes pick what you wanted to learn later in life, you never got to pick who you wanted to learn it from.

When I was in college for the first time — I wanted to meet my teachers before the semester started. Every single time I asked, the answer was no. Why? Because they were overworked, stretched thin, and didn’t have the time to nurture that connection. Not because they didn’t want to teach, but because the system didn’t give them the space to teach in a way that mattered.

So industrialized education didn’t just standardize learning — it standardized relationships, too. It made mentorship optional, when mentorship is the thing that actually helps focused creativity flourish.

So I started Quantum Mentors to build the capacity for something I believe education has been missing for over a century—less requirements, more mentorship. Quantum Mentors serves the local and global Fairfield community and network of unique entrepreneurs and creatives on the brink of revolutionary thinking. We call our students “Pathfinders” and our Pathfinders explore and design their own becoming in what we call “Pathfinder Play Dates.”

Pathfinders and mentors design play dates, projects, routine and executive functioning with the help of Indexcraft—a flexible learning tool I created for Pathfinders to mind map their multiplying ideas so they can play Scrabble with them, zoom in and out as they please, and make commitments that support steady progress.

At the heart of everything I do is this: I want people to feel the joy of discovering what they’re capable of. When learning is alive, you don’t just gain skills—you find your direction. And I’ve learned that the right mentor, at the right time, can be the thing that changes everything.