A vivid memory I have of my adolescence is that although I did not lack for enthusiasm about learning, my parents tenderly kept after me on various academic obligations: “Did you get that studying in for your advanced placement test in calculus? How about your Latin project?” Call it pestering or call it persistence, but it ultimately translated to my perseverance.

As I anticipate reaching the cusp of the mid-career stage in academic medicine and reflect on the mentorship I have received, I have a newfound conviction to advance my own skills in mentoring. In particular, the role of persistence has a different meaning. I always thought that great mentorship meant making oneself available to mentees and, whenever they needed something, being at the ready. My work in understanding health care worker burnout has sensitized me to recognizing that one person’s advancement is another person’s grunt work, and thus, I am usually one to take cues from mentees. “Let them come to you,” has been my proverbial motto. As our medical culture has progressed in its awareness of burnout as a driver for turnover [1], I have thus wondered where lies the balance between mentoring junior colleagues to advance their careers in academic psychiatry versus giving them so much to do that they begin to plan a speedy exit? My experience with three dimensions of persistence from mentors has reshaped my perception of what impactful mentorship in academic medicine means and helped me to arrive at a more accurate perception of that balance.

First is the “up your alley” reminder: When I first began working, I had a lot of interests but a lot of responsibilities too. I felt excited to pursue a niche area of clinical work or research and would tell my mentors about these. But I did not follow up because, after all, I had a full plate between clinical care and teaching. The “up your alley” reminder was the email I would receive from a mentor that included a link to a study or a news article on my area of interest. In a meeting, the “up your alley” reminder was a discussion on the steps I could take to move forward on my research interest: a new grant accepting applications in my area of interest or a colleague I could talk to who would help me launch the study I had in mind. Such emails and discussions clarified that part of the reason I was having inertia on pursuing a new project was that I could not conceptualize all the steps I needed to take to accomplish what I wanted to do. I needed the persistence of a mentor to reinforce my passion by helping me to structure a plan and one which truly resonated with me.

Second is the “gentle poke” encouragement: Having clarified a vision, I knew what I wanted to do and had a sense of how to do it, but moving forward on the steps felt intimidating. For instance, seeking funding felt impossible when I had never even heard of what was required in a biosketch for the National Institutes of Health. Looking back on my perception of the obstacles to academic advancement, I can see that one of them was my ambivalence about mobilizing, an ambivalence that stemmed from my negative expectations. The “gentle poke” was the encouragement from my mentors, reinforcing that I should pursue the next step. Their words imparted that I had agency in a path of career advancement in academic medicine. A mentor’s persistence is an affirmation of the mentee’s capabilities and often becomes a source of momentum for a mentee at critical times.

Third is the “try, try again” counsel: A staple in everyone’s professional journey is failure, such as the award one did not win, maybe once, maybe thrice. It feels impossible not to take such losses personally. A wise mentor once reframed the experience of failure for me, noting that success is akin to remaining in a line for a ticket; you have to have the patience to wait your turn. At the time, I found this advice to be incredibly buoying because it was a liberating path to re-conceptualizing self-efficacy. I have since gone on to “wait my turn” for many endeavors, some that were successful, others that yielded no results despite my tenacity, and those that I eventually decided to quit. Nevertheless, I have been able to let go of a perception of failure more quickly than I used to, making it possible for my persistence to remain afloat.

In the literature on retaining junior faculty in academic medicine, mentorship is an inevitable recommendation [2, 3]. I have always thought of such mentorship as being akin to walking beside someone as they climb a mountain. I have come to understand that impactful mentorship can also necessitate getting behind someone and pushing them up the incline when their energy flags. A mentor’s persistence translates to a mentee’s perseverance, enabling the mentee to anticipate challenges along their path and address them—a part of what drives retention in academic medicine. However, professional fulfillment means different things to different people, making each mountain unique to the individual. Thus, great mentors must persist in understanding what the mountain looks like for each mentee and persist in pushing them up it.