A Starter Mentor

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Do you have a mentor?  Have you even looked for a mentor?  What makes a good mentor? 

When it comes to financial planning, it annoys me so much when a client comes in quoting their engineering friend about what they should be doing with their money.  I hate it with a passion.  Learning to not listen to everyone is a lesson learned after college because in lower grades and high school, you tend to listen to everyone and most of them don’t know what they are talking about.

My first lesson on this was in the Navy.  The biggest know-it-all is the shipmate that knows all the legal aspects of the Navy.  We called them Sea Lawyers.  Sea Lawyers were not ACTUAL lawyers, they were shipmates who may have worked in Supply or the Engineering department.  Maybe they got in trouble enough to make themselves dangerous, but they always seemed to know what you can do and what you can’t do as far as Navy Regulations.

Don’t listen to Sea Lawyers, your next door neighbor or even to your friends and family, unless they meet a certain criterion.

You must qualify them first. 

Take a closer look at what they are doing and aren’t doing in their own lives.  I am not saying you need to find the perfect mentor; I am saying you need to find a good starter mentor.

Yes, get you that starter mentor!

A starter mentor can be a forever mentor – you just have to get a mentor.  What they are telling you isn’t Gospel, but they should be pointing you in the right direction.  Do the best you can to qualify them, and as you start to listen to them, you should find that you are finally seeing results.

Early in my career, I had plenty of mentors.  Believe it or not, for someone who talks a lot, I also watch what is going on around me.  Who is making moves?  What is their life like?  Where do they live?  Do their children hate them?  For those of you who know me personally, you probably know that I tend to ask a lot of questions about what you are doing.  Asking questions like, “why did you decide to do what you do? And where are you going next?”

I am genuinely curious and interested in learning about your life. I am also trying to figure out if you can be my starter mentor.  When I’m presented with an obstacle and unsure what to do, I start thinking about who I have in my contacts list that I can call to help me figure it out?

I may ask my neighbor what he thinks is wrong with my car before I take it to the mechanic or ask my neighbor’s wife what kind of flowers I should get my wife. I’ll be damned if I am going to talk to just anyone about major life decisions without qualifying them first.

What about career choices?

When it comes to career choices, If the person is sitting in the cubicle next to you, don‘t ask them about career choices.  Pick the man or woman who has climbed their way up and now have the fancy office.

When trying to figure out how to lose weight, please…..Please don’t ask the guy jamming cheese whiz down his throat.  Probably not a good source of information when it comes to that.  Ask the person who you see is going to the gym and is eating healthy.

Ask them what they are doing.

When looking for financial advice, you’re not going to ask the guy borrowing money from you. Most likely you would ask the person who appears to have more money than you.  Who helps that person with their money?  Do they have any recommendations on books, programs or podcasts that have helped them?

These are just some baseline examples to get you going in the right direction, and they aren’t starter mentors.  A starter mentor is actually succeeding in what you want to succeed in.  One of the people in the examples mentioned above could become your starter mentor, but you still have to qualify them.

Let’s define a starter mentor.

A starter mentor is someone who is actively engaging in something that you want to do. You are garnering information from this person, to help you accomplish your goal(s) faster.

In finding the right starter mentor, you’re probably wondering:

1. Where do I find a starter mentor?
2. How do I qualify them?
3. How do I get them to help me?

Here are the steps to getting the perfect starter mentor

How do you find a starter mentor?

I know earlier in this article I just said don’t listen to your friends and family, however, you will want to look at your friends and family first.  In looking to them first, you have to qualify them before you take their advice.

Let’s say for all intents and purposes you want to be a financial advisor.  Who amongst your friends and/or family either works with or works near a financial advisor?

This is your starting point.

Let’s say your friend John is a financial advisor.  Great! Now you have to judge them. This isn’t a bad thing nor is it something you need to make them aware of either. You have to take stock in what advice you are going to take from John and what advice you are not going to take.

This is the qualifying process.

Here are some questions you want to ask yourself when it comes to John:

1. Is John Married?
   • Is he happily married?
2. Do his children like him?
   • Are his children well behaved
3. Does John appear as though he has money?
4. Does he seem successful at his job?
5. Is he always working?
6. Is he taking calls all the time?
7. Does he seem stressed?
8. How long has he been in the industry?
9. Does he like what he does?
10. Does he talk about his job all the time?
11. How does he sound when he is referring to his job?
    • Resentful or pumped?

In a nutshell, you want to ask yourself, “would I want to be in John shoes?”

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to John or you don’t talk to John.  It means that when you talk to John, you are hoping he points you in the right direction until you come across someone who is living your ideal life.  When you find that person, you grab ahold of them, and you drink the Kool-Aid.

Finding a starter mentor to assist with getting you on the right path in the career you want is a pretty straight forward example. For instance, in the John example, you could go to work in John’s office.  Once in John’s office, you would find other Advisors and some who are more successful or happier in their positions.  You meet Susan in John’s office, for example. who is living your dream life, so you begin to ask the same questions you asked yourself when qualifying John.

This is when you start peeling the onion.

You would start asking Susan similar questions but a little more detailed and defined:

1. How did you get to where you are today?
2. Who was your mentor?
3. What is your process of handling the day to day tasks?
4. How do you stay organized?
5. How do you manage your time?
   • Do you make time to spend with your children and/or spouse?
6. What books have you read? What are you currently reading?

This is how you take a starter mentor and turn them into a forever mentor.

They have the life you want. They are where you wish to be in your career, and you want to duplicate that. It doesn’t have to be exact.  Let’s say that John is the best mentor you have at the time.  He is successful in his career, but after qualifying him, you have determined that he is not balanced in his personal life. Listen to the career advice that he has to give you, and will frequently ask his opinion on how he would handle things.  In the interim, you are always trying to figure out how to improve upon what he is teaching you so that you have work-life balance.

You are always looking for nuggets of information to help you put together processes so that you can live the life you want to live. If you try to find the perfect mentor right out of the gate without taking advice from anyone, you will never get started.  I have had many mentors that have worked as building blocks to my life and career.

Now, how do you get a mentor to help you?

Honestly, you just ask.  I have never found a successful person, not willing to tell you how they became successful.  Wait….What….You want to know how I have mastered my life……Nah, we don’t talk about those things.  Let’s talk about how my children hate me.  If someone is really happy with their life, their career and themselves, they want you to be happy too.

Take me for an example.

I am a successful financial leader who has a happy and balanced personal life.

I want you to get a little taste of this joy I experience and I’ve got some for you too.  If you want to be successful and you want to put in the work, I will open up flood gates of information. I also believe that being happy in all aspects of your life is important. Hear more about that in my blog Health is Wealth.

That being said, I do have a few tips to make sure you are not wasting your mentors’ time.

Tip 1: Listen

Tell yourself before you go into a meeting with the mentor…..I am a dumbass when it comes to this.  Quoting one of my favorite shows GOT – “YOU KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW!” Don’t, and I repeat DON’T, argue with your mentor.  Don’t tell them your thoughts.  As far as you are concerned, their word is God.  Don’t say things like, well I am not going to do that.  What!? You nod your head and say, now that is interesting.  I don’t care what they tell you.  It could be some bat shit crazy stuff.

You nod and tell them that it’s interesting.

I once had to sit through a two-hour discussion on how Obama was not a US Citizen.  And I nodded and said it was interesting.  Whether or not you believe he is a citizen is irrelevant.  That topic had nothing to do with what I was asking him about.  Sometimes people have to go on tangents and oddly enough that very same guy ended up mentoring me for 5 years!  Why? Because he knew what he was talking about when it came to running a business.

Tip 2: Show them you are listening.

There is nothing worse, then me spending my precious time, telling you how you should do things, and you don’t do what I tell you to do.  Or at least something similar to what I told you to do.  I want to see you get results.  I want you to taste a little of this happiness.  But I also have my own work and my own family to get to and if you are not going to do what I am asking you to do, please bugger off.

Tip 3: Be grateful

Say thank you. A LOT. Thank them so much that they understand that you are truly thankful.  This person just took time out their life, to help you improve your life.  This person has helped you make more money, which, in turn, will hopefully make you happier. If you’re happier you will be a better parent or spouse.  Remind yourself that this person just took time out of their schedule to point you in a direction that will allow you to have a more impactful life.

Not all mentors are perfect

I have had mentors that have wronged me and even lied to me.  I have had mentors who I love and I have had mentors who under any other circumstance, we would be enemies.  That said when I wake up in the morning, and I look at my beautiful wife and my three beautiful little girls and am satisfied and successful in what I am doing, I have a tough time hating them.

I reflect back and remember they helped me achieve the following:

1. 1. A successful career
   2. Clarity on the direction of my life
   3. The ability to work through issues that may arise
   4. Mastery over my life and my time

I may not want to hang out with them, but I certainly don’t hate them. They were an integral part of why I am where I am today.

I recently spent time with a new mentor of mine, Mrs. Sybil Jones of Mamas and Coffee.  She is a friend I met almost 19 years ago!   I stayed in contact with her and her husband through Facebook.  She reached out to me in the past about helping her children make smart choices with their money and recently I reached out to her about blogging since I am new to this arena. I was able to easily qualify her since I knew her well and see her successes through her blog, her personal life and the empire she has created for herself on a daily basis.

She gave me her time which was precious.

I listened, took notes, and told her thank you.

Now I’m in the process of implementing everything she taught me.  I also asked her specifically how I can show her my gratitude.  She asked me to help her out and I was more than happy to oblige.  I will also keep her up-to-date on what I have implemented and when I have finished what I said I would do.  This way she will see that I was listening so that when I ask her again for some of her time, she knows that I mean business, I’m not wasting her time, and I am grateful to her and her family for the time and energy they put into helping me become more successful.

I challenge you to figure out what you want to do.  I challenge you to find an area of your life you want to improve upon and go out and find a starter mentor to help get you where you want to go.

*Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear loss, including total loss of principal.