From the very pleasant small corner (seriously, just check out the comments!) of the internet that is author George Saunders’ substack, Story Club, answering a question about finding a mentor:
One of the things I’ve come to love about this Story Club community is its generosity. From where I sit, it feels like people show up here with the right attitude for any artistic endeavor, which is, “I bet there’s something for me to learn here.” This doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t already know quite a lot. But she has reverence for the importance and difficulty of the task and knows at some level that showing up in a curious, humble, friendly spirit, she’s more likely to return home with something of value.
If that’s not wisdom for approaching just about anything, I don’t know what is.