How to Find a Mentor

Hey, this is Sharan. And in this episode, I break down one of the most common questions that I get asked. In fact, it is so important that if I had had this 10, 15, 20 years ago, it would have changed my life forever. And that is how do I find a mentor? In fact, I break down a 10-step blueprint on how you can find a mentor. And most importantly, it talks about exactly the first step to finding a mentor, how to not attract the wrong mentors and the magic question that every mentee should ask. All this wrapped up into a really tactical episode for you to kick off. This episode of The Business School Show. Enjoy. One thing is for certain. Just because it's tried and true doesn't mean it's working right now. So the big question is this. Like you learn what is working right now. The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and the exact how to. How to go your business. How to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth. That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharan Tribata and welcome to Business School. Over the years, I've gotten a lot of questions. And one of the questions, if I had to summarize the number one question which comes to us in different shapes and sizes, sounds something like this. Hey, Sharan, knowing what you know now, if there's one thing you could have done sooner, if there's one thing that you could have done differently, if there's one thing that you could have done earlier in your career, what would it have been? Across interviews, across mentorships, across learnings, across stages. I will share this and I will share this over and over again because if I could go back to teenage Sharan, if I could go back to 20 year old Sharan, this is what I would do. I would invest in a high performance coaching or mentoring relationship that much sooner. Because I will tell you that the coaches and mentors that I've had in my life and I continue to have in my life have created unimaginable growth, unimaginable success, unimaginable changes in perspective for me. Now I would love the same for you and instead of pontificating about the philosophy and what it means and tell you stories about all of that, I want to keep this a very tactical episode and I want to give you a roadmap, a blueprint, if you will, on how you can actually find an amazing mentor. So today I want to talk to you about how to find a great mentor and I wrote down a very quick ten step blueprint. I wrote this down several years ago. I share this with the CEOs that I mentor myself and I want to share it with you. I want to break it down for you because I want to do it in a no fluff, no gimmick kind of way so that you can literally take this and install it in your life and start to see the success it can have in your life and in your business. So here is my ten step blueprint, ten step formula for finding a great mentor. Let's start with number one. Be a mentor first. Be a mentor first. And I want to tell you a quick story around this. I remember one of my first coaches that I ever reached out to and I'll tell you that story in a second. As I was having my quote strategy call with her to hire her, she asked me, she's like, well, Shron, how many times have you been in a coaching relationship? Tell me about your coaching mentoring relationships in the past. And I said, well, I haven't and this is my first one. And instantly she said, well, we have two options. Number one is you go, is you go get another coach because I'm not willing to be your first one because you just will not appreciate the perspective and the relationship. She you just will not appreciate it. So go get another one because I don't want to be your trial run. And number two, if you don't want to do that, here's what you should do. Go be a mentor to someone else. Go be a mentor to someone else and then you'll start to realize this. Now I didn't really understand what she said. I kind of fought it. I really fought it. I didn't know what she meant and what she said. And so I decided that, well, maybe I'll do the latter, right? I was not going to go invest in a substandard coaching relationship to earn my stripes for my first year and then have her because like I would be wasting my year. So I thought, you know what, I'll take the second option, which is let me go find someone else to be a mentor too. And so I asked her, I said, hey, okay, coach, coach me on how to go, how to go be a mentor to someone else. And I know you and I can go deep into that being a whole different episode itself. But I want to ask you this, look around in your life. And I know for sure there are people in your life that look up to you. It may be a nephew or niece. It may be a someone on your team. It may be someone in your community. It may be someone in your tennis club. It may be a young entrepreneur who reaches out, reached out to you often that you've ignored his or her calls. It may be any of those. But until we can create a mentoring relationship, until we can be a mentor first, until you can be a mentor first, you don't really know what it takes. And let me tell you what I mean by that. When you have your meetings, do they come prepared? And how frustrated do you get when they don't? When you have your meetings and you have a conversation and you give them a piece of advice that you know, that you know and your bones to be true. But they don't follow it. How does it make you feel? When they tell you that they're going to do something and they don't and you have to hold them accountable to it and they still brush it off. Learning to be a mentor first, learning to be a coach first is a very, very powerful thing. I was very fortunate that after we sold our first business, I spent five years on helping build several tennis and golf programs around the world. That's where I actually met my first business partner on the tennis court. And I spent, I'll tell you this, I spent time learning to teach tennis. I was a good tennis player. I'd play on the pro tour. I was a good tennis player, not amazing, but I was good. I was better than 99% of them. So I thought I could teach. And my, and my, you know, CEO of my company at that time who was, you know, an amazing tennis teaching professional told me this. He said, "Shiron, I want you to do 100 unpaid coaching, you know, tennis lessons that are critiqued." So literally he said, "Have somebody that is really good, watch you, teach a lesson, and have 100 unpaid lessons where you earn your stripes and someone critiques you on how good at teaching pro you are." I literally did 100 unpaid tennis lessons and I had someone critique me for 100 lessons. You get really good, really good, really quickly. You learn to be a mentor to someone else really quickly. You learn to be a coach to someone else really quickly. You learn the mechanics of coaching, you learn the mechanics of mentoring, you learn the mechanics of staying open, you learn the mechanics of holding the space. There's a lot to being a coach and a mentor that most people don't know about just because you're good at something. Doesn't mean you can be good at teaching it and just because you're good at opening up, doesn't mean you can be coachable. If you took nothing else away from today and you wanted to shut this podcast down right now, I will tell you this, be a mentor first. And ask, who can I be a mentor to? Take that a commitment and I would say if you're looking for a time frame, you got to do that for six months to a year because only then does it really kind of come to life. But that, just that, dude, once that makes you, gives you insane perspective and you open up the valves of being coachable, having the right mentor in your life, having the right perspective. Because until then, you're going to have this entitled attitude of, "Hey, I'm happy to write a check or I want someone else to be a mentor and that just doesn't work. Be a mentor first and then everything else starts to happen." Alright, let's go to number two. I want you to get really clear on your goals because most mentors can't help you if they don't know what the goal is. So I'll give you a simple example. There's a wrong way to do it, right? I get direct messages or on Instagram emails often in my list saying, "Hey, Sharon, I love your story. I want to make billions. Will you mentor me?" Well, thanks, but, huh? I literally have no idea what that means. The problem has nothing to do that this is coming from a stranger. The problem has nothing to do with the script. It is nothing to do with the goal of making billions of dollars either. I had really appreciate all of that. The problem is I have no idea what this request even means when someone says, "Will you mentor me?" Like, I have no idea what it means. So we have to clarify that very specifically, right? Because nobody has any clue because it means something different to each person, big, unbeknownst to each person. their own experience of the concept of mentorship. Maybe you're asking someone to mentor you who's had a very bad relationship with mentorship. They then they would definitely not wanna help you. Maybe you ask someone like me, who's had a very positive relationship, but then I don't know how to even start the relationship. So my suggestion to you is this, first. Please don't ask that question to anyone, right? Will you mentor me is a very bad question to ask that question of anyone? Because they don't know what it means and it has the lack of clarity and you're starting the relationship out on a terrible foot on the wrong foot. Literally it's an awkward question to ask and it's an even more awkward question to be asked that. And most importantly, nobody has ever gotten a worthy mentor by asking that question. So let's not ask that question, all right? Let's not ask that question. So without solving this, I want to tell you this, without solving this, you will never actually be able to get your step in the right direction. I like the score a lot, which says nothing great ever happened without it being written down. Nothing great ever happened without it being written down. The first step to doing anything is to figure out literally what do you want? Do you just need someone to talk to? Is that what you want? Do you need someone smart to talk to? Need someone to help you with something? What do you want? Unless you have clarity around your goals on it. If you are already the kind of person that already has your goals written down. And you're like, I have clarity around this. When I have a mentor, I can share my goals with them and say, this is where I am in each of them. What do you think? That's great. Because now your question to a mentor is, Hey, Ms. Mentor, I have seven goals for myself for the next three years. If it's okay with you and two vulnerability, I want to share my seven goals with you. And then if you can give me five minutes to give me your thoughts around those, I promise I'll take your feedback and then won't bother you. I'll go and execute. If you told me that, I would gladly give you the five minutes because I know a couple of things. Number one, you've already done the pre-work. You're already serious. You've already done the goals and you're making this an easier process for me, not just to deliver value to you, but I also know that you're serious enough that you'll go implement. There is a symbol of seriousness associated with this, right? And the reason I'm saying this is, most of us are what I call just-in-time learners. We only want to learn something when we absolutely need to learn. So the question becomes, what do you need? Help it. What? Seriously. Like what do you need help with? Well, most people, I struggle to answer the question. The easier way to literally answer the question is getting ultra-clear on your goals because unless you have clarity around your goals, which is what you really want to accomplish, you don't know the gap, right? I'll say it again, unless you have ultra-clear clarity on your goals, which is what you want to accomplish, you don't know the gap. You don't know what is between you and that goal. And it's really hard to figure out the support system. The coach is the mentors, the advisors, that you need to help you get you there. You literally don't know whether you need somebody tactical, you literally don't know whether you need someone at the connection, you literally don't know who can compress that gap for you. So you absolutely need clarity on goals before you get a mentor. Now there's a caveat to this, and let me explain this. You absolutely need clarity on your goals before you find a mentor because it allows them to kind of jump into the slipstream of conversation with you so that they can support you. But even if your goal is to get clarity with your goals, that is still good clarity that needs clarity. It's a tongue twister right there. Even if the entire goal is to get clarity, that's good clarity. That just means that you're unsure of, what path to take in life. That's okay. Let's call that out because someone can help you with that. I can help you with that. There's a lot of people that can help you with that. But I need to know that you have clarity and what you're trying to accomplish, even if that clarity is getting clarity. You're starting to see a little pattern here because a lot of people put the car before the horse. A lot of people just want the mentor and they think they can outsource the success to the mentor. But that's not the point. The point is you want to slot a mentor in the right place. So that you can dramatically collapse time to get you the result that you want. All right. So number one, be a mentor first. Number two, get crystal clear on your goals, even if the entire goal is getting clarity. Number three, I want you to finish this sentence. Okay, I want you to finish this sentence. If X person, if X person could mentor me to learn why I can accomplish Z. All right, if X person could help me learn why I will be able to accomplish Z. So if Hosein Bolt could help me have a better start on my running, I will be able to get to the Olympics, right? Do you see what? If Elon Musk could help me build a new electric turbine, I can get water to every continent in the world. Do you see what this is? If, like one of my mentors, if Walter could help me learn how to scale a company, I will be able to grow our company 10X. If my coach Jen, if Jen could help me figure out my personal strengths, my personal essence, I will be able to build a company that leverages everyone else's unique strengths. If Jason could help me become a better copywriter, I will be able to write multi-million dollar sales letters. Do you see what I'm doing with this? If the person could help me do whatever he want to help with, I will be able to get this result. I'll say it again, super important. This is the magic question that every single mentee should answer. And I love filling the blanks. So let me give you the fill in the blanks one more time. If, quote, "mentor name" could help me, which is your desired upgrade, I will be able to get desired result. Say it again, if Walter, "mentor name" could help me learn how to scale a company, I will be able to get a 10X result. I will able to scale my company 10X. Think about that. You're getting so clear with fill in the blanks that it makes this such a simple process for you. Now you can really organize all your thoughts around finding that person that can help you get the desired result. The interesting part is this, everybody thinks that they want a specific mentor. Your brain is so wired into getting the answer, it forgets the question. I'll say it again, your brain is so wired into getting the answer that it forgets the question. The question is more important here, the fill in the blanks are way more important here. What you need here is not a mentor. What you need here is the desired result. You need a mentor, your company 10X. That's what you need. How you get it is somewhat irrelevant. Now, in the most ethical way, well, to get that result, what needs to happen? You need an upgrade of sorts. You need an upgrade. Well, great, what is that upgrade? Well, then now you can figure out who's gonna give you that upgrade. I'll say it again, if my goal is to grow our company 10X, that's the desired result. The upgrade that I need is to learn how to scale a company. The people, the people, the mentors that I can now learn from are not just fixated on one person. Now I can figure out who can give me this upgrade of learning how to scale a company. Therefore, I can get this desired result of 10X. That is when this gets very, very interesting. What I didn't only do once I have the fill in the blank is, I pick three people. I just pick three people with no judgment. It can be anybody from Bill Gates to Warren Buffett to your neighbor. I pick three people could help me accomplish that goal. Doing creating that sentence itself, just that fill in the blanks. If X could mentor me to learn why, then I can accomplish Z. Again, if X could mentor me to learn Y, then I can accomplish Z, right? Once you pick three people, I can help you accomplish that goal. Now it gets interesting. Now it gets interesting because now you know the exact result that you want. Number one, be a mentor first. Number two, get clear on your goals. Number three, finish the sentence. Now you pick three people who can do that. Number four, once I pick these three people, here's what I do. I do a deep dive on each of them. I just do a straight up, deep dive on each of them. So let's say I believe that Warren Buffett could be a great mentor to me. I do a deep dive, but I do it with the filter of that sentence, the fill in the blank. If X could mentor me to learn why, that I can accomplish Z, I do it with that in mind. Because once I do it with that in mind, my deep dive makes a lot of sense. My deep dive has a lot of perspective. My deep dive is a lot more clear. I'm not just reading their biography. I'm not just listening to their blog, their podcast. I'm not just watching their interviews. I'm not just watching their YouTube videos. I am doing something a lot more specific. I am, my brain is now like a heat seeker missile. And it's trying to help me get this upgrade so that I can get the specific result. That's when I start to do a deep dive on each of them. And let me give you the process of doing a deep dive on each of them. I pick a three month period. And I take each mentor, I take each personality, [BLANK_AUDIO] each person and I just go deep on them for a month. When I say go deep on them for a month, what I'm trying to tell you is that I literally deep dive meaning I read everything that they've put out. I order all the books that they've had. I look at all the podcasts that they've done. I look at all the YouTube videos that they've done. I read all the blogs that they've read. Literally my recreational time for an entire month is spent deep diving on them. And I'll give you an example of a third person that I recently deep dive on. I wrote this and I said, you know, if Malcolm Gladwell could be my mentor, I can learn, I can learn the art of storytelling from him. And that can help me write an amazing book. I wrote that down, right? I literally wanted to learn the art of storytelling from Malcolm Gladwell. And those of you who may know Malcolm Gladwell who wrote the tipping point, Blinken, a bunch of other great books, David and Goliath, one of my favorites. And so what I did was I just went deep on Malcolm Gladwell for a whole month to the point where I didn't contact him whether he'll be my mentor. I was happy to write a check if that's what I wanted. But I'll tell you what happened. Something magical happened within like 10 or 11 days of kind of learning about Malcolm Gladwell. I learned something. I learned that I could almost tell you what he was going to say next. Not because he had been asked the same questions and the same answers, not because I read his books and his blogs and his New Yorker articles, not because of that. But because I've heard so much from him, I just deep dived on him, that I almost in my nervous system knew the pattern in which he started to think. I could almost tell you what would Malcolm do. I could almost tell you that I'm so impressed with them. I could almost tell you what would Malcolm do when asked the next question. So I actually even played this game with myself and I said, ah, I waited till a question would be answered. I'd hit pause on the YouTube and I'd say, I think Malcolm's going to answer it this way. And I'd pause it. And of course, I would be pretty close. And it's amazing because now you've really hardwired their learning into yours. You've you've you've collapsed decades worth of experience into days and you've downloaded them into you literally played the matrix or you've downloaded the program into you which is super powerful. And that alone will give you such a leg up. Nobody does that level of deep dive. People just want to just, you know, they are influencer junkies. They just follow influencers all day and they think that they're going to get this fragmented knowledge. But when you go deep on somebody with a very specific, if X could mentor me to learn why so that I can accomplish Z if you know that format, powerful, powerful things start to happen. So that's number four. Do a deep dive on each of them. And you'll know right away which one of them is going to be the right fit for you. All right. Now, let's assume that Malcolm Lado was the right fit for me. And in fact, the one of the other people that I, you know, from a storytelling perspective that I that I singled out and put on my radar was Seth Goden. Seth Goden is an amazing author, writer, thinker, teacher. And he I love his I love his ability to tell stories. And Seth was one of those people that I did a deep dive on. And what I decided to do after I did that was I was like, okay, what do I do next? I really like Seth. I think Seth is a right mentor here. What do I do next? And here's step five of this process. Let me recap steps one through four for you one more time. If X could mentor me to learn why I can accomplish Z. Number four, do a deep dive on each of them. Number five, appreciate and recognize them in public. Right. Appreciate and recognize them in public. So I went on a mad almost 2030 day where I would read an article about Seth Goden. I would post about him. I would share something about him. I would recognize his article. I would share my, the emails with my friends. I would put them on my blogs. I would send them out to my list. I actually did a series of the five my five best quotes from Seth Goden to my email list, which has tens of thousands of people. I literally recognize them in public. And I tagged them on every post on LinkedIn. I wanted them to know that I wanted to get on their radar. I just wanted to get on their radar, not from a perspective of I want to you to mentor me, but more from the perspective of appreciation and recognition. Because once that is the way someone connects with you, then everything else becomes really easy. Imagine if for 30 day period, all you saw on your emails, your social media, your YouTube channels, your comments on your blogs, etc. All you saw was just people, it was one person just singing your praises, sharing your content, promoting you selflessly. Didn't ask for anything. That person starts to occupy a very interesting place in your mindset. And that's the place that I want you to get to. Because once that foundation is established, asking is very easy after that. While this is a semi-strategic, I call this 99% selfless and 1% selfish. Again, 99% selfless and 1% selfish. The 99% selflessness is just sharing exactly what this is all about, is giving them praise and public recognition. But the 1% selfishness of the 1% personal gain, and this is just maybe they'll see your stuff, maybe they'll recognize your stuff, maybe they'll recognize your name, maybe they'll appreciate you. And then once you get in the dialogue with them, it gets very exciting very quickly for anybody out there, for almost anybody out there. Because regardless of the personality, either they're watching their own stuff or their team's watching their own stuff. And I tell my team, if you see somebody, you know, go out, out there doing great things, like bring it to my knowledge, because I want to recognize them. I want to appreciate them for what they're doing for me as well. All right? So I appreciate and recognize them in public. Number six, I make a digital, make a digital shrine. I'll say it again. Number six is make a digital shrine. I'm a big, big, big proponent of making a digital shrine. And here's what I mean by that. Is there a place that you can start to collate all your thoughts? Is there a place that you can say, Hey, here are those 93 things that I learned from Seth Godin. And then you say, you write this blog post. And I mean this because once you do this, this is the body of work that you learned from this puzzle. So when you do the deep dive, just start to pull out various things that you learn. Maybe it's a quote, maybe it's a video. Maybe it's a podcast, whatever it is, just set a resources. And then I want you to publish a digital shrine. I want you to publish a blog post or a medium article or something or do a long form video or a long Facebook post or a long LinkedIn post or whatever. There's a free platform. So you could do this on and you can say, Hey, I did a deep dive on Seth Godin on Sharan Srivata, whoever, right? And here is the 37 things that I learned that has completely changed my perspective on business, on life, on productivity, on storytelling, whatever. Number one, here's a quote. Number two, here's a link to a podcast. Number three, number four, number five, number six, number seven, number eight. Imagine you've built this digital shrine of this person. How amazing that's shrine now stands the test of time. Other people can benefit from it. Other people will tag that person. Other people will look at that now. Not only have you learned from the work, not only have you dedicated a piece of a shrine to that person, but you've created a encompassing body of work that the world can learn from. And that is the true gift that you're giving to the mentor even before the relationship starts. Make a digital shrine. A lot of times people, I actually have one of my private clients that email and ask me, Hey, Sharan, how can I help you? And I'm like, I have no idea. That's weird. That's a weird question. That's like saying, will you be my mentor? But I said, you know, if you want to support somebody every day for five, 10, 15 days, do an Instagram story about them. Tell other people to follow them, tag them on it. That way they can see the consistency and the cadence of how you're creating this ongoing digital shrine of this person. Because now I know that you've done way more than give me a mention on a LinkedIn post. I know what you've done is you've done it with cadence and consistency and courage and collaboration that I can learn from. And as a, you know, as a mentor, I'm like, wow, that's awesome. If he is are so serious that he do that, if he reached out, I would totally help this person. Make a digital shrine and you'd be shocked as to how amazing, amazing that will be. All right. Numbers number seven, write up 10 questions you would ask them if you had to interview them. Write up 10 questions you would ask them if you had to interview them. And these 10 questions, it can be three, it can be 10. I'm asking you to do 10 because it tends a nice fun number. But write up the 10 questions that you would ask them if you had to interview them. Like, let's say you're talking, you read about something and you want to go deeper and write that. Let's say you read about something or you saw them say something and it has a different perspective on your life that you needed them to go deeper with a specific situation in your life or in your business. Maybe you have a business partner struggle. Maybe you, maybe you have a, you know, philosophical struggle whether you should keep your business or not. Maybe you're stuck and you want to reboot your business completely. Maybe you want to fire a partner. Maybe you want to get out of a bad relationship. Whatever it may be. Write up the 10 questions you would ask them if you had a private interview with them. Because if he said yes to mentoring you like what's the next? Next step, write up those 10 questions. Because once you have those 10 questions, I say 10, you may only be seven. Once you have those 10 questions, I'm amazing things start to happen. If you don't have those 10 questions, then it doesn't really work because they don't know how they can help you. Again, goes back to clarity. At the end of the day, you want them to be your mentor, right? You wanna have a dialogue with them. You wanna have a conversation with them. You wanna ask them questions so they can help you collapse time and get to success faster. That's truly the case. Then why don't you get that success upfront? Why don't you write those questions upfront? What if they just said, "Shran, I'll jump on the phone with you and answer those 10 questions for you." How amazing would that be? You don't need to do anything else. I want you to get the answers that you want so write up the questions that you want. As you can see in these kind of first seven steps, a lot of this work about getting a mentor seems all on you and me. We need to do that first. Because when we do that, we make the mentoring relationship deeply frictionless and amazingly impactful for us. I wanna recap these seven for you because these last three are very tactical. Number one, learn to be a mentor first. Number two, get crystal clear on your own goals. If X person could be my mentor to learn why, then I can accomplish Z. Number four, do a deep dive into each of the three people you've picked. Number six, make a digital shrine off the one person that you really, really want. Number seven, write up the 10 questions. 10, whatever, I'm just making a number there that you would ask them if you had an interview with them. If you had a 20, 30 minute interview and you could ask them 10 questions, what would they be based on the digital shrine that you've built? Now, now, here's where the rubber meets the road. This is where you make the ask. Number eight, you don't ask them to mentor you. You ask them for an interview. Okay, you don't ask them to mentor you. Mentor you, you ask them for an interview. And here's what I would suggest. They already know you if you've done all these things and you can reach out, even if you're reaching out to them or to their team. So let's say I was reaching out to Seth Goden, I'd say Seth, I've been following your work for a while. I've seen you speak here, here, here and here. In fact, in the month of April, I spent the whole month dedicated to watching, learning, and deep diving into all your material. If you wanna see the summary that I did, here's the link to the post that I did on the 87 things I learned, dedicating my month to Seth Goden, put a link. That's the link to your digital shrine. Then you can say, during this time, I reflect it on all your teachings and your shareings and your content and your philosophy and conjunct you with my own life. And I have seven questions that are burning questions within me that I am unable to resolve with all the stuff that you've already put out there. I've literally consumed everything and I have these seven questions and I was hoping I could interview you in a way in which I could ask you these seven questions. And if you'd rather, I'm happy to send them to you in advance that you can answer them directly if that's easier for you. Imagine if I got that literally what you're telling me is, "Hey, Shron, I've been, hey Seth, I've been following you. I've read everything that you've put out. I dedicated a whole month to you. I made a shrine out of everything that you've done. Based on all of that, I have a bunch of these questions. I literally, I looked at everything that you've done and I can't find answers to these seven questions. I would be super appreciative if you would, if I can interview you for those seven questions because it'll be a really thoughtful interview. In fact, if you don't wanna give me that time, I'll send you the seven questions in advance and you can just answer them in your own time. If I got that, I would feel deeply compelled to take that interview. If I got that, I would feel deeply inspired to give you that time because of your symbol of seriousness that you put out and everything that you've already done to create this body of work so far. That's how you make the ask. You don't say, "Hey, Shron, I love your work. I wanna make billions. Can you be my mentor?" Like, nobody knows what that means, right? This method is way easier. That's how you ask for an interview. Because once you ask for an interview, it becomes way better after that, right? It becomes way better after that. Because now that person already knows that you are serious, that person already knows that you're an action taker. Those are the two things. Those are the two things that people always wanna know. That are you serious and are you an action taker? Every mentor in coach's worst nightmare is having someone that's not serious, frivolous, and who is all talk and no action because all their time is insanely wasted in this entire process. This allows you to show that you're deeply serious and I call it the symbol of seriousness and also shows that you're an action taker. Pretty amazing, right? All right, number eight, ask for the interview and ask for it intelligently. Number nine. It is totally okay and not just okay, but it's almost required to pay for access. And let me tell you what I mean by this. Many people will disagree with me on this and there's some very specific caveats to this. But I wanna explain to you about paying for access. So literally unless someone, and let me give you the caveat first, I have a couple of mentors in my life that have taken me under their wing. They're like father or mother figures in my life. Wave, they just see young Sharan in them. They see a little bit of their children in me and they have dedicated their lives and they are open to supporting me in any way without any financial obligation. They just wanna give back because that's the phase in life that they're in. They chose the mentoring relationship. I didn't. I just saw that they were offering it and I jumped on and I did my part. I put up, I'll go, I'll fly to them. I'll spend the money to be with them. I'll do everything because they have made the effort to creating that level of openness for me. I will tell you that relationship only comes up very rarely in life, very rarely. And you're probably gonna end up with one or two people in your life that are like that who will kind of install themselves as your mentor without asking anything in return. And all they ask is your warmth, your kindness, your seriousness and you being an action taker because they see something in you that you don't see in yourself. Now I would not bank on this. That is not what you're looking for. What if that happens and I promise you that will happen in your life because of the goodwill and the good karma that you have that will happen but that is not what you're gonna bank on. You do not want the free mentoring on most of the occasions because there's something really, really, really, really painful here. And there is what I believe, a karmic imbalance, a karmic imbalance. And again, I might get a lot of flack for this but this is just what I believe, right? And I'm sharing with you what I believe. I believe that there's a karmic imbalance. So if I've spent 20 years of my life and I have worked through a lot of pain, a lot of struggle, I've lost millions of dollars, I've broken down my life, my health, my family, and I am the person I am today. And you wanna suck me dry and you want me to, and you contacted me, you want me to mentor you and you want me to do it for free. That's fine. Even if I want to do it, that's fine. But the problem is this, there's a karmic imbalance because I have paid my dues to the world of sorts and you haven't. And the way to do that is to show some form of a symbol of consideration for that that shows that hey, I don't take this relationship for granted, I'm happy to write the check because that way, the energetically, we are all aligned. Now, you may think that's crazy, but I'll tell you this, I have zero problem writing a check for mentors. Like when I want to get to know somebody, I am 100% happy making the call to them and saying, "Hey, so-and-so introduce me to you." I'd love to have you on my podcast and I wanna pay you for your time to be on that and whatever they ask for, I will write the check for. Because once that happens, it instantly breaks all the bonds. It breaks all the ties, it breaks the kind of, the karmic energy of this person is trying to take advantage of me. Once that happens, amazing things start to happen. Now, again, I'm caveatting this with, I do what I say, I write the checks as I do, I write the checks to the mastermind groups, I write the checks to the coaches and mentors, I write the checks because I want there to be some level of karmic balance. And that's really important to me. Because I have been in relationships where I have been the mentor and I've been completely ticket and banage of and I feel a lot of resentment and I don't want to bring that to a relationship. In fact, on the other side, I've also felt uncomfortable. If there's any time you feel uncomfortable being in the presence of a mentor who's taking time to spend time picking your brain, picking his brain or her brain over coffee, it's really painful because you are approaching it with the suboptimal kind of energy on both sides. It just doesn't work that way. So I would say pay for access, be totally open to paying for access. You should ask the question, "Hey, what is it, Aishron, what does it take?" You know, what does it take to invest in a relationship with you so that I can build and grow my business? Hey, Aishron, what does it take to invest in a relationship with you? with you so I can help you build and grow my business. And the best coaches and mentors will not really literally throw out a number. The best ones won't throw out a number. If you soon as you do that and someone throws out a number, that means that they're off in some way, again, in my world. What if you did that to me, I'd be like, wait, I don't even know if I can help you. Like let's get on a call, let's talk about it. I thank you for that approach, but I wanna first talk to you to see if I can actually help you, to see if we're actually aligned, to see if we're actually on the same kind of wavelength, and then maybe we can talk through mechanics and logistics. Because the symbol of serious is knowing that your action takeer is super, super important. Paying for access, you have no idea how many checks I've written to pay for access. And I, there's sometimes where the access didn't really pan out and sometimes it paned out really well, but I tell you eight out of 10 times, when I've written the check, I have gotten 10x to 100x worth of ROI. And some 10x to 100x worth of return on investment, and which is insane if you think about it, right? So number nine pay for access. And the last but not least, number 10, don't take it personally, right? I won't tell you a quick story. So I did, I told you about this discussion that I had, where I went a deep dive with Seth Godin. And I was thinking, how can I have this relationship where I really had three questions that I want answered. And I love the recent book that he wrote, this is marketing. And I just wanted three questions answered. And I knew that in Seth would be able to answer that in 10, 15 minutes. And so I love the book so much that I bought it for the key members of our inner circle mastermind group. I bought for our top 100 clients, I bought the book, gave it to all of them. And I asked several of them those three questions, whether they would get, whether they got out of it as well. And they couldn't answer it either. So here's what I did. I wrote a two line message to Seth. And I talked to him about my digital shrine. I said, Seth, this is what happened. Here's who I am. Here's what I've done. Here's everything that I've already done. In fact, I went and invested in 100 copies of your book already to my mastermind group. And I have these three questions. And it probably won't take more than 15 minutes. And I'm trying to answer this question for myself and my mastermind group. I'm not trying to use your name and this relationship to get a new podcast out or anything like that. This is just a private interview. And no more than 15 minutes, and I'll do it at your own time. And of course, what it sets, it being the guy that he is. He said, of course, Ron. Of course, happy to do it. Send me a link. So I got on with him. It's probably 10, 12 minutes long. I fired the three questions at him. He gave me the three good answers. He's nailed it. And I took that recording and I shared it with my mastermind group. And that was the beginning of my relationship with Seth Godin. Now, that was, I could have easily said anything else, but I didn't. I didn't ask for anything else after that. I'd already invested in hundreds of books. I'd already invested in the time. He saw that and he was able to allow me that gift. There are times when I've done something similar to people where they never even responded, where I've gotten a lot of, no, not interested. No, I'm not ready for it. In fact, I offered an author that I really like. Just a super smart guy that loves in San Francisco. In fact, I was introduced to him by our advisor, meaning him and I share the same advisor, like, you know, legal advisor. And he took my call, but he literally did not want to engage with me, support me. For whatever reason, he was probably busy. And he says, "Hey, I'm busy with my team. I can't do this right now." Now, I could have literally taken that personally, but I didn't. I took it personally for a little bit, but I didn't let it bother me too much. So number 10, don't take it personally, because by the time you've gotten to this point, you've already done all the work that is insanely amazing for you. That is my 10 step blueprint on how to find a mentor, how to find a mentor that can get you the upgrade and the result that you want. I'm gonna give you a quick recap of my 10 steps, and if this is helpful to you, you know, pass it on, share it with someone, because I hope that you can take this and install the framework into your life and into your business so it can help you grow and change dramatically. Number two, get crystal clear on what you want right now, 'cause we're just in time learners. And even if that clarity is just getting clarity. Number four, do a deep dive on three people that fit that bill. Number five, appreciate and recognize this person in public for an extended period of time. Number six, make a digital shrine. Make a digital shrine for this person, so that they recognize how serious you are, you can capture your thoughts, and you can also create a repository for a lot of people to benefit from the time you've spent. Number seven, write up the seven to 10 questions who would ask them if you had an interview with them. Number eight, ask for the interview by pointing to all the work that you've already done, especially the digital shrine. Number nine, be completely comfortable with paying for access, because paying for access keeps the carmic and energy balance in place, not just for you, but also for the mentor and for all the people that you come and touch with in the future. And number 10, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't just be okay and not taking it personally, because you did all the work anyway, you already benefited from this entire process anyway. You've already done it, you've already accomplished it. And I promise you, it will turn around, it will come about, because it's just probably not the right time yet. If I were to go back and tell you the one thing again that I could have done, or the one thing that I could have done earlier, the one thing that I could have done sooner that would have completely changed the trajectory of my life forever. It would have been to get a mentor or coach early on, much earlier in my career, and I have been ready for it. If I had done this earlier in my life, the same blueprint that I'm sharing with you now, if I had done this, my trajectory of my life would be unimaginable. And I wish that same thing for you. This is my 10-part blueprint on how to find a right mentor for you to get you the upgrade that you need and the result that you want. Thanks for being on this journey with me, and I'll catch you on the next episode of the Business School Show. (upbeat music) Hey, Chiron, I have a cool gift for you. I took some of my best ideas from the last 20 years and created a five-day MBA. It's quick connection pact that you could listen to on the go just like this podcast, and I wanna give it to you for free. Just as a thank you for listening to the show. No fluff, no gimmicks, just pure actionable ideas for you to use instantly. You can grab it right now at businessschoolshow.com. That's businessschoolshow.com. (upbeat music)