How to Find a Mentor

Have you ever felt like you needed a mentor to help you make it through life and make it through life right? Well, you're not the only one, and I want to talk to you about how you can find a mentor today. Hi, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and you are watching Coffee with Chrystal. This is the video version of the audio podcast that I put out every week, and my goal in showing up every week, most weeks, is to help you practically live a life you love, live it well, especially if you're a woman of faith. And so I'm glad that you're joining me today. If you have not already subscribed to my YouTube channel or liked or followed my Facebook page, do that right now, right now, because if you are subscribed or followed on either one of those platforms, then anytime I go live or share a video, you'll be notified. And trust me, every now and then I go live and there's plenty of fun and foolery that come with it. So you don't wanna miss it. Today I wanna talk to you about how to find a mentor. It's actually one of the most frequently asked questions that I get by women of all ages, of all persuasions, of all seasons of life. And I've answered it many, many times, but I don't think I've answered it here, uh, on the podcast slash video slash all the things that I do, even though I said I never wanted to be on video. That's why I was podcasting for 8 years, but then COVID, and then I did a video and then I didn't stop. So you're welcome. Welcome. But I wanted to answer this question about how to find a mentor because, uh, here's the deal: we all need them, we all have them, whether they're good ones or not. Your first mentors were probably your parents because you learned from your mother or your father or your auntie or your grandmother or someone in your immediate family, because those were the people around you who exhibited how to live life, even if they didn't live it well. And unfortunately, if you were not mentored well by your parents, you spend so much of your life trying to recover from that, trying to learn what you didn't learned that they didn't teach you, and that's okay. That's the beauty of living life, is that you get to choose, and you get to choose often the people that you follow. My mother, of course, was a great mentor to me. My father continues to be. I'm grateful for their example, both as people of faith and as people that are hardworking, that have built many things in their life, and that other people, because of their leadership, have followed. I want to say though, I've also had mentors in my life in different seasons for different things. When I started homeschooling, my mother never homeschooled, so I literally called a lady at church who homeschooled, and I said, can I come to your house and can I just sit and watch how you function? Because what does it even look like for you to teach your children at home and keep your house clean and make sure you get dinner on the table every day on time, or feed people 3 meals a day? I didn't know. And I had been to her home before, and it was meticulous and immaculate, and her kids were wonderful. So I asked her, could I just go and watch her? That was one thing. I had a season of my life where I was working in corporate America. I was working at Institutional Money Management. I think I was an assistant, vice president, or something like that. A stock picker, basically. I watched the stock market, did financial modeling. Well, nobody in my family did that, and so I would ask women in my life, men in my life too, to, hey, show me how you do that. How did you deal with this problem or this challenge? I remember when I took my first job at Arthur Andersen, which at the time was one of the Big Six. It was one of the consulting and accounting firms that was very, um, I was very proud to get that job. When I went and got that job, the job said to me, As a part of my hiring process, they said, we want to make sure you have a mentor. And they paired me up with another minority person who had been there and had been successful. We want you to be successful. We want you to know how to navigate this role. We want you to know how to navigate it well as a person of color, because we know that your, your experience may be unique. I loved my mentor, still reach out and talk to him to this day. I had mentors in my corporate experience as an intern at Johnson Johnson in their accounting department. In my life as a wife, I've had mentors apart from my mom, women I ask them, woman one time at Bible study. I said, I just don't know, my husband is always saying that I need to talk to him some kind of way. I don't even know what he's talking about. Like, I feel like I'm a respectful human being. And she sat there and she said, let me give you some pointers for that. I said, great. I came home and used the pointers and they worked. It was amazing. I've had women in my life who have mothered adult children or mother teenage children. I've— I have picked up mentors along the way all of my life, and I've been so grateful, mainly because of my church and women that have been in my life for the long haul, to be able to say, how do I do this? Even as a leader right now, as a business owner, as a boss, I've never done this before. So I regularly call other people, hired a business coach, other women who are friends of mine who are in HR, and I say, how do I handle this? How do I do this? How do I grow? How do I help my team to grow? Here's what I first want you to understand: mentoring is something we all need at different stages of our lives, but often the mentors don't come to you. You have to go and seek them out. So if you don't have a mentor, the first thing you need to know is that's okay if you don't have one in this season of your life. But if you feel like, I wish someone could guide me, teach me, give me some pointers, then you, like every other person I know— I was gonna say women, but really it's every other person I know— that you're realizing this, this truth: you've never done life before. And even if you have 20 years or 30 years or 40 years of life under your belt, you're going to find yourself in a circumstance or a situation where You've never done it, and you can learn it the easy way or the hard way. Books can be a great mentor. I love reading. Tell me, leader, what you've learned. Tell me, mother, what you've learned. Tell me, wife, what you've learned. Give me pointers. Tell me, man of God. Tell me, woman of God, spiritual leader, Chrystal Hurst, Christian living. Give me that book. Tell me what you've learned about your walk with God. I don't want to have to take the long route to get there. I want you to tell me what you've learned by living well. So I seek out reading, I seek out conferences. You're here watching this video, you're seeking wisdom because you want to be mentored. I like to think of myself as a big sister. I am the big sister in my family. I'm the oldest of us four. However, I also realize that for many of you who are watching this video, that's what you consider me to be too. That's what you've told me, particularly the women who are in the Inner Circle, who are a part of that membership, who get to see this video, uh, live every Monday morning. They've said to me, thank you so much for teaching me. Thank you so much for sharing with me. Thank you so much for being like the big sister, the friend in my head. Uh, I've had people tell me that they listen to the podcast in the car and their children will say, well, mommy, how long has she been your friend? Why is she talking like that? Mommy, I thought, I thought she loved you, but she seems like she's fussing at you today. People's kids are like, you're the girl who's always in the car that my mother is listening to. So I really do take my role seriously to share what I've learned. But just recently, someone who's in the inner circle posed this question. She said, please, Is anybody here? Chrystal, I've got a question. What does mentoring look like? I know I'm in a season where I need to be mentored by an older woman with years of a submitted life to Christ. However, I'm having a hard time understanding what that looks like. Chrystal, can you be my mentor even though I live in Richmond, Virginia? I'm always laughing, but I'm not really laughing. Can you break it all the way down for me? Can you tell me what it looks like and what I should be learning and what I should be doing? Listen, This question again, I get it all the time. Chrystal, can you be my mentor? The reason why the Inner Circle exists is because if I could take every single woman to coffee for an hour on a Saturday morning or at 5:00 AM, I'm good for a 5:00 AM coffee. Listen, my kids are asleep, but if I could do that, I would. And it dawned on me after a while, so many women were saying, Chrystal, can you be my mentor? Can I meet you for coffee? I wanna ask you a question. Can I pick your brain? And I can't do that. I got a husband, I got kids, I got a job. So I said, okay, what other way can I deliver content? And this is virtual mentoring. However, I really believe that when at all possible, whether it's physically in person from your church, from your neighborhood, from work, whatever, or whether it's someone virtually— and because of technology, we have the wonderful opportunity to have virtual mentors— I really believe that you need to, um, look at your life and say, where do I need someone to teach me? And then be bold enough to ask for a mentor. So I want to give you some tips about how you can find one in your life in this season for what you need to learn and how you need to grow. Let's talk about the definition of a mentor. Mentor is simply someone to guide you. It's someone who is a few steps ahead of you on the journey. So they could be older than you, but they don't have to be. Mentor— the word mentor is sometimes used interchangeably with the role and naming of a coach. A coach, though, sometimes is a little different because sometimes, often coaches have had training. They have been classes they have taken. Basically, they've gotten an education in how to help people to move forward and reach their goals. So can they be used interchangeably? Yes. But what that means though, really, is that you have to establish whether it's for mentoring or for coaching, really, what does it mean? What does it mean this person is going to do for you? What is your expectation? Um, coaching for me sounds a little bit more formal. It sounds a little bit more that there's a responsibility on their part to drive things. Mentoring, though, for me, is driven by— can be driven by the mentee. Often you have the people who will say, I can't find a mentor, right? There's not a mentor available. You will have women who are willing to be mentors say to me, these mentees aren't serious. You know, they're, they're not really wanting to learn. And so in either case, often what happens with coaches is that it involves money. And so there's accountability. Okay, there's accountability. If you have a basketball coach, uh, you don't play right, you're off the team. If you have a business coach, trust me, you paid for their time. So we might flippantly say, well, this person is coaching me, and that's actively what they're doing. But often right now in this day and age, in the middle of 2022, what I find is really what we're talking about when you're talking about coaching is an exchange of money and an exchange of accountability. That I gotta pay, and because I paid, I show up. Mentor-mentee is usually a lot more based around volunteer. It's based around the desire that someone has to be known, to be open. But both of them— and here's the key thing— both of them are oriented around a goal. A goal says, I want to be a better business person, or I want to be a better believer. A goal says, I want to be a better mom. Or someone can say, well, I want to be better at making money. Can you tell me how to level up? Often mentors and coaches can be both related to your work or to your life with your family, to your faith, the core of you. But either one of them, you're trying to get somewhere. And that's your why. So why do you need a mentor in your life, no matter your age? Is because if you're still living, you're still growing and going, and there's probably somebody ahead of you on the journey just a little bit. Now, I wanted to show you a picture of my Aunt Jo. Aunt Jo has been in my life since I was 7 years old. She will turn 80 this year. She came to my house for lunch the other day. We've just been missing each other and trying to make it work, and I'm out of town, and she wasn't feeling well. And so I finally said, are you available this Thursday? Hey, can you blow— can you come this Thursday? And she sat here with me for lunch, and you better believe while she was here, I asked her some questions. I asked her some questions about being a good friend. I asked her some questions about the pace at which I'm living my life. I asked her some questions about pursuing passions. I listened to her about what she still wanted to do in her life, and I took the opportunity at one lunch to let her mentor me. I did not ask her to be my ongoing mentor. She's my Aunt Jo. She's been in my life since I was 7 years old, for many, many years, for decades. I can call her anytime. But I used the opportunity that day to ask her some mentoring questions, and mentor me she did. Aunt Jo is such a wonderful person. And I just want to pause to say this. She actually came. Oh, Ellie was— and played the piano at my house, y'all. She was the music director at our church for many, many years. She had my sister and I singing together while she played. She is a consummate musician. And to have her sitting at my piano after she played, she's said, Chrystal, are you still playing? I said, not as much as I should. Chrystal, play. Okay, Aunt Jo. And I didn't ask for that mentoring advice, but what she was giving me was the advice to never stop doing the thing that I love. Mentoring is— it can be structured, it can be lighthearted and casual and informal like that. But it is a blessing to have someone that's further down the road look at you and you say, yes ma'am, I will, I will do just what you said. So the first thing is you need to know why you need a mentor. Don't randomly go up to somebody and say, can you mentor me? Mentor you in what? What do you want to get out of it? What's the end goal? And even if it's still very soft and vague, if you want to say, I just want to be a better mom, that's a good reason. I want to grow in my faith. That's a good reason. I'm trying to figure out how to level up on my career. That's a good reason. I want to work for myself one day, and I'm trying to figure out how can I begin to make those transitions in my life. That's a good reason. I want to lose weight. That's an awesome reason. I want to figure out how to think more positive thoughts, and you're such a positive person. Can I just spend time with you, and can I share some of the thoughts that I have in my head, and you tell me how you would think about them? That's a good reason. But come with a reason. Don't come to somebody and just say, can you mentor me? Because one of the biggest turn-offs for someone who is, um, not regularly mentoring other women is that you just want to sit and have coffee with them. They just want you to listen to them whine and complain about their lives, but you don't want to get anywhere. Come with your why. Know what the goal is when you ask someone to be the mentor. Now, yes, you're going to have to ask, and you may have to ask a few times, and you may have to ask a few women. Fortunately or unfortunately, there are women in this world who don't think they can mentor. So that also means be specific about what mentoring means. I would love for you to mentor me. Maybe you shouldn't even use that word. I would love to meet with you. Could I meet with you once a month this year, or once a month for the next 6 months? I would like to ask you questions about how I can be stronger in my faith, or how I can start making moves in my business. And I would love to ask you 1 to 3 questions once a month. Maybe we can meet at a time that works for you. That's very specific. So it's not this unending, I just want you to meet and listen to all of my problems, and then, you know, sit there and listen. That's exhausting for someone who you think you want them to be your mentor, but really what you want is just someone to complain about your life with and let them listen. No, you need to have a goal. You need to know where you're going, even if it's still broad. And then you need to be specific in your ask. You need to be committed. If you're going to ask someone to show up for you, then you need to make sure you're showing up for them. Listen, I realize that, um, the ask is hard, but especially if you're shy and you don't want to hear no. But what do you want from a dude, right, who's trying to pursue you? If he asks you once to go out on a date and he's really into you, you expect him to come back again, don't you? Well, when it comes to mentoring, it's the same thing. If you want a woman to be available to you, or even a man, like in the workplace— there's nothing wrong with having a man as a mentor because there's— you learn, learn how to break them ceilings, learn how to do think like a man but act like a woman. Um, the reality is you may have to ask multiple times if there's a person you're dead set on. And if one person says no, and if you're not dead set on them, ask again. Don't let rejection turn you off from something you know you need. All right, then after you, um, get that first meeting, be specific, be prepared, uh, be concise. It's okay to share your thoughts and to share the pain points, but don't go on and on and on and on. This is not your therapy session, okay? Sometimes it may be, but when you show up, respect their time. Come for what you ask for and get what you need, but don't use the time to then talk about your whole life and complain about everything. They're not your therapist, and if you need one, you need to pay for that. But ask for the first meeting and know that everyone needs help. Have no shame in your game about asking for someone to help you. Whether we have been mentored intentionally over coffee or over dinner, or as you serve, or as you work together, everybody needs help. And it doesn't matter if you're 20, 40, or 60. We all have situations in life that we haven't gotten to yet, and for someone else to share their knowledge, it's okay. When you start meeting with them, get to know them, nurture the relationship, say thank you, be appreciative, buy their coffee, show And act like what you're getting is a gift because it is. And then follow up. You be the person that shares your encouragement with them. Send them a card, not just to say thanks, but to tell them how you are using what you are gaining from them, uh, in between to say, thank you so much. I've already been trying this. I can already see the difference. Looking forward to our next meeting. Find out when their birthday is. Ask them, is there anything that I can be, uh, praying for you about? Is there any way that I can serve you? Now, this is a big one. Asking the question as you nurture the relationship. How can I serve with you? How can I be where you are? What I love about Jesus is he basically mentored the disciples is that he had them with him. He had them show up where he was. They learned not because they were meeting from— for coffee. They learned because they were just with him. Especially when we're talking about mentoring in the church, the women who you want to be like, where are they? What are they doing? Don't ask them necessarily alone to meet you for coffee on a Saturday. Why don't you find out what ministry they're in and serve with them. I would love to be more— I would love to have more access to you, and I would love to learn from you. Could you please tell me where you are serving or what you are doing in ministry where I can come alongside and support you? I just want to be around you and catch why you are living your life, how I can live mine too. Instead of asking for more of their time in a separate segmented place, one of the best things that you can do in ministry is just show up and serve. Where are the people that are doing what you want to do? Get where they are, do what they are doing, and don't apologize for having to learn and pick up what— just pick up behind them. I am amazed at how many people want to do the thing and they don't want to do the thing. They just want to tell— for me to tell them what it's taken me 20 years to learn without actually having to practice it. What you don't realize is that often mentoring is not about getting the information, it's about getting the practice. And so when you want to learn from a speaker, you say, can I— can I— when you do local engagements, can I help you with your book table? When you want to learn from CEO and exec, listen, I know I'm not in the C-suite, but I— if there's ever a meeting, if you see your CEO in the hallway, if there's ever a meeting that you feel like I could just benefit from by being a fly on the wall, listen, I'm hungry. I want to learn. And I don't have people who have been in management or who have been in the C-suite in my life, but if you would just give me the opportunity to be around you, tell your boss that, tell your manager, how can I serve and how can I just be around? And when I'm around, how can I serve? There was a lady named Lisa Nichols who for 5 years, she wanted to be a motivational speaker. For 5 years she went to the Tony Robbins conferences as a volunteer. She paid to still go as a volunteer. She paid less, but she still paid. She said, I need to hear this multiple times if I'm going to be who I want to be. I've never seen a speaker like this, and there's nobody that looks like me doing this. So guess what? If I want to be who he is and have what he has, I need to be around him and see how he does it. And she paid to be around him. There is a cost to knowledge. There is a cost to experience. And if you expect that you're just going to sit down for 30 minutes and get all the drippings, you are kidding yourself. Show up and be in the room. And when you're in the room, make yourself useful. So ask for the meeting. Know what you need. Set your goals. Be sure that you are being a nurturer of the relationship, that you're being specific for what you're asking for, that you say thank you, that you give gratitude, that you follow up, that you maintain the relationship, that you keep this person updated, that you offer to help. And I want you to know that when you do this, that what you'll be doing is availing yourself to knowledge, and knowledge ain't cheap. And if you can find a mentor who is willing to have you just to be with them, or to even meet you for coffee, and they're giving you knowledge, you need to be appreciative and ask them how you can help them. Is there any way that I can serve you? Is there any way that I can avail myself to you? I'm so grateful for what you're giving to me. I want to— I want to repay the favor. And often a good mentor won't want anything from you. What they will want you to do is pass How many of us have been to a school or applied to a college and we've seen alumni come back? They're so grateful for what they got from the school, or they're so grateful for what they got from that pastor, or they're so grateful for what they got from that ministry, or they're so grateful that another person of color in their corporate organization showed them how to navigate the ropes. And so what do they do? They pour back in. Or someone from a community that they had a hard time getting out, and they know that kids in this community will have a hard time getting out, and they go back, LeBron James, to their neighborhood and say, let me me give back. Why? Because when you've been mentored, often when you say to your mentor, what can I do, they want you to do the same thing and pass it on to someone else. You can't get too high or get too far where you're not willing to give what you've received. Now let me say a little something to the mentors. When they ask you, even if you don't think you have anything to give, say yes. Make room. If they don't give you qualifying questions, say, well, I would love to consider consider mentoring you, but what exactly is it that you're trying to achieve? How long do you want to meet? If you don't have time, say, well, I don't have time to necessarily meet you for coffee, but here's what I'm doing every Tuesday night at the church. I would love for you to come and serve alongside me. When people would say, I just want to see how you run your home, I would say, well, come over and help me fold clothes. We can chat while we do that. You can help me prepare for my first Sunday dinner with my family and see how I actually get organized and pull things together. That's what you want to do, and you're already in my life and you want more, you've got to do more with me as I'm doing it, because I don't have a whole lot of time for coffee dates. And honestly, the close friends that I've had for 30 years, my sister, my family, I need to give them their coffee dates first. So as much as I would love to take everyone to coffee, this is what I do because I want to mentor you. And for people who are in my town, in real life, in my church, when they say, will you be my mentor, I say? So that we can accomplish what? What are you asking for? Do you even know? I'm happy to help you, but there's so many free resources out here just to in general help you be a better person. You don't need that from me. What you need is to figure out what you're trying to do and then figure out if I'm the person for you. I want to encourage you, if you're not currently a mentor, you can do the opposite. Look for in your life what you've learned. What have you accomplished? What have you been able to do? Where have you been able to go? What did you learn the hard way that you You hope no one else has to learn the hard way like you. And then be on the lookout for someone that's in your sphere of influence. And if she's not asking you and you can see she needs it, offer, offer. And you don't have to walk up to her and say, I want to mentor you. Y'all, we can get away with all these frivolities. You can just say, I see you working hard to be a mom. You're doing a great job. Listen, I'd love to have you over one way just to maybe make you a cup of coffee, bring your babies, and I would love to just sit with you and hear more about what's happening in your life and pray for you if I can. You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to be official. You don't have to have taken a mentoring class. You just need to say, my life on your life, my life with your life. There might be something I know that I can give you that will help you. Now, I want you to know that just like everything else— mentoring, coaching, all of that included— you live and you learn. So don't be afraid to ask, don't be afraid to help, and don't be afraid to grow. And also know this: one mentor is probably not all you need. I believe in my life I have a board of mentors. I have some women who think— I think about when I want to talk about motherhood. I have someone— women I think about when I want to talk about business. I have some women that I talk to when I want to talk about leadership and ministry. I have some women that I talk to when I want to talk about adult children. I have all the mentors in the world, but they're not all meeting me for coffee every Saturday. I would just say, hey, after church, can I just ask you a quick question? I'm gonna blow my fuse. But I try to be as specific as possible and do what I can to welcome their wisdom in my life. If you're young and you don't have a mentor because you think you know it all, welcome the wisdom. You'll be glad you you did. Listen, I hope this has given you a little bit of a go factor for how you can find a mentor. If you need a mentor, listen, the doors to the Inner Circle don't open again till July, but I'm here. But I want to encourage you in your real life, get in somebody's church, get in a Bible study, look around at your job and figure out who's been doing really well and ask them. And if they say no, ask somebody else. Don't be dissuaded. Look around your life in your neighborhood and and say, look who seems to have their lawn done. You want to get your garden done? Go down 5 houses to the lady whose lawn is always tight and right and say, I have no idea how to take care of my lawn. I would love to just get some pointers for you one, one day. Do you mind if every now and then if I see you working in the lawn and just ask you some questions? She probably would love to share what she's doing in her lawn to make it beautiful. Look around for who is living the life you want to love and ask them how they came to love it well. We are here, y'all, because we really are better together. And whether this is in your spiritual life, in your family life, in your work life, in your civic life, there's no reason for you to figure it out long and hard the hard way. So be specific, ask the question, show up, be consistent, be appreciative. And if you are that woman with a little bit of wisdom, even if the wisdom was hard one, be willing to share it because another girl needs you today. Again, if you are not subscribed, y'all, if you're not following me, you need to do that right now. And if this video was helpful to you, I would ask that you share it. Why? Because somebody else like you needs to know how to find or be a good mentor or a good big sis to someone else. So this is me, your big sis, signing this week. Have a good one. See you next time. All right, so it's that time where we're editing videos and getting totally ready for you. And here's what I realized. The video ended, but it wasn't over. You know, I do these videos with a live audience in our Inner Circle, and after I finished recording, we had a little bit of an after the show moment. So normally I don't share this extra extra, but I think this extra this time, you need to hear this part. So roll tape. I was going to say this. One of the reasons why we have offered the coaching cohorts is because I realize that sometimes mentoring really is needed for something very specific and for a period of time. You don't need this person to be in your life forever. And that's okay. There is ongoing mentoring, um, just like Biblical Womanhood. And so I'm going to be in this group for a year. I'm going Like, I'm thinking about this summer— we'll see— like doing a Bible study in my home and just talking about— I got to figure out, you know, what is this season right now? Is this like what I want to talk about? Motherhood? Do I want to talk about spiritual growth? Do I want to talk to, um, leaders? I don't, I don't know. But what I do know is that it's not going to go on for a year. I know it'll be like 6 weeks and that's it. Um, but I really do love the opportunity to dive in deep on something specific. And I think you have to give yourself yourself that freedom. It's kind of like taking a class, except you're— one of the things I always tell the coaches when they do the cohorts for us is I say, if you're going to be on for 90 minutes, you talk for 30. That's it. The value in the mentoring, the value in the coaching, the value in the cohort is the other hour where they're asking you questions. And so I want to encourage you, if you know you need to learn something, you want to find even just a teacher who has office hours. Like, think about it. If you have a teacher and they have office hours, not only do you get the information that you maybe need, but then you get the access that helps you to apply the information, right? Mentoring assumes you either need the teaching or you need the application or you need both. Okay? A business coach or like a trainer, like a coach or trainer, I'm going to have a running coach. It assumes that they have the information, but they're pulling it out of me. And there is accountability again involved. There's a different level typically in accountability. So really, you can use the word coach or mentor interchangeably. We used coach because Chrystal Hurst, coach cohorts, the alliteration is important. But I think what you need to know is that regardless of what the name is, you need to define it. So for our cohorts, the definition was 4 weeks. Weeks at a certain time with the same people. And then every week when the session was done, you had 7 days to watch it. Accountability. And after 7 days, it went down because you, you can't be on a totally different time frame than the other people in your group. Remember, Jesus had the disciples with him. They were on the same page. They were seeing and experiencing things at the same time. They were getting the same exposure, the same information. Groupthink, group lessons learned. Another thing that I want you to consider is to avail yourself to group coaching, group coaching. The reason is because sometimes you don't have the problem, but someone else has the problem. And then just by listening to the other person's problem, you don't even— you didn't even know you had that question. And then you hear their question and you're like, yeah, that's a good— and then you hear the answer. And even if that was not your question for today, you have that question when you need it tomorrow. So, I would also say, listen, if there are 3 of you who are young moms, and you're like, "We just really need somebody to help us make sure we're doing this right," then I would find— y'all agree on 1, 2, or 3 people, approach the first person and say, "There are 3 of us young moms who really would love— like, we don't live here, we're not from here, our mothers are not here. We would love to ask you to just pour into our lives as moms. We want to make sure that we are, um, being godly moms. We want to make sure we are setting the tone in our homes. We want to make sure we are being a joyful mother of our children. We want to— and we just want you to speak in— could we, um, whatever. What does that mean? Could we serve with you in the nursery? Could we, um, sit with you at church and just maybe for a few minutes after church just have you pray over us? Could we— like, make it easy for your mentor, but don't feel like you have to be one-on-one either. Don't feel like you have to be one-on-one. Know that if you have a group of people, and that's why group coaching is so powerful. I have a group coaching program that I'm a part of, y'all, and sometimes I go to the calls, I don't have a question. I'm just here eating popcorn, listening to everybody else, because I'm sitting here going, that's a good question. Tell me what you gonna say to her. Kathy Fox, I love that you offer the cohorts. And you know why? I mean, and the cohorts are, you know, they are, they are an exchange of money for for sure, because these are these people's time and this is what they do for a living. So when they say, you know what, I'm going to show up and teach you how to get your business finances in order, that's worth the money. And we want to, we want to make sure that we are honoring the people who are blessing us with knowledge, right? There are a bunch of scriptures I could have quoted today. You know, people say, well, I don't have a mentor, and everybody says no. All right, to have friends, you got to show yourself friendly. Okay, uh, I just said, you know, I just, I need all these mentors and all these coaches. Nope. In the council of two or three, there is wisdom. You just need wise counsel with just a few, you know. You need to look at the people who are closest to you. Like, I've heard people say, the 5 people that are in your life that are the closest to you, they are mentoring you whether you want them to be or not. So if the people that are closest to you aren't doing what you do, aren't where you want to go, don't have what you want to have, you need to bring some other people in close. And you need to be willing to tell the truth. Don't get in front of your mentor and be shucking and jiving and telling them what they— what you think they want to hear and what you think will make them think you're a great person. No, you need to show up and be honest. Let them see all of your skin. You want transformation, you want healing, they need to see the places where you're raw, or you're raw. They need to know that you yelled at your husband. They need to know that you slammed something on the counter, that you threw something in the house and broke the dish. Go on and let them have the whole story so that they can actually speak into it. Your mentor may not be able to say like, well, last time I wanted to throw a dish— maybe your mentor's never wanted to throw a dish at her husband's throat, but maybe what she would say is, you know, if you're that angry, you might want to check and get some counseling. Counseling, because that is an action that says there is something that is so painful bottled up inside that someone can help you with that. And that won't stop them from being your mentor, but they may be able to recognize something else that you need in your life. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm just tired all the time. My mother would say, go take some vitamin B and then go to the doctor and get your blood tested, make sure you're not anemic. Why? This had nothing to do with me being a great mom. This had everything to do with her knowing, as a physical woman, the things that I needed to know as a physical woman to take care of my body. So tell the whole story. I went on my period for 12 days. That's not supposed to be happening. And maybe another lady in your life can say, girl, you tired because you're bleeding to death. Go talk to the doctor about the bleeding. I've had people tell me, um, in terms of me and how I manage my team. Chrystal, you're way too nice. Your people need boundaries. And I'm like, but you know, nah, it's a big sister. I want to be friends. I want to— yeah, but no. If they're interns, they need to do what they agreed to do. If they cannot do it, then you want to bless them and release them. But I don't want to release them. Okay, I'm gonna have to figure out how to work this second half in. This part is life-giving too. Yeah, you, you just need to know that you, you need people to speak into your life. And, and I have often wanted to hide. I have often wanted to hide. Like, this is the Oprah— you know how she always— she would have the after the show? This is the after the show. I have wanted to hide stuff that I was doing because I would know that mentors or my parents or people that love me or people, um, that are ahead of me would look at me and go, no, no, because I would know I shouldn't be doing it. I would know I spent too much money or too much time. Um, you know, there have been people in my life, even friends, who the, the cost of the friendship— I mean, it was agonizing. And at a certain point, it was like, you what? I'm working so hard to make this work and they don't want to make it work. And I'm not doing them any favors by forcing myself on them. And so, but I wouldn't tell my mentor that I was still talking to them. In fact, I have a friend right now that she has a friend and the relationship is toxic and she knows it's toxic. They've been friends for a long time and she just says all the time, every time I have a call with her, every time we do something, I end up feeling horrible about myself. She She's just like, she's just not good for me. And she'll talk to me about it. And I don't say anything, but for a while she stopped talking to me about it. And so I said, girl, have you talked to so-and-so in a while? And she was like, why do you ask? I was like, you just haven't talked about it in a while. And she said, yes, I talked to her yesterday. It was terrible. Da da da da da da da da da. And I just sat there and listened. And she said, you think I'm a horrible person, don't you? You, don't you? I said no. You think I need to cut her off, don't you? I said yes, but only because you told me that 2 years ago. But here's what happens when we don't want people— mentors, coaches, people that love us— to speak into our lives. We hide. Well, here's the problem. If you want somebody to help you, you have to show up and tell them the truth. No doctor can do surgery on a wound you won't admit is a problem. We walk around hiding, talking about we want mentors. No, you want someone to listen to you. You just want someone to talk and to listen to you talk for free. A mentor should be guiding you to somewhere you want to go. A coach should be coaching you to the best version of yourself, or whatever you're there for, so that you can take that and level up your life. This— there's an end to this. This is not— listen, Jesus had a point. He was like, listen, I, I am about to leave. I'm about to be up out this joint. I'm about to be dead, and then I'm going to live again. I'm gonna be around here for a few days, and then I got to go. I, I gotta go. I'm not supposed to be here, and I don't have a lot of time. So in order for y'all to get everything you need to get from me, in order for me to download my power, to download my words, to download how I'm going to talk to people, to download correction, to download a true brotherhood, to download forgiveness. Y'all gonna see me walk this road with Judah— Judas. For me to download, um, all the things, y'all gonna have to be with me 24/7. 24/7. And he left, and the gospel spread all over Asia. Europe, everything that we know came over to the Western Hemisphere, you know, because he taught those 12 well. One of the blessings of being a parent of adult children is mentoring them, where you stop telling them what to do and you start acting as a guide, and you start saying, well, what do you think you should do? Well, why do you think that? Did you try this before? What did you learn the last time? Well, how did that go for you? That's, that's coaching. I tell my children all the time, you have a mom who'll be 50 years— we're driving down the road, I was about to make this turn, and my son was like, Mom, you can't do that. And he was starting to instruct me with the steering and the wheels, and I I said, how old are you? He said, 17. I said, you know, I was driving this road when I was 17 too, which is decades before you were even a thought. I might know a thing or two about what to do behind the wheel, son. I tell my children all the time, the blessing that you have is that you have a parent who actually gives a flying flip about you, and you can learn things the hard way way, or you can use the guidance, the mentoring, and the coaching that a parent, even as you're a young adult, can give you, can save you some time. One of the greatest compliments that my oldest daughter has ever paid to me is, um, she went and got some mentoring from someone, and she wanted it to be official. She set up a time, you know,. And then she came back to me and she was telling me about how wonderful this session was. And, and then she just proceeded to tell me, she said, and you know what she told me? She told me this, she told me this, she told me this. And I was sitting there thinking, my mother already told me that. She said, but it was good to like focus on it and to set aside a time. And I said, good for you, good for you. But she said, I felt miles ahead because because I already had the information. I just need to start applying it. And she kind of helped me to think through how to apply it. I said, good for you. So often the people that can be our best mentors are the closest people in our life. We're just not asking them. We're not utilizing their wisdom. So I want to ask you, who's already in your world? Who's already in your world? You know, and you don't to— again, think about this. Knowledge is power. It's information. It is valuable. So when you ask for someone's time to give you knowledge and to help you grow and to take you further on the journey, you need to be full of gratitude and thanksgiving if they're giving it to you for free, even if they're not. And then you need to make sure that you are available as you can to serve them. One of the ladies who's in ministry, um, that a ministry that I've learned a lot from a long time ago. She said, she said, the people that helped me in my ministry are the people that I poured into for years in a Bible study in my home. And out of those 50 women that would show up to my house every Monday night, 5 of them were cream of the crop. They started showing up a little earlier. They asked me how could they help me. They set up the food they brought. And then when I started traveling and speaking, it was those 5 women who would come. They would buy their own plane tickets because I couldn't afford to bring them. They would buy their own plane tickets to help me at my events so that I could share the information with other people. She said, if you will just decide to avail yourself, the cream will rise and you will see the women who actually want more from you, or the ones that you want to call out because you see something in them. She said, and then occasionally there will be a woman who calls you and says, can she learn from you? And what you need to do is say, then come around me, this is what I'm doing, because you don't have time to sit at coffee every day with 10 women. You don't. So I want to ask you as a mentee, where can you go to learn, grow, and serve? As a mentor, how can you pour out and know that you're going to cast the seed and that some seed's going to grow and some is not? I heard Liz Curtis Hicks— she's officially, as a speaker, slowing down to retire to focus on being in a leadership role at her church. She said this to me, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. She said, He said, for 40 years I've been scattering seed, and now I'm so very excited to operate in a place where I'm planted, to plant the seed, to water it, to weed it, to watch it grow, and to see it become full grown. I'm glad that I have the opportunity not just to inspire, not just to motivate, not just to teach, but to actually mentor, to disciple, and watch someone grow from a baby to a grown adult in the word, to go from milk to meat. I'm so excited to have have this role. And as a mentor, as a person who is able to see things that someone else can't see, you should be asking yourself the question: where am I supposed to plant, water, nurture, weed, cheerlead, and be an accessory to someone else's growth? I'm so grateful that there are women in my life who are willing to do that for me. Some of them I have to chase down. I do. Some of them I pay. I do. Some of them, um, in fact, I said to one woman recently, I said, I'm so sorry, I just feel like this is such a one-sided relationship. You're always so gracious to give me wise counsel. I'm so very grateful. And she said, well, she said, you have to understand that for me, the gift is watching you grow. I'm— this is not one-sided. You're helping me to see How all of the years of all of the things that I've been through, of all the things that I've learned the hard way, how it is actually fodder for the soil that you're in. It is a blessing to me. So anyway, that's my after the show. Ba dum bum.