What's going on, Pursuers? Welcome to this episode of the Pursuit of Calling podcast
with me, your host, Thomas Carney. So in this episode, I'm talking all about mentorship.
We're having a great conversation just between you and me today about why it's important
to have mentors in your life. But before you get into the episode, go ahead and make sure
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dive right in. So, you know, you can't pursue your calling on your own, right? You're going
to need people by your side pushing you to be more than you know that you can be. These
people know more than you. Right? So in this episode, we're going to talk about why it's
important to have mentors in your life. We're also going to talk about what a mentor is
and why you should have multiple mentors in your life for the multiple areas of your life.
You can't you shouldn't just have one that tries to encapsulate all that you try to use
to encapsulate all of those areas. So let's start with why is it important to have mentors
in your life? Why is it important to seek them out? Right? Because a lot of the time
they don't find you, you find them. So, you know, two weeks ago, two episodes ago, I talked
about the time I almost lost $4,000. That was one that's like honestly one of the scariest
times of my life. And it sounds bizarre because I may be there might be another scary time
coming along. But like, that was that was that, you know, that was a hard time my life.
And the two guys, the two men that walked me through that two mentors that walked me
through that I mentioned in that episode were Ed Newell and Patrick Williams. They both
knew more than I did in that situation. And they knew those things before I did. That's
what makes that's one great thing that makes a mentor. And, you know, these people I sought
them I sought them out beforehand before this situation even happened. It was like they're
already established as mentors in my life. So let me actually touch on that a little
bit more a little bit deeper. The like you don't want to wait to have a mentor in your
life up until some bad situation comes along. These mentors aren't just for bad situations.
They're also to propel you forward in situations. So mentors, you know, they walk down the mountain.
They don't stay at the top. That's the thing I learned from John Maxwell, right, where
a mentors or leaders, you know, people who say it's lonely at the top, John said those
aren't actually leaders because if they're at the top by themselves, they're not leading
anybody. They're at the top yelling down from the top of the mountain being like local
what I did. That means you can do it too. But come on up. But a mentor or true leader
walks down the mountain and walks with you back up and says points out where the pitfalls
are points out the cliffs and the wrong turns that might take you right back down the mountain.
They that's what Pat kind of did for me. Even though I was already in this bad situation,
that actually helped me realize that the situation wasn't really that bad. He helped me realize
that this situation that I was in, he was like, Thomas, I've been through this before.
He's like, I've been through worse than this before, if I remember correctly. And he was
like, you're fine. One, he was like, one helped me realize I didn't sign anything. So they
had no legal reason to hold my money. And like him being an established business owner of
multiple different businesses was able to help me figure out who they really were. And
like he knew all of those things. I didn't know. And now I now I now have more of an
idea of what to look out for. And that whenever I'm signing up for people signing people into
a business, I'm signing up for people for my coaching in the future to have them sign
a contract. Because yeah, for my coaching, that'd be I'll be a little bit nicer. But
you know, there's, you know, that was a little off topic. But like, I don't know if you realize
I really like I really like John Maxwell. So in preparation for this episode, you know,
I watched an episode from the Maxwell Leadership podcast called What It Really Means to Be
a Mentor. And this was in about an hour, like it was like an hour and 11 minute video about
like, like, cut having cuts for different episodes of podcasts, different talks that
John, John or some of these other people did about mentorship. And like, I took a ton of
notes, I don't have time to go through completely with you today. But I'm going to give you
like the way I'm talking about today all the way, like the things I talked about already
are those main takeaways that I that I derived from these notes. I'm going to link to that
episode though in the show notes, because I want to share it with you because I want
you to grow want you to see and watch this video put on like, I don't know 1.5 1.7 speed
on YouTube because John at least John can talk a little slow and not like, like he just
talk slower. And I would like I like you know, if I can bump it up to 1.7, then it makes
the video go a little bit faster makes like 30 minutes. Not that's not a knock on john
Maxwell at all. Just take some breaks between breaths. So what is a mentor we already so
we covered what a mentor is. Or like we covered what it why it is important to have mentors
in your life, because they're not yet you know, they're not just part of the bad times,
even though I just talked about a bad time in my life when it was great to have a mentor.
I also talked about how they're there to propel you forward. And I think I'll talk about it
later in my notes, but I'm going to mention it now. I was listening to another podcast
today about mentorship by actually was a by the podcast of the guests from the last episode,
john stonkey. And in this episode, he was talking about mentorship and saying like having
a mentor is almost like having a real almost like getting a shortcut having a shortcut,
even though there's no shortcut to shortcuts in life, having a mentor, you know, like I
said, they help you see the pitfalls and the things that you weren't aware of that could
hang you up. And they save you a lot of time and potentially in my case, a lot of money.
So something to think about whenever you're seeking your mentors out. So what is a mentor?
You know, they're, they're, they're someone who gives people perspective. They're also
they help us see the whole picture, you know, they like that was what pat did for me. He
helped me see the whole picture of that. I didn't, I didn't lose my money. I didn't,
I was in a better situation than I thought it was. I was, I was only seeing the picture
that was in my own head. I was internally seeing the picture. I was internally only
seeing the picture that I was creating myself. And he helped me see the whole picture that
was external to me. He's helping me connect pieces that I didn't have that I w I wasn't
aware of and created a bigger picture. It's like I only had my own piece of the puzzle
and he supplied the rest. So the, you want to go with like, the mentors also see more,
I guess they already said this multiple times. They see more before the others that are in
their area of mentorship. The, and when I see the area of mentorship, we're going to
cover later, but like why it's important to have multiple mentors, but I'm going to get
into more of that in a second. But you know, they also see, they also share about their
personal life. Then this is important. And mentor, a true mentor is going to share about
their personal life, their personal experiences and how they felt throughout those situations.
The things that they learned in those situations, because like that's what, again, that's what
Pat did for me. He shared his personal experience with me and he told me how stressed out he
was and that he said, Thomas, everything you're saying, like, I remember having those same
thoughts, but I got to the other side and realized it wasn't that bad. I'm telling you
now that it's not that bad. So he told me he's, he told me his past experiences and
he was able to walk me through it. That's what a true mentor does. You know, I like
the, I like to saying that John said, I wrote down this little excerpt from my notes, that
you're going to, you want to ask your mentors about their failures to learn more from them.
Because if you want to learn, if you want to impress people, you share your success.
But if you want to impact people, you share your failures. So what does that mean? Well,
whenever you want to share, impress, what I say, if you want to impress people, you
share your success. If you're just saying, look at all these things I do, you said, it
makes people feel like, like they look at you and you're like, wow, they're, I'm really
impressed by all the things that you accomplished. And then they don't feel like they can do
it themselves. They just think it's really cool that you did it. And, but if you share
about their failures and you mix those things in with each other, you share your failures
while you're talking about your, even whenever you're succeeding, you're like, wow, look
at all those things he accomplished in spite of the failures he went through.
So these, this is what makes a mentor guys. Now, maybe you already have, maybe you already
have a mentor and now it's time for you to go mentor somebody else. That was the original
idea for this podcast actually, for this episode was to talk about the three levels of leadership
and when it pertains to you, like you have you, you have the people above you and people
below you in the site of mentorship. But I really wanted to talk about why it's important
to have a mentor, right? I wanted to talk about why it's important, what they are and
so I can really push you to seek mentors out in your life. If you don't, do not have any,
I'm going to help, I'm going to add this, this is the point of this episode is the point
of this episode is to help you out. So, and again, if you already have a mentor in your
life, maybe it's your turn. Maybe it's your turn to go and seek somebody out to mentor.
You know, before I did say that mentors don't find you, but I shouldn't, that's the case
most of the time. But then there is also the cases of the real awesome mentors that seek
people out and say, and when they see something, maybe they see something in you. Maybe you
have somebody that saw something in you spoke into that and they said, that is something
I'm impressed with. That is something I know can grow in you. That is somebody I know is
somebody, if I mentor them, they're going to shoot to the moon. Like a mentor's, a mentor
or a leader's goal shouldn't be to get them even to their level. It's to get the people
that they're mentoring past them and to surpass them. It's like whenever I hear my parents
talking about a parent saying that you, let me get this thought together. When parents
say that they want their children to be better than them, like not even saying that they
want them to be raised, but then they were raised or want them to live a life that was
better than theirs. Like want them to succeed in areas that they didn't succeed. Like it's
the same idea. Parents are mentors and leaders to their children. And just like you could
be a mentor to a friend or a student, if you're a teacher or to a colleague at work or to
the people that are below you, I'm putting quotes around that for the audio listeners,
to the below you in your positional role at your job, maybe you're a manager or a supervisor,
you can be that mentor and true leader, not just by positional, to those people below
you. So if you want to impress, share your success, if you want to impact people, share
your failures. Now I like this one thing also that John Maxwell said as well. He said, I
said already, if you're succeeding, you want to make sure you share your failures, but
also when you're failing, you want to make sure you remember and share your successes.
And so you keep that positive outlook on life and people would be like, wow, even though
he's in a rut, even though she is in a rut, they still remember the things that they've
already accomplished. And that means that they can do it again. And that also in you,
like, just because you're in it, maybe you're, maybe it's because you're might be in a rut.
If you are, you can look back on your past successes and realize, yeah, I can do that
again. I can do more than that again. Let me learn from this failure and then surpass
where I was before. So now let's talk about the next thing. Let's talk about how, why
you should have multiple mentors for different areas of life. Now these different areas of
life could include your financial, business, career, or your calling per se, hint hint,
maybe your leadership, your health, maybe even your relationships. I think all of those
areas are great areas to have mentorships. Now it can be intersection points. Maybe you
have a mentor that is good in multiple areas, but I don't think one mentor is going to
be good at mentoring you in every single one of those areas. That's why it's important
to seek out multiple mentors. Now, if you don't have a mentor or can't find a mentor
in a particular area, you know, a great place to start is by well, seeking out books written
by authors, by great men and women, you know, let them be your mentors. You know, I have
a book up on my bookshelf. You can't actually see it, but it's, I'm going to, you know,
it's this one up there. I'm going to, I will, I'm going to, you know, this is sign
note, I'm going to post this video. I haven't been posting them. I'm going to post this
one. I'm holding myself to that and write that down in my notes. So you can watch this
on YouTube, but there's, you know, I've already talked about in previous episodes, why it's
important to read books. If you want to grow, you want to, if you want to grow, you read
books. If you're not growing, you're dying. So yeah, let, like, if you don't, I'm going
to explain why it's important in this area, in this context. I like book up, I said, I
already have a book up there. I got sidetracked. I apologize. It's up there. It's called, um,
attached. It's about attachment styles when it comes to relationships. Now I haven't read
through the whole thing yet, but I wanted to reference it because there's areas I want
to personally understand about relationships, being a single guy. And I also have friends
in my life. My best friend, Andrew, who just got married. Um, he's a great mentor when
it comes to relationships. But then I can also go to books. You can have more than one
mentor in areas. Well, you don't have to just have to look like half one, you know, there's,
it can be a book and can be other people, but there's, you know, though I also love
reading, you know, John Maxwell, you know, for topics when it comes to leadership, I
have a great leaders in my life. But then I also go to John Maxwell because I know he
has tried, he has tried and true, um, leadership principles that I, I plan and do implement.
So people who read are people who succeed that in itself is all you need it. They all
they need to know why you need, why you should be reading people who read or people who succeed.
Now to kind of close this off, I just want to talk about one thing that John talked about
during this episode, during that one YouTube video that I really, really, really think
you should listen to. Um, he said he does something called learning lunches, you know,
he is a great practice John talks about and you know, he to these lunches, he says sometimes
he doesn't even eat anything at these lunches. He just pays for the lunch of the people he
for the person he invites. It's just a one-on-one lunch and he brings a notebook and a list of
questions, which I think is amazing. And some of the questions he asks are, tell me about
your failures. Like we talked about before. And this last question is fantastic and it
might start asking it to guests, um, to guests, uh, on the, on the, uh, episodes, but who
do you know that I should know? This is a great question. Who do you know that I should
know? That's a great way to increase your network. And like, it's a way to like, even
for me is a good way to get more people on the podcast. Cause I, you know, I talked to
John Stongi, I talked, um, I talked with, um, Jeff Dorina, who you're going to hear
from pretty soon. I'm next month, I believe. And he, and like these people, I would not
have meant otherwise, met otherwise, but I, well, John Stongi was through mutual friends,
Jeff Dorina. I, I sought him out on my own as a mentor in the coaching space, but there's
like, there's so much, there's so much value in mentorship and so much value in growing
your network by asking that question. Who do you know that I should know? So guys, I
hope you enjoyed this whole episode on mentor mentorship. I actually really enjoyed talking
about this topic. So if you liked it, let me know the comments on Spotify and YouTube
or wherever you can leave the comment. Let me know if you liked this episode. I'd really
appreciate it. And guys, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you liked it,
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