I never had someone I'd consider a 'mentor'. And I've had friends but I don't spend a lot of time with them and they don't relate to my business at all.
At the same time, I managed to build a business earning mid-6-digits per month. Not spending time futzing about with other people allowed me to focus on the actual craft and make the product really good. Not having "friends" to distort my thinking and pull every discussion towards common thought patterns and easy-to-understand platitudes allowed me to take my business in new directions that I understood but that others were unable to see or accept.
If you really want to do something different, and seriously intense, very very few people will understand or have what it takes to participate. Put simply, 1-in-1000 people only appear once per thousand people. If you're trying to do a 1-in-1000 challenge, it's almost guaranteed that everyone around you is not up to it. (Of course it's highly likely you aren't up to it either, but you can't walk away from yourself. On the chance that you are up to it, you don't want to screw that up by averaging your results out with people who are far less capable and driven than you).
Extroverts need people to talk to, they have no choice in the matter and some people might need help with knowing where to start with basic stuff like registering a company etc. And some people need some emotional support, it does not need to be logical support just: "you worked hard have a hug" type support.
But I totally agree with the don't talk with people about difficult work stuff you are trying to do to, like it takes years and rare talent to understand something in such a way that you can do "something different, and seriously intense" and make money off it, so there might be nobody in the world that you can have a proper discussion with about your thing.
But on a personal level time spent making friends can be truly rewarding. I mean we humans are herd animals, there is no escaping it. I personally get along truly well with very few people, but I can get along with some people for a short amount of time, so visiting different groups of people from time to time gives me a lot of joy, even if I would never truly get along with those people for more than a few hours each week/month.
I agree that human connections are important and valuable. I just find that they can't have anything to do with work, and they certainly don't help you with your work (which is what the post above said).
The people I interact with socially/romantically can't understand my work at all and are totally separate from it.
I never had someone I'd consider a 'mentor'. And I've had friends but I don't spend a lot of time with them and they don't relate to my business at all.
At the same time, I managed to build a business earning mid-6-digits per month. Not spending time futzing about with other people allowed me to focus on the actual craft and make the product really good. Not having "friends" to distort my thinking and pull every discussion towards common thought patterns and easy-to-understand platitudes allowed me to take my business in new directions that I understood but that others were unable to see or accept.
If you really want to do something different, and seriously intense, very very few people will understand or have what it takes to participate. Put simply, 1-in-1000 people only appear once per thousand people. If you're trying to do a 1-in-1000 challenge, it's almost guaranteed that everyone around you is not up to it. (Of course it's highly likely you aren't up to it either, but you can't walk away from yourself. On the chance that you are up to it, you don't want to screw that up by averaging your results out with people who are far less capable and driven than you).