Evan Carmichael breaks down two types of mentors: aspirational figures like Bill Gates you study remotely, and in-person mentors you meet for coffee. At 19 with no connections, he walked into a bank, got referred through contacts, and found a mentor named John who helped him sell his business. Start by researching successful people, ask for just 20 minutes, and keep your request easy to say yes to.
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How do you find a mentor? So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, Tom, love you guys, who wrote in to say, how do you find a mentor? So this is a great question and one that a lot of entrepreneurs ask. You know, you realize you can't do everything yourself and you don't need to come up with every single new idea yourself if you have somebody who has already done it and leverage what they've learned to help you grow. It's way faster to achieve your goal than to try to figure it all out yourself. In my mind, there are two types of mentors, and you can leverage both to help you grow your business. The first people are what I call aspirational mentors. They're people who you never meet but can still give you lots of great advice. So my first aspirational mentor was Bill Gates. I had a software company. Bill Gates was the biggest guy in software. I never met Bill Gates, but Bill Gates saved my company. Okay, I was gonna quit. I was, you know, I told my business partner that I quit. I was in tears. I thought of giving up. I thought I had tried everything. And I started researching Bill Gates. I realized, you know what, I'm not the first guy to try to sell software. And I researched Bill Gates and his story and how he started Microsoft and how he built his business up. And a lot of it was through partnerships. And so I applied that same strategy, applied it to my business, and within a couple months I got my first deal, the first deal was $13,500, and that, that, like, that saved my business. I was making $300 a month, and here was a $13,500 order. It was amazing. I mean, that seems like a lot to you guys now, but that, that changed my life. And then I was able to close another deal, another deal, another deal, and that was all because of Bill Gates. And I had never met him, I just researched his story. And now I look up to A.P. Giannini, who's the founder of Bank of America, and Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. And these guys these guys teach me things. A.P. Giannini has been dead for years, and Steve Jobs, you know, recently passed away. I've never met these people, but they're impacting my business, and I consider them my mentors. So whatever you're trying to do, find someone who's already done it and research their success. The bigger they are, the easier it is to find out what their story is. So the second kind of mentor is actually somebody you can talk to, right? Somebody you can go have a coffee with and bounce ideas off of. The challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs is they go up to people and say, hey, will you be my mentor? "Will you be my mentor?" And right away you freak people out. You know, it's like asking somebody off the street, "Will you marry me?" That doesn't happen. Mentorship is a relationship. You have to get to know each other. You have to work well together. You have to have trust. You have to build that up. It's not something you just jump into. So if you want somebody to mentor you, don't email them and say, "Will you be my mentor?" Because it's too much of an ask. The better thing to do is connect with somebody and ask them for 20 minutes of their time. Ask them for a phone call, for a coffee. Show your interest, because people like helping other people. If you have a passion and you seem really excited and interested in learning, then people will want to help you out. Mentors gain as well. We feel good giving advice to mentees if we feel like that person's actually going to go and do something with it. Right? They're gonna take that knowledge and apply it. And if I get that for people who write to me, if I get that sense of excitement and passion and willingness to follow through, then I'm happy to help them out. But it starts by building a relationship. So 20 minutes over coffee. I remember I had one person write into me and say, "I wanna meet with you, even if it's walking with you on the way to a meeting. Let me know, I'll bring you some cookies and we'll chat on the walk." That shows drive and determination. And so let that come out when you're approaching people and have a simple ask. And after that 20 minutes, if your passion comes through and they are feeling your vibe and feel like you're taking their advice, it's usually pretty easy to say, hey, would you mind if I called you back in a month? If I had more questions, can I reach out to you? Almost everybody's going to say yes unless you're a total douchebag, you know, and the meeting ends super early because You're not respecting their time, then they're going to say yes, and that starts the relationship, and it can build to something more, right? But you got to start it off small and simple and easy. Make it easy for people to say yes and not throw this huge commitment in front of them. So if you know somebody who you're trying to target, right, that, you know, there's somebody you have in mind who's this big shot or whoever it is, then you can reach out to them with something simple like that and let your passion shine through. And in one of my my Zuga Guides on finding a mentor, I have a script that you can use as an email template to connect with people. If you don't know who you want to connect with, you don't have an idea of the person that you want to go to, then start reaching out to your network and let them know who you're looking for. The first mentor that I had, the real mentor, was a guy by the name of John, and I found John by going to my bank because I had no connections. I was 19, I had no connections You know, I didn't want to ask my parents. I wanted to, you know, feel like I'm doing this myself and not being supported because, you know, my mom's friend is helping me. And I had no personal connections. My friends are all in school, right? So I went to the bank. I thought the bank is going to be a friend of entrepreneurs. That's obviously not what the bank does, is giving advice. But they connected me with somebody named Michael, who I thought, oh great, Michael, this guy's got this downtown office and, you know, nice views of the city and looks like a really big, big guy, a big shot. And he was just all air. He was all air. But he introduced us to another guy named Steve who tried to help us out but couldn't. And he introduced us to another friend named John. And John ended up being an awesome force for our company and taught us and trained us and gave us lots of advice and ended up helping us sell our business. And so it was such a strange path, but that's how it builds, right? I spoke to my bank. I had no contacts there. I just walked into my bank. And then they put me on to somebody, put me on to somebody, put me on to John. And it may happen faster for you, but it's putting that message out there to your contacts, to your network, of the type of person you're looking for, and setting up times to go meet people. So that's my advice. Find your aspirational mentor. Find someone who's done what you're trying to do and research how they got started. And then for an actual, you know, in-person human that you can talk to, make it simple, easy, low-risk. 20 minutes over coffee, show your passion, let that shine through, and if you don't know anybody yet to go after, start putting out to your connections, your network, or the type of person you're looking for, and eventually it'll come if you have persistence. That's how you find a mentor. Believe. For those of you watching, I'd love to hear in the comments, leave a comment as to how you found your mentor, or how you're looking for a mentor, or who your mentors are. I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. If you like these videos, you can click on the link to support me in the description, and click on my face here to subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon.
