This is why you need a mentor to be successful in Business ft.Desmond Soon

Alright, guys. And so, you know, I'd like to introduce you to a really good friend of mine, a business consultant in the hospitality industry. In fact, his business has actually dealt with over 550 brands in 25 different countries all around the world in the hotel and restaurant and hospitality industry. So if you're a hoteler, you definitely want to be paying attention because Avi Arya is one of those gentlemen that's been making a lot of headways. It's something that he was a pioneer in that no one else has ever done before. So you want to check out Internet moguls, you want to make sure you, you get in touch with Avi Aria, one of my good friends, someone that has a lot of knowledge and experience to help your business get to the next level. I think. You know, to answer your question, it is imperative for anyone who wants to succeed in life to have mentors. Not just one mentor, but mentors. Mentors can be books.

Yeah.

Okay. So at one given time have multiple.

Multiple mentors. Yeah, because a mentor is not just, you know, don't look at a mentor as someone who's going to do things for you. And mentors can come from different backgrounds or industries. So I have a mentor for my finances, I have a mentor for maybe my love life. I have a mentor for, you know, personal development. There's many different. A mentor is someone who has been where you have been and who has what you want. That's what all my mentors told me. And there's a difference between a teacher, a coach and a mentor. A lot of people misunderstand that. And I'm not putting down any teachers. You know, I respect the teaching industry. I was a teacher for many years myself. Many of my best friend's family, which are like my adopted surrogate family, they're all teachers. My grandmother herself was a principal and a teacher. My uncle's a teacher. So I respect the teaching industry, but teachers tend to be very academic. They are taught to teach a syllabus, not necessarily life experience. Right. And so that's why sometimes you'll hear about critics criticizing professors in universities and things like that. Who Business professors who've never started their own business, who've never been bankrupt, who've never owned the mafia, who've never experienced hiring, firing, and yet they're teaching business. So then you have coaches. And what's the difference between a coach and a mentor and a teacher is that coaches sometimes also may not have real life experience, but they have a really good eye, they're able to explain Things. So they're very good at explaining things. They may have accumulated knowledge, and then they're able to look at someone from an outside perspective and then, you know, give you advice. So I'll give you a quick story on that one. When I was doing gymnastics in high school, we had a coach who was in his late 60s, and he was about to retire, and he'd been the coach for gymnastics for many, many years. And so he would tell us what to do, and the team was winning and so forth. But the year he retired, the next coach that came in, he was a young guy, a young teacher, and he was actually a gymnastics. A gold medalist champion for Czechoslovakia, and he had been an immigrant in Canada. So when we did gymnastics practice, he didn't just tell us what to do. He got on the pommel horse and did it himself. He'd be like, do it like this. He would do double leg circles. And so that's a mentor, different from a coach. He could actually show us what to do.

So everybody has different relationship, and you might need a coach and a mentor simultaneously.

That's right.

Okay.

And a mentor doesn't always give you things for free. A lot of people have that misunderstanding. They have this expectancy. They have this, you know, I deserve it. You know, you're rich now, you're successful. I get this all the time. People come to me and say, desmond, please mentor me. You know, and if you mentor me and show me how to make money, I will then pay you. And, you know, I always think that's crazy. You want my secrets, which I worked hard, and my time, you know, and you want me to. It's almost as if they're testing me, you know, like, if your knowledge really works, then I will be successful. Then I'll pay you that point. I'm telling you, that's the fastest way to get rid of a person.

Yeah. Oh, that actually happens.

Happens all the time.

Yeah. Okay, so how should somebody approach a mentor? Okay. You know, like, go on YouTube and see who are the ones with the maximum number of views. Or, you know, go to a networking event and see who's the most popular guy. Or like you said, the guy. People who have what you want and have done what you want to do.

Yeah.

They've been where you've been, and they have what you want. The thing to do with mentors is stalk them. Stalk mentors. They are obviously successful, and they probably have a lot of people coming to them, demanding their time. So their time is very precious. So the number one thing is Be very respectful that time. And if you stalk, stalk with etiquette, stalk with class, do not pester them, do not. And if they have videos, if they have books, read their books, watch their videos, study everything you can about them even before you contact them. Then when you do contact them, make sure you introduce yourself properly. Make sure you explain to them that you have. If they've got books, you've bought all their books. If they've got courses, you've bought their courses, you've gone through the material, show them, demonstrate to them that you understand their material. Because mentors don't want to repeat themselves. If they've got material out there, they don't want to repeat what they've already taught.

That's a good point.

So that already saves a lot of time. That shows them that you respect their time, that you've already learned all the basics that they've taught. And now when they do engage you, should they engage you? They're going to teach you something that's not out in their material.

So coming back to teaching what's not in the material. So through this show, we want to, we want to, you know, pick your brain and, you know, we want the audience to go back learning some things from you. Okay, so there are all kinds of entrepreneurs, you know, the entrepreneurs who are. Who, you know, struggling.

Yes.

Maybe in their. Before their 30s. And there are entrepreneurs from 30 to 40, they got a wife and a family. And. And then there is this whole digital, you know, era. So there are these digital natives and digital residents. Some people are, you know, born into that ecosystem and some people don't understand it, but everything is going to become. On. Become the Internet.

That's correct.

Everything is connected. It's a one whole brain. So how do you deal with people who are, how would you deal with the. With some. Or what were the secrets you. You'd give to somebody if they were different to somebody who's below 30 and somebody who's, you know, below between 30 and 40.

Okay.

They're wanting to start a business, and obviously the business has to do with a lot of Internet stuff.

So if we just focus on, say, for example, the online arena, the biggest challenge I see with aspiring entrepreneurs is there's overwhelming information. There's a lot of courses, a lot of marketers, people like myself and people that came before me who are marketing courses and buy this course, buy that course. So that's the number one thing. People don't know exactly what to do. Pick one thing, do your due diligence. There's a lot of skepticism. So the natural byproduct is there's a huge amount of skepticism. You're gonna have to put your skepticism aside. There are no guarantees, and I'm not gonna say this is better than that. You have to do your own research. As a business owner, it is your responsibility. One of their first tasks is due diligence.

And.

And then also, you have to take risks. You're gonna have to take risks. There is no one that's gonna give you a magic pill and say, this works 100%. In the online arena, there's so many things that do work, but most of the time, it comes right down to you, your mindset, how much money you have, how much focus, consistency. I see a lot of people bounce all over the place. They can't seem to pick one thing. They're doing this, and then they're doing this course, and they're doing that. But if they just stuck with one thing for maybe one, two years, they would actually see success. So that's number one. Number two would be lack of finances. There's this. I don't know where people get this idea of starting for $7 or. And I know a lot of companies, including the companies I promote and stuff like that, where, hey, you know, join for $7 trial. Come on, guys, get real with it, okay? When I sold drugs, you know, I needed at least 1, 2, $300 to buy my product so I could sell it. There's these people that think that they can do it for free. That's a lottery ticket mentality. You know, I'll just start for $7, and I'm gonna become a millionaire overnight. Come on. That doesn't work. Even a hot dog stand, you know, the hot dog stands we see that costs like $10,000 just to buy the trailer, and then you have to be there.

That makes a lot of sense. You know, you need to put in an initial capital if you want to get in an X amount of return.

And nothing's free. You know, beggars can't be choosers. That was a painful lesson I had to learn because I. I started my online industry, my business broke and bankrupt. So I had experience with business. I had been around lots of money, but now I had no choice. I had no money. So I had to build my business from cash flow. And lacking money means you have to put in more time. So there's a lot of competition out there. There's a lot of very savvy marketers that have a lot more money than you and so they were decimating me. They could afford PPC and all these, you know, advertising, which I couldn't. So what's the only one commodity I had was time. Time and, you know, maybe my pleasing personality. So I made videos. I made lots of videos. I put out lots of content. I wrote lots of blogs. My blogs. Don't, please don't look at my old blogs. They look even till today, my blogs, you know, my articles are really, really crappy. And so what I did was I also picked out many successful. I identified successful people and I stalked them. You know, I stalked them and I modeled after them. So I would say that would be the number one thing. And for, especially in, you know, in the southern India, southern Asia, or, you know, not North America, basically, anyone who's watching this, who's not in North America, if you're reaching out to someone who's North America, introduce yourself because we get a lot of spam. North Americans.

That's a very good point. Thank you for bringing that up. Yes.

Because we do get that. We get, you know, hi, sir. And I know that sir is used a lot in the culture over there, you know, but you will get flagged as spam right away. So don't do that. You know, introduce yourself.

You know, it's funny, it's such a minute, but such an important point because I get this so often that India and maybe, you know, some parts of Asia are known for these spam mails. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

So, you know, they already have. You have an uphill battle. So don't be typical. Like what the typical people do. You have to do something untypical. And so the best thing you can do, in fact, what really impressed me or one of my mentors, Dan Lok, which I believe you're interviewing as well, on another show. So Dan Lok is someone they should definitely watch. Check out his videos as well. But if you want to get a mentor's attention, shoot a video. Just take out your phone. It doesn't have to be fancy, but introduce yourself first. Take a video of yourself and just a short, two, three minute video that will separate you from all the people. Hi, how are you?

You know, you know, one of the things that I have, you know, I grew up with two siblings and the shortest male member in my family at 6ft 3.

Wow.

So. But despite all of those things, the only one person I've ever been envious of.

Yes.

Is Gary Vaynerchuk.

Gary Vaynerchuk. Love Gary.

I've been trying to get on his show okay. He knows that for a fact.

Yes.

And he's not letting me on. So the video is a good idea and I'm going to send him a video now.

Well, I'll send a message to Gary as well. So yeah, I'll send a message to Gary or to Grant Cardone as well. If you'd like to get on Grant.

Cardone show at Internet moguls at our office in India.

Yes.

Every morning.

Yes.

We have, we call it a clean, clean your mind.

Yes.

So we have a five minute meditation.

Yes.

We have a motivational video.

Yes.

Followed by a video on Facebook marketing, on Instagram marketing.

That's the third.

So it's 15 minutes and the last five minutes is Gary Vendetta.

Oh, love it.

And then in the afternoon we repeat the same four different videos.

Yes.

So starting with mind training meditation and then five minutes of a motivational video and then a Facebook advertising on how to do Facebook ads or ppc.

Wow.

And then Gary. And then Gary.

And then Gary.

150 people at Internet moguls every single day.

Yes.

Watch. They know that the CEO of the company is obsessed with this guy.

That's right. That's right.

I mean I love all the Gary shows. One in particular, you know, are you an entrepreneur? Right. Or an employee? And so that's one of the, my favorite episodes that I watched.

Tell me, you know, so, so if there's somebody who wants to reach out to a mentor.

Yes.

Should he look for a niche? So say like, you know, somebody's got a real estate or somebody's got a hospitality or you know, somebody's good at or is get a mentor, teach. Can any mentor teach you through, you know, take you through any journey that you want?

It really depends. Once again. So it has to be that criteria of do they have what you want? Have they been where you've been? Because I'll give you another example. So for example, there's a very wealthy individual here in Vancouver. His name is Joo Kim Tia. And Joo Kim Tia is the gentleman that's building the Trump Tower. And I was very fortunate enough to be introduced to him through Dan Lok. Right. So you see how the mentors, they open doors for you. Right? And so you know, Joo Kim Ta, he doesn't like this, he doesn't like to be labeled as this. But he did grow up in a family that was fairly wealthy. His parents were first generation billionaires, you know, the self built wealth. And he grew up in that. And so he has an uphill battle to the public because people think He's a spoilt. They even give him the term billionaire scion, meaning the son of a billionaire. But I know Joo Kim very well and we are like friends, right? So you know, he's a very humble guy. He's just a normal human being. And he actually hates the fact that people think of him as a billionaire.

So.

But Joo Kim would not be a good mentor for me in a sense because he did not grow up the way I grew up. He does have things that I want, but he did not grow up the way I grew up. But I do consider him as a mentor because I watch his work ethic. So when I look at in a different way, I look at him in a business sense. Now he's a mentor in real estate. You know, in showing me how to run a multi, multi billion dollar company, you know how to have a good work. Well, they always say the work life balance, but there is no work life balance. He's an overachiever in every area.

Yeah.

You know, you don't take from one to give to another. He's an achiever in every single area. So that's where he became a mentor for me. I love his work ethic. So I model a lot of what he does.

Tell me, you know, and this is a question.

Yes.

I'm trying to understand this myself for some time as well. So when people come to, to me, they come for hospitality because it's in a hotelier and I, you know, I work with hotel brands across the world, restaurants, all of that. When they come to me, they ask me hospitality related questions.

Yes.

How do I rank better on TripAdvisor?

Yes.

How can I use Expedia to get, you know, or how can I get more direct booking and less booking on Expedia or any other channel right now those kind of expertise are available with people who are maybe more hospitality centric.

That's right.

But when somebody choosing a mentor, should they go to somebody who created a niche in hospitality or real estate or whatever? Or any mentor can help you through any business.

Both because for the business aspect you want to go to someone who's very familiar with your niche. But on the other hand, sometimes you might just have a life mentor. So I've got a mentor right now who's living in Bangkok, self made multimillionaire, very well dressed. He calls himself a Brooks Brothers man. So the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Right. And you know, I am a testament to him because I associated with him. He influenced my life in many different ways. In the way he speaks, in the way he conducts himself and that has nothing to do with business. That's just because he's my mentor. He's helped me make decisions, financial decisions, whether to have my office in Tokyo shut it down. And sometimes he's also a mentor for me in health. He's a very big advocate of natural health, holistic, naturopathic cures. Because he suffered from Ms. And you know, he actually has cured himself of Ms. Rather than use the Western medicine, which his brother died. Even though he took all the medicines and stuff, he decided to go down more of the alternative medicine route. And now he lives a very, you know, very comfortable life in Bangkok. Smokes cigars, drinks wines, goes out to the Hilton, you know, enjoys beautiful five, five star dinners. So he's a mentor for me in lifestyle.

How important is it? Because see, I've always been grown up, brought up with this belief and I, and I believe it till date that what sometimes is missing in different parts of North America.

Yes.

Is the dis, Is the disconnect with the self.

Okay.

That's why a lot of people from, and I'm not trying to generalize North America, the western world, in the Eastern, everything has become so, so interrelated now. But because I studied abroad and all of that, I realized a lot of people leave home very early.

Yes.

So by the time you're at 30, you've had your kids and you're going to be 40 and all of that, you start understanding who you are. And it's been 20 years that you've been away from people who know you the best, which are your parents.

Yes.

And in the Asian culture, most of the people are living at home.

Yes.

The parents are staying together. And it's not a compulsion. It's just because, it's just because how the culture is.

Yes.

And I've seen almost all my friends, cousins, all of them shout out to all of them. They're all doing extremely well. And one of the reasons is that everybody is so close knit.

Yes.

The biggest mentors are their parents.

That's true.

I want to say it on the show. My, my father started the business 50 years back. Both my parents are above 65 years old. They work 12 hours a day and they run the most rocking businesses. And today, yes. I speak it about get down and you know, give you the seat on the bus. You know, in India they touch feet just as a matter of respect and all of that.

That's right.

So a teacher there is valued.

Yes.

Today with the startup, in fact Yesterday.

Yes.

The Prime Minister of India had the largest and I missed it. I was here in Vancouver. Never any regrets when I'm in this city. But I missed a humongous show called Startup India and the Uber CEO and you know, the CEOs from all the startups came there.

Yes.

And it was about a couple of thousand people attended that. And it. The ecosystem in India is booming.

That's right.

See for this company, this country is still coming out of the. I don't think it's coming out of poverty, but it's still coming out of, you know, being a third world country.

That's correct.

A guy takes a bus in the morning.

That's right.

Changes two, three buses.

Yes.

Bus might never be on time.

That's right.

He has to wait in line maybe to get his water.

That's right.

Then he gets to his office at 9 and there's nothing called 9 to 5 in India. It has never been anything called 9 to 5 in India.

That's correct.

9 to 9, whatever.

That's right.

Then to impress your boss or work harder, you do, you know, you don't.

Leave until the boss leaves.

Yeah.

Working 17, 18 hours a day.

Yes.

Is not part of the startup ecosystem. It's part of the Indian ecosystem.

That's right.

So now that the startup mania has happened there.

Yes.

Coupled with the inherent, I don't know, 20 hours working. 18 hours working what? To take a Sunday off. Why? I make more money on Sunday.

That's right. That's right.

So that is fueling the growth way faster.

Yes.

Then, you know, just the world opening up and all of that. It's just that it's inherent. But like I said, what I want to do through this show and through, you know, experts like yourself is, and I'm, and I'm sure many people, at least 142,000 people are going to watch this show in February at least. And we're going to try to make it go to many more that learn from what is happening in North America. Because in my travels.

Yes.

I find in North America, people like yourself have understood the startup scene, the mentor, the startup guys, the mistakes they've made and iron them out. And you have a set structure and a format and through this video and, you know, maybe when they get in touch with you through your website, which we be putting a link on at the end, be able to fast track and get above the crowd.

Yes.

Because like I said in. I've been traveling between North America and here for the last 10 years a lot. It used to take six months for what's happening here.

Yes.

To reach India. Not the news, but the actual structure of how things work.

That's right.

Now it takes about two months.

That's right.

I want it to happen in real time through shows like these.

Yes.

So, and I'm. And I'm sure that, you know, with. We will do a show again.

Yes.

And I am. Will hold you on that promise of coming to India very, very soon.

Done.

And I am very happy that we could make this show happen. And a huge shout out to you. Thanks to Jeremy for making this production awesome. We're going to put a link to Jeremy who made everything happen while I was not here. Thank you very much.

Yes.

And we look forward to having you on this show.

My honor and privilege.

Because we're going to do this show almost every month.

That's right.

We're going to do a series.

Yes.

And depending on the response, which I'm very sure is going to be awesome.

Avi, why not, you know, down the road start to, you know, because we're talking about the topic of mentorship. So have the viewers out there. Okay. If you're really, really ambitious, get in touch with Avi. Make sure you get in touch with him and do what I recommended. Shoot a video and introduce yourself to Avi and you know, propose to Avi and present yourself to Avi, Position yourself for success and let him know that you'd like to be an apprentice, you'd like to be a mentee of Avi. Work for free. Do not expect anything back because you just being around Avi is going to open all kinds of doors for you. So you're going to have to be creative. You're going to have to make sure you secure your own daily cash flow so that you have income coming in and then offer your services to your talents, your passions to Avi and his show and that will open a whole bunch of doors for you. So it's almost like the Apprentice, like Donald Trump's Apprentice.

That's a good idea. In fact, how we like to end our show is by saying that on an average I keep aside at least four to five hours a week to meet two, three people who come with their business plans and all of that. I'm not an investor. Yes, but we get them introduced to the right people. We make nothing out of that. Yes, but, but very honestly, when I meet these. So I'm going to be 40 next year, but when I meet these 25 year old startups.

Yes.

And I meet them, I see how they're doing their business plan. I see the energy and it drives me.

Yes.

And they, you know what? All of these startups think that I'm helping them, but the energy rubs off on me and I work harder the next 10 days.

That's right.

And so there is a hidden interest there.

That's right.

But through this show, we like to say that now that our reach is still Vancouver and for people. Till Desban, if you're a startup watching this show, you could be a startup anywhere. You know, if we don't know if we're not the right people, we will connect you with the right people. Send us your video clip, tell us about your business plan. In less than three minutes, we will get back to you or we will connect you with the right people for sure through this show.

That right.

That should be good.

That is awesome, Avi.

Yes.

That's you giving value back to the viewers. That's awesome.

Excellent. So great. Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much being on the show. Thanks a lot. Thanks for watching.