The Science of Success: Ruth Gotian on Mentorship and Peak Performance

Where do people find mentors? If there are people, there are potential mentors, right? You don't ask someone, where do you find friends? Wherever there are people, there are mentors. But let me just calm everyone down. Don't go into a place thinking, I need to find a mentor. That's like walking into a room and saying, I need to find a husband. That's not going to work. That's setting you up for failure.

Hello my fellow negotiators.

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Ruth, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, Kwame.

It is my pleasure, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do.

Sure. My name is Dr. Ruth Gotian. I am a social scientist who studies Extreme High Achievers. Think Nobel Prize winners, astronauts, Olympians, and NBA champions. I figure out how they have become so successful and how the rest of us can become more successful. And I wrote a bunch of books about it, including the Success Factor and my new book, Financial Times Guide to Mentoring.

What a Cool Life to Live.

I know, right?

That's amazing. So there for me as a podcaster, I have to display a lot of restraint because there's so many things in your background that I want to go into.

Let it go, Kwame. Let it go.

Well, let's actually. Let's do this. Let's do this. When you think about peak performers like the Extreme High Achievers, what would you say is the one thing that they all have in common?

It's not one. It's four things.

There we go.

It's four things they all have in common. And that's how I figured out that success can be learned. So the four things, the short version is one, this is what they were put on this earth to do. This is they're intrinsically motivated to do it. It's a fire in the belly. They will also outwork everyone. The word no is not in their vocabulary. When they have a challenge, they think not if they can overcome it, but how. The third thing is they never, ever rest on their laurels. What made them so successful early on, they continue doing later on. And one of the people who I spoke with was very famous attorney Neil Kutyal, who has argued 50 cases before the Supreme Court. The way he prepares hasn't changed from case number one. And finally, the last element of success is they are always opening their minds up to new knowledge. They're reading books and listening to podcasts and listening to webinars and listening to lectures and they surround themselves with people who can give them new ideas. They all have a team of mentors around them. And once I realized that, I pulled on that thread and read a whole new book about it.

Here we go. Oh, this is great. Okay. Well, that was fascinating. And I'm certainly going to go back and read your books, and I'm going to read this next one, too, because mentoring is something that is near and dear to my heart, crucial to my success and growth. And I know there are a lot of folks out there who feel the same way, and a lot of organizations who are realizing the power of mentoring and trying to incorporate that into what it is that they do every day as a corporate culture. So let's just start off with the very basics. When you think about mentoring, how do you even define it?

A mentor is someone who sees potential in you that you don't even see in yourself. And they're able to open doors you didn't even know existed. And when you're feeling down because things didn't go your way, they are there to be the wind beneath your wings and cheer you on. They give you perspective because they have the 60,000 foot view when you're so deep inside the jar. And we know this works. We know mentorship works because all the research, a quarter of a century of research, has shown us that those who have mentors out earn and outperform those who are not. And it also leads to more promotions, more money, they're happier in their careers, less burnout. And for those of you who lead organizations, it's also better for the organization. It is the best retention policy out there because those who are mentored are more loyal to the organization. And we all know to replace an employee is time consuming and very expensive. And here's a way to close that gap.

Incredible. And listeners, you might be saying, well, what does this have to do with negotiation? Well, Ruth, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though talking is something mentors have to do from time to time. And the ability to communicate effectively is important.

It is so critical. But listening to your podcast over and over and over again over the years, it's not just the talking that's critical. It's, as we both know, so is the listening. And the listening to what is said and the listening to what is not said and reading between the lines and knowing how to do that is a key skill. And that's actually one of the things that we talk about quite a bit in the book, is how to do that, how to look at the body language, how to listen to what is said and not said. All of these things are so critical. And figuring out what is really important to the mentee, is it what they say or is it what they're not saying?

Now, I'm obviously biased here, Ruth, and you go ahead and tell me if I'm way off base in this, but is it fair to conceptualize mentoring as almost somebody who cares about you, helping to negotiate success with you?

Perfect. Perfect. You said that so succinctly. It should be my tagline.

This is great. I mean, it's really coming together because it makes so much sense. And I think when you take some time to actually think about the mechanics of mentorship, what it is that you're trying to accomplish, what skills it requires, you can really see how these negotiation skills can be woven in into that really seamlessly. But I love how we're starting with listening, because what I recognize in negotiations, sales, any type of conversation of any type, the act of listening is usually where it should begin, always where it should begin, but usually where it tends to fail. What is it about the mentoring relationship in particular that can make listening so hard?

So sometimes the mentors may want to solve the problem for the mentee, but it's not about solving the problem, because the problem the mentee stating may not be the actual problem. So listening is so critical, but you also want to be able to see things, and you want to encourage the mentee. So, for example, remember I said those who are mentored, they get promoted more often. You know why? Because the mentor will say, kwame, you have been sitting in that chair long enough. It is time to throw your hat in the ring and apply for that position. And you'll say, but I don't meet, you know, 100% of what's in the job description. And they'll say, you've achieved enough. Throw your hat in the ring. So they're there cheering you on, and they're talking you through it. And now let's say they offer the job, but they don't offer it at the salary you want. Well, your mentor has seen things, right? And they know people, and they know what is available out there. And they say the salary is one piece. Why don't you also ask for a, B and C? These are things, as a mentee, you might not have even considered because you think a job is salary, benefits, go home. But there's so many other things that can be considered that you might not have even thought of, right? So, for example, I have A mentor of mine, I was writing a grant. I'm a faculty member. I write grants. And I was working on the budget, and I was talking to her about it, and she said, why don't you put a line in there to have funding to send you to learn the specific skill so you can get certified in it? It hadn't even occurred to me to include that in the grant, and guess what I got. It never would have happened.

There's so many gems in here, Ruth. Okay, so the thing that holds us back from listening as mentors often is we want to jump in and solve the problem. And when you're having these conversations, sometimes people might not want to take those opportunities, but the mentor can help them give that belief. I think about with some of my mentors, I call it borrowed confidence. I don't often have confidence in myself, but they have confidence in me, and I believe in them. And if they believe in me, then there's. I trust them more than me, so I'll do it.

You don't want to let them down.

Exactly. Exactly. And then when it comes to the. Okay, that point where you take that opportunity, now we have the opportunity to enhance our negotiations because you have somebody with a broader perspective who can help you come up with creative options that can create more value. Now, I want to revisit this desire to solve problems because you said something in passing that I think was brilliant but easy for people to overlook because you said, we want to jump in and solve the problem. But what the mentee is saying is the problem may not actually be the problem. Can you go deeper into that one?

Sure. I think often, and you think of the person who's the loudest in the room, right? They're complaining about something. Really, what they're concerned about, that wasn't it. That wasn't what was really bothering them. And I'll give an example that happened during the early days of COVID I work in healthcare, and I had to stop, basically, a mentoring relationship from disintegrating. If you remember, I'm in New York, and we were where patient zero was. It was, you know, not a great place to be. And one of the mentees, who was a student, went on a Twitter rampage because his mentor gave him an entire to do list. And he said, I can't think. I can't, you know, I can't leave my apartment. I am so worried about my parents who are working in health care. And he was going on and on and on on this Twitter rage. And I said, this is not good. I reached out to the mentor and I said, what's going on? And she said, I'm so worried about my elderly parents. I can't reach them. They don't know how to use FaceTime or Skype or, you know, Zoom or any of those things. I don't know how they're doing. Unless they're answering the phone, I can't go visit them. The only way I can keep my sanity is by keeping extremely busy. They were both concerned about the same things, but they approached it very, very differently. And due to a lack of communication, that relationship almost imploded because one had to do it by keeping busy. The other person had to do it by just having a lot of white space so that they can just think clearly and not have any respons responsibilities right now. So when the person, the mentor, said, I'm concerned about your work productivity, what she was really concerned about were her parents. And the mentee was yelling about, why is my mentor only concerned about productivity right now when he was also concerned about his own safety and his parents safety. So sometimes what is not said is really the most important thing and you have to peel those layers very carefully to understand the root of the problem. The second I realized that they were both concerned about the same thing but had different approaches, I was able to illuminate that for them. And they were able to have a conversation and say, okay, I understand. This is what I need right now. Let's revisit this in two weeks and take it from there.

I've got a quick story for you. So I was at this keynote and.

I talked to a listener and he said, kwame, I love the podcast, but my favorite part, man, I love those commercials. And I said, I don't think this is a true story. And now let me tell you about Negotiate Anything Premium, where you can listen to your favorite Negotiate Anything episodes ad free. With a subscription to Premium, you can get access to more insights from your favorite experts and ad free listening and extended episodes. Bonus, you'll also get access to exclusive episodes and personalized advice from yours truly.

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I love this story for so many reasons and I want to get a little bit meta here. Let's talk about listening to what other people are saying versus listening to what we think they're saying versus listening to the voices in our head and attributing it to the other side as well. It requires a lot of metacognition and self awareness to be able to listen effectively. Because it's not just about hearing what the other person is saying. It's about quieting the voices in our own head. And so if you are a mentor who really cares about people, sometimes that care and that desire to help can be the thing that holds you back from listening effectively. And so what advice do you have for people when it comes to overcoming the emotional hurdles associated with listening?

If you ask any of the top mentors, I'll say that the way they measure their success is by their mentee's success. And if you really want your mentee to succeed, you have to just pause, put a needle in it, listen to what they're saying, summarize what you're hearing them say, and then say, did I understand that accurately? Is there anything else that is of concern? Is there anything else that you're excited about? And by asking those questions, which are never, yes, no questions, right. Because you say, what else are you excited about? What else is concerning you? You start to get to the root of the problem. So it's listening carefully and then asking these very inquisitive questions and taking note.

What I love about this answer, besides the fact that it is flawless, is the fact that there it is, such a simple response. And it's something that is simple in terms of what is required to execute. But simple is very different from easy. Something that is simple can be very, very difficult because pausing is the one thing that people don't want to do. We always, especially if you're in a position of being a mentor, most likely you're a high performer, you're used to being successful, you're used to doing things. And that seeming inactivity associated with pausing in the moment can be incredibly tough for people to appreciate. So I'm glad, because you're somebody who has a significant pedigree when it comes to researching what it takes to be successful in this. And then just seeing that after all of this research, it just comes back to the simplicity of pausing. And listening is fascinating.

It is. And that's, you know, what I get for hanging out with a lot of physicians in very high stakes situations and a lot of astronauts. That pause is critical. You cannot start until you first take a pause, make sure everything is right where it should be, the right people are in the right place. You're working on the Right. Problem. It's when you don't take that pause that disaster strikes.

Absolutely. And now let's say we're in the conversation. We're flowing. One of the things that you mentioned earlier was body language and being able to make these reads and flow in the conversation. So as you're having any difficult conversation, but of course, focusing on mentoring, what are some of those cues that we should pay attention to? And then once we see those cues, what should we actually do?

I always look for that face lights up moment. Right. Have you ever, Kwame, have you ever spoken to someone and where they're talking about something that they're excited about, their whole demeanor changes, their shoulders are down, their eyebrows go up, they start to smile. All of a sudden, they just look like they've been, you know, freshened with morning dew. They look excited as opposed to looking depleted. And you can tell immediately. And when I talk to someone, I look for when their face lights up. And I say that that's what you need to work on. That's the fire in your belly. And that's what we get to.

That is great. I'm having a bit of self reflection here, too, because I think when the people who are the best listeners are the people who are first able to listen to themselves. And a lot of times people get into this situation where they should on themselves, where they say, I should do this, I need to do that, everything feels like a drudgery. And then you don't even question whether or not there's another way because you and so many other people are following the same path. And when you're a mentor, you could see that in your mentees sometimes, like, okay, I'm going to just have to suffer for the next seven to eight years and then hopefully make partner. And I think it's really important for those mentors to be able to pick up on those energy cues. Oh, wait, I. You were talking about this topic, and then the energy levels seem to go down. But when we talked about that, it seemed to light up. Let's. Let's cultivate. Cultivate a little bit of that passion. It's okay to feel good. You can. You can feel good at work with what you're doing.

That's right. I think this also leads to the idea of why it's so important to have mentors. And I advocate for a team of mentors who are different than you. And different than you can mean so many things look different you than you, different rank, different perspective, different gender, different ethnicity. But here's here's one. I am a 95% extrovert. I've been tested many times, right? I'm an adult educator. We like to test ourselves. 95% extrovert. That means I need to be around people. 95% extroverts also cut people off a lot. And this is not good when you're in the business of listening, when you do qualitative research. So I surround myself with a lot of introverts because they don't interrupt nearly as often. And by doing that, I am now learning how to do that. Right? I'm watching them, I'm observing them, I'm emulating it till it becomes part of who I am. And I'm still that 95% extrovert, but I have learned to tone certain parts down so that I can listen more because I knew that was something that I needed to work on.

I like this idea of, first of all, having a team of mentors, because I think a lot of times people assume that they have to have one mentor. You have one of those. So that's. I'm glad that you said that. But also the diversity of thought, too, because I think for me, I've gotten a lot, almost more from the mentors who are vastly different from me. Who. They look at us, we're like the odd couple. Like, how does that work? But we love each other. It's great because they stretch your mind and perspective in ways that we might not have even given ourselves permission to. And now let's say somebody is sitting here listening to this podcast, and they're like, you know what, Ruth? I think I'm going to get myself a mentor.

How do you do that?

Because it's not a structured program, sometimes it can be hard to get a mentor. So how does somebody go about doing that?

So I will answer that, but I first want to go back to that diversity of thought and why people think they need someone just like them, because they'll get me, right? So if there's another woman who's my age, at the same level, same religion, same culture, she would get me and get what I'm going through and any obstacles. That's 100% true. But you will also be in an echo chamber if you're hearing the same things. Also, if that person, especially if that person is in any underrepresented group, if they need to mentor everyone who looks like them, when are they going to do their job? Right? And we don't want them to falter at their job. So you definitely want that broader sense. Also so that you're not in an echo chamber. Now, where do people find mentors? If there are people, there are potential mentors, right? You don't ask someone, where do you find friends? Wherever there are people, there are mentors. But let me just calm everyone down. Don't go into a place thinking, I need to find a mentor. That's like walking into a room and saying, I need to find a husband. That's not going to work. That's setting you up for failure. I'm hearing the interesting people. There will be no transactions. I'm not asking anyone to be a mentor. I am here to just learn what I can from every person I meet. I am going to be a sponge, have great conversations. They're going to say something. I'm going to say something. We learned from each other. If there's someone who I really am interested in talking to more, I will always offer something before I ever ask, and it'll be a long time before I ask for anything.

Ooh, that is a gem. Offer something before I ask. We need to go deeper on that. Ruth, can you give some examples?

Sure. So if we first met at reception, right? And I hear that you are an attorney and you have your own podcast, and within 30 seconds, and you know, we first introduce ourselves, we say our names, and then I come up to you and ask you for legal advice. Now this feels slimy. Now you feel used, Right? Within the first 60 seconds. Oh, you have a podcast. Can I be a guest? I don't even know you, so you have to always tone it down and see what you can offer. Oh, tell me about your podcast. Tell me about the type of law that you practice in. What types of people do you have on? Oh, people who talk about negotiation. Well, I happen to know a few people. Let me know if you're ever interested, and guess I'll be happy to make those introductions. Now you're excited to talk to me some more. What kind of people do you know? Right. Very, very different.

So simple, but so powerful again. It triggers reciprocity.

Exactly.

So funny how often we forget the fundamentals when it matters the most. And if you're just a human who wants to connect with humans and then add value, everything becomes a lot more organic. And a lot of times, the people who are your best mentors. You don't even call them mentors.

That's right.

You're just friends. And the mentoring happens organically.

Exactly. Right. I tell people we have enough labels that other people give us. We don't need to add more Take that stress off. Is this somebody who offers you guidance? Is this somebody whose thoughts get you excited? Is this someone that you want to just be around them because you're always learning something, they're always inspiring you, Then one day you call them a mentor and do it publicly, right? Say, oh, I'd like you to meet my mentor so and so. Because now you have given them that badge of honor. That's very different than making it sound like an obligation, which is the first time I meet you. Will you be my mentor? Even though you're asking me for so much? I don't have time, Right? But if you start talking about things and say, kwame, I am thinking about starting my own podcast, this is what I want to talk about. This is the equipment I got. This is some of the guests I. I'm thinking of having. I know you were in a very successful one. Can I talk to you for 15, 20 minutes, show you what I have? Let me know if there are any gaps in my thinking. Now you're excited because now I told you what we're going to talk about, how long we're going to talk about. I have proven that I've done my work. I'm not walking in there and saying, kwame, will you help me with my career? Where do you start with that? Right? But when I come in, I make it contextual and time bound. Now you're excited. And I've never used the word mentor.

Incredible. And one word that you did use that I do like is, in that example is you've proven that you're willing to do the work. Like the word proven. I think that's really important because one of the things you said earlier is that the mentors are very invested in your success. And it in many ways for them, they see your success as an extension of themselves and your ability to prove that you're willing to put in the work and that you are an investable asset. It goes so far in somebody being willing to invest time into you 100%.

And I'm going to share a really good story from one of the Nobel Prize winners from the Success Factor from the book. His name is Dr. Bob Lefkowitz. He won the Nobel Prize in 2012 in Chemistry. And when he won the award, he got that 4am phone call. And the Nobel Prize is usually shared, right? It's usually two or three people. And he said, who else got it? And it turns out that one of the other recipients was his mentee. And I asked him, I said, is that strange to get the biggest award of your career, of your life, and you're sharing it with someone a generation younger than you, who is your mentee. He said, ruth, are you crazy? He said, that's the biggest honor. That's how I measure my success, by my mentee success. And people like to bet on winners. And what does it take to be a winner? I told you the four elements of success. Right. Shared that right at the very, very top. And showing that you've done the work as part of it.

This is great. And Ruth, this is a perfect place to land this plane. I appreciate this. This was so fun and I feel like it's been a long time coming for us to connect. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. Before you go, remind the listeners about the books, plural, and how they can.

Connect the books, plural. So My name is Dr. Ruth Gotian. G O T I A N favorite social media there my website, Ruth Gautian.com, which by the way has conversation starters if you ever want to know how to start a conversation with a mentor. So all the social media and my website, the book with high achievers is the success factor and the brand new book which by the way, Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State warriors, wrote the forward and that's called Financial Times Guide to mentoring. I saved that little bit for the end. Yeah.

That's so cool. That is great. I didn't see that one coming. Very, very impressive, my friend. Thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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I'll catch you.