Lee Richter The Gift of Mentorship with Lisa Nichols

All of us need people to look up to and people to learn from, and having mentors in my life has absolutely changed my life. And today I want to share one of my most favorite mentors with you, Ms. Lisa Nichols.

Hi, I'm excited to be with you.

I'm so happy you're here. And we're going to talk today about the gift of mentorship because you've had so many amazing mentors in your life and now you are mentoring people all over the world, so many global leaders. So what would you like to share with us about your mentors first?

I think number one, my grandmother said when I was 24, She said, sweetheart, you can get all the book knowledge that you want, all the book knowledge that you feel you need from academia, universities, so on and so forth, but your book knowledge can never replace my wisdom. And at the time, I didn't understand, but I grew to realize that knowledge is the thing you go and you acquire. Wisdom is something you only get with time. And I think mentorship allows you to combine your knowledge with someone else's wisdom. And for me, it was a game changer. For me, mentorship allowed me to navigate through my fear storms.

Mmhmm.

Because a fear storm is a— it's a thought that you have about the future, a worry about something that might happen. You're not sure, and then you bring the emotion into your now moment. So, you're just projecting what you think might happen. And what I love is that a fear storm can be replaced with facts. So, people say, wait, hold on, let me tell you what happened when I did it. And you kinda go, oh, okay, because you had your story going on in your head. So, mentorship for me settled a lot of fear storms.

Mm-hmm.

It also gave me a navigational path. It gave me a path that said, step left, step right. You know, by the way, that didn't yield the best return for me. It also allowed me to— it allowed me to compare notes, to compare the different things that my mentors had done. around the same topic. So, for me, it was everything. For me, mentorship— I remember in 2007 when I was invited to go on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the first thing I did was I went to some of my mentors and I said, listen, I'm not interested in 15 minutes of fame. I really want this to be a catapult to my business, to my brand. And it was because of mentorship—

Mm-hmm.

Within 72 hours of being on the Oprah Winfrey Show, I received 9,782 emails.

Wow.

And without mentorship, they just would have gone into the abyss. I didn't have a way to hold on to them. It was through mentorship that I got my first online coaching. And a friend of mine who has been mentoring me for years now, Pete Bissonnette, the CEO of Learning Strategies, he created a bucket so to speak, to catch all 9,782 people so that I can tell you how many it was.

Right.

And it was the catalyst. I looked up in 9 months and it had generated online, those contacts had generated online, just under $400,000. I never would have known what I missed.

Right.

I never would have had an idea, but it was because I asked for help. And he just, he sat down with me and 3 other mentors, and I literally contributed nothing to the conversation. I just kind of went back and forth like, oh, oh, oh. And they talked, and they knew. They were 10 steps ahead of me. So, it's been everything for me. I tell people that if I am a good speaker, it's because— or teacher, it's because I am a phenomenal student.

A very thorough student, you say.

I'm very thorough. I'm not the fastest learner, but I'm one of the most thorough learners you'll ever meet. And mentorship has been a game changer for me. It really has been a game changer. And I believe that mentorship is a form of honoring someone's journey. 'Cause I think we have 3 seasons in our lives, and it's not dictated by age. I think it's dictated by success. That there's your season of learning, where you're gathering information. Then there's a season of earning. You're acquiring your stability, your financial wealth, your time wealth, your relationship wealth. And then there's that season of sharing what you've learned and earned.

Mm.

And that's that season of mentorship. Again, it doesn't— it's not dictated by age. Like, we both are in the season of sharing what we've learned and earned, and we're a long way from retirement. It has to do with the success you've amassed. So, I think when a mentor decides to share what they've learned and earned, I think it's highly— it's the utmost sense of responsibility to take what they've shared with you and take action on it.

That is so true. I will tell you that that is the key to it. is actually applying it. And that's why you're so coachable, and that's why you're such a great coach, is because you know both sides of that equation. And there have been times where I even have mentored people, and if they don't do the work and they don't do it, it's— how do we go back and fill the well? So that's great. I happen to be in your Global Leadership Program, and I'm so honored to be there. I'm so honored.

One of the ultimate global leaders.

Thank you. And that's because I have a great mentor. I will say. But watching you mentor other people, I mean, for me, it's been life-changing on many occasions. You've actually even been a mentor to my daughter since she was 10 years old, and now she's almost 13.

Wow.

And just seeing how you've—

She's phenomenal.

Changed her life and given her so much confidence by giving her great experiences. And then watching you with all the global leaders, what I see is there's so many people who want a piece of Lisa Nichols and want Lisa to be their mentor. How do you decide and how do you have the time to share with so many people?

Well, I think when you dance between the word mentor and coach, which I do, I find ways to have a piece of information serve as many people as possible. So I find the common threads that people need. And I spend the bulk of my time in those common threads, such as people want direction on relationships. That's a big thing. It consumes a lot of our energy. They want direction on financial growth and stability. How do I stabilize my home? How do I grow my finances? They want mentorship on spirituality, not so much for faith and religion, but how do I release? How do I stay out of stress? How do I find my harmony or my balance or that place where I can serve many but serve me? And then there's that space of health and wellness. And so, those are the 4 buckets. So, I spend my time serving one to many. in those areas. And then I find the top 1%, like yourself, and I go, okay, I can drill down with them on one particular thing. At this stage in my life, I only do one-on-one coaching for people who are touching many, so that I'm still touching a lot of people. I'm just touching them because I'm touching you, versus the way I used to do it 10 years ago. So, it requires a navigation of time. Mentorship to many requires a healthy set of boundaries, which I didn't always have. It also requires understanding what I need as a mentor to fuel myself, to realize that the first law of nature is self-preservation, that I can't serve you from an empty cup, that it's my job to not only fill my cup up, but to pull my cup into overflow and to serve you from my saucer, from my overflow. And so, mentorship has a personal responsibility as well. Because everything you teach your students, you're teaching your students. You're teaching them directly, and you're teaching them from witnessing and watching you. And so that— I'm also very comfortable with my no, as comfortable as I am with my yes, so that I can teach that as well.

And thank you for teaching that. And when I'm in a room and there's like 50 or 100 of us and we all get a little piece of Lisa, it's so special. And, you know, I'm gonna witness you here At Infusionsoft in Arizona. I'm gonna witness you in front of thousands of people, and I still see you touch everyone in the same way. What is the secret? How do you do that?

I don't ever talk to a lot of people. I don't ever talk to 6,000 people. I don't ever talk to 100 people. I don't ever talk to a group of people. I talk to one person in 600 seats. I talk to one person in 6,000 seats. So if you notice my language, My language is not everyone, you know. I'll go there, but then I'll go, you, your son, your daughter. And so often I'll look out, and I'm looking out over everyone's head to the very last row, because in the— in that space, people can see— look like I'm looking at them. And someone will say, you were talking to me. It was you and I for a moment. Did you feel that moment? And I go, I came here to talk to you. So you have to be comfortable with intimacy. Most of us are not. Most of us, we, we skate around intimacy because it requires us to be with ourselves. Well, I'm comfortable with myself, so I'm comfortable being with you. I'm comfortable being with you one-on-one. I'm comfortable one-to-many speaking to you individually. And then what I do is I also have a higher level of transparency than most people have.

Right.

So I'm okay putting more skin in the game than most most speakers put. That's— and there's no judgment. There's no judgment on them.

It's your style.

It's my style. It's— and it's also my liberator. It's the thing that allows me to stay in the journey while I'm talking about the journey with you, because I don't ever want to arrive. Like, I have no desire to know what perfection is, because I love managing my imperfection. And there's freedom in me managing my imperfection out loud. The moment I profess perfection, then there's no room to grow. There's no room to have a breakdown. And I think that when we give ourselves the grace to live in duality, meaning I allow myself to be brilliant. You're brilliant. I mean, I listen to the things you do. You're brilliant at so many things. But then you also, in the same breath, you'll ask 5 questions and go, I have no idea about these things. So when you can live in duality, owning your brilliance and owning your confusion and your questions, and you allow them to coexist, you open up the space of freedom that leaders don't often give themselves, that CEOs don't often give themselves or have. I want to be the CEO that has the permission to ask 1,000 questions and also have 1,200 answers when necessary. And so that's what you see on stage. And so people get to see themselves. And when people see themselves in you, they trust you more because they feel like you have something in common with them. And I've always said, I don't want to teach from a mountaintop. I want to teach from the side of the mountain climbing up with you.

I will say I'm very grateful that you are transparent and share The flaws and the learning and the humanness.

Yes.

Because it allows us to all know that we can do and be that same person.

Absolutely.

So that is brilliant that you share that.

And if you think of the people that we look up to, the ones like we really love, the people that we've watched from a distance, like a Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi or Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez or Mother Teresa or Oprah or Obama or anyone, if you look at that, It's not necessarily their perfection you fall in love with. It's their humanity. It's their humanity. You go, wow, man, you make me want to be a better woman, right? You make me want to stand on my tippy toes. But we see that in their humanity and then their choice to be brilliant, amazing. I tell people, I'm not extraordinary. And it disrupts the room.

I know, because I'm here like, yes, you are.

No, you want to make me extraordinary because If you make me extraordinary, then that lets so many people off the hook. But if you know that I'm an ordinary woman choosing every day to make one more extraordinary decision, now the playing field is equal.

That's true. I like that perspective a lot.

Right, because then you go, okay, I'm ordinary. Okay, great. What kind of decisions are you making? See, I just make a lot of extraordinary decisions, which creates an extraordinary experience for an ordinary woman who wants to have an extraordinary life.

Oh, I like that.

And when you do that, everyone gets to play.

That is a beautiful perspective. I love that. So may I ask you something about the teens? Because one of your most brilliant things you've brought to the planet is motivating the teen spirit, and that gives you so much opportunity to not only be a mentor but also a reflection to them of someone who they can model themselves after and learn from. So would you like to share a little bit about that experience?

Yeah, I think it's only fair that I share with you why I created it. I created Motivating the Teen Spirit because though I was captain of the cheerleading squad, captain of the track team, editor in yearbook, on student council, very popular in school, I was also very depressed during my school years.

Mm-hmm.

No one knew it. I didn't even— I couldn't even label it depressed. It was just kind of sad, but it was the sad that no one knew about. It was the sad behind the smile because I was Miss Rah-Rah for everybody. But I couldn't get my own footing. I didn't know where I fit in. I didn't know where I fit in as an African American woman. Not just African American, but dark. Dark skin, full lips, round hips, kinky hair. There was no one that looked like me that represented beauty on television. Remember, the first Miss America was in 1984.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I graduated that year, so I went through my entire school perspective going, I don't see any beauty that looks like me anywhere. And then I was a C-average student, as you know. I struggled all through school. I found out in my early 20s that I was dyslexic, but I didn't know that in school, so I just felt like I was dumb. Now I know, oh, I flip the words. Oh, okay, I got it. So just read everything backwards and I'm okay. So—

And so many CEOs are dyslexic. It's a funny thing.

Yeah, you're right. And it taps into my creativity. I'm an incredible teacher. because of my dyslexia. Because I'll tell you forward, then I'll go backwards and tell you again, then I'll go forwards just to make sure everyone got it. And so it lends to who I am today, but then it was very difficult.

Mm-hmm.

The last time I took an English class, I got a fail in English, and my English teacher said, Lisa, you're the weakest writer I've ever met in my entire life. That same year, I got a D- in speech, and my speech teacher said, quote unquote, I recommend you never speak in public, that you get a desk job.

Ooh.

And that happened in the same year as I was struggling through my academia. And so I struggled. Though I had a lot of accomplishments, I held the 330 low hurdle record in high school. I was kind of like a, you know, I was, I was a bad thing in track, but that wasn't my self-esteem. And so at 19, I was suicidal.

Oh no.

And I remember being in my bathroom and I put 7 or 8, I can't remember now, 7 or 8 Tylenol, extra-strength Tylenols in my hand and I considered taking them. But I wasn't sure if it'd do the job, which was to commit suicide. And I knew that if I didn't commit suicide, I'd be in a lot of trouble. And I remember falling to my knees and crying out to God and saying, God, if you help me, if you help me get through this dark, dark time, I promise I'll spend a lifetime helping other teens get through dark times. So that's the true origin—

Wow.

—of Motivating the Teen Spirit that a lot of people don't know about, is that I'm just keeping my promise to God that somehow God brought me through that dark, dark, dark time. And I knew that I had no particular reason to be there. I had a great mom, great dad, my brother was cool, my family, my family unit was really tight. It was just that I couldn't quite find my footing. And so I created Motivating the Teen Spirit in 2000 because I wanted to help teens find their footing. I wanted to help them press reset if they made some poor decisions. I wanted to give them some tools to bounce back from a negative moment. I wanted to let them know, so we've now worked with over 253,000 teens.

Wow.

We've prevented on record now over 3,053 teen suicides. We've helped a few thousand teens who had dropped out of school go back to school, and we've reconnected thousands of teens back with their parents who weren't living in separate households, but they were living in the same household on different planets. And so I'm super, super excited about my work with the teens, super committed to it. Now I don't teach it anymore. Matter of fact, they had their workshop while I was here, and guess who teaches it? My son teaches the teen workshop now, so I'm super excited and I'm grateful. And I would say—

The teens love him.

They love him. They love him more than they love me, I think, which is totally cool. And he's never been taught the— we have a curriculum, we have a manual, we have certified facilitators, they have to study the curriculum. I would say make the curriculum like a McDonald's french fry. Not that I'm advocating McDonald's french fries, but everywhere you go in the world, it tastes the same.

Right.

You don't have to wonder how it's going to taste. So I would absolutely— I was a beast. I was just a bear when it came to curriculum. Don't change the curriculum, you know. And but with my son, he grew up in the chair as a teen. And so when he began to teach, I backed away from him even. He's never even seen the manual. Because he lived through it as a teen. And so, it's— I always say, if people don't remember me for anything else, please remember me for the contribution that I hopefully made in the lives of teens. And it's just to help people find their light. And so, we do it 3 times a year, and we— it's very intimate. Teens run the room. Adults can't run the room. Teens run the room. That's my greatest contribution to society. So thank you for opening with one of the best things I've brought to the world is that, because that's what— that means a lot to me.

We're talking about the gift of mentorship, and I think that's the ultimate mentorship. But what really shines through for me is that not only do you mentor the teens, but how you've mentored your son so much that he wants to step into that light and be that, because it's not easy. It is hard work.

Well, let me be clear. He has made it very clear. I don't want to be you. He has made it clear, Mom, I don't want to be you. I don't want to do what you do like you do it. I want to do this. And what's really cool is that he doesn't think he's a speaker. He's like, I'm not a speaker. Well, what do you do with the teens? Well, I just talk to them.

He's a leader.

Yeah, yeah. And so we set it up as if it's a conversation. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful for— I'm grateful for what I get to make my dash mean. The dash between my birthday and my transition day. I always say that dash should dance. Your dash should dance. Your dash should be disruptive. Your dash should not be a straight line. You know, like when you're in the hospital and that machine, you're hooked up to that machine and everyone's watching the machine and no one wants the machine to have a flat line. I look at that machine like our life. The last thing you want your life to do is to be a flat line.

Right.

And so you want it, it's gonna have ups and downs. It's gonna have peaks and valleys, and you wanna make that have as many peaks and valleys as possible because you're taking big risks. You're playing big. You're risking it all to gain it all. You're willing to lose it all to gain it all. You know, 'cause I always say, you don't wanna get to the end of your life and have no bruises 'cause you never leaped.

Right.

If you— when you get to the end of your life, I want bruises 'cause I leaped. I don't wanna be pristine 'cause I stayed on the curb and I never leaped. I wanna go to the edge. And I want to leap, and God willing, let me fly, or let something soft be down there when I fall.

Yes, feather pillows everywhere.

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, thank you so much for being a mentor, for being an inspiration, and for stopping by today.

My pleasure.

And taking time with us to share this really valuable message.

Well, I want to thank you for your intention. I've known you for several years now, and your heart has always been bright. It's always been full of love. Your questions are always, what else can I do for you? How else can I serve you? And your success is not by accident. It's by intention and divine design because of who you choose to be. And I love the way—

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, I love the way you raise your daughter to play big. I love that she can stand in front of 500 people and share her multiple books that she's authored and rock the room. Everyone's riveted because of the doorway that you create for her. You are a stand for possibility. You're a stand for turning ordinary into extraordinary. So it's my honor to be in your space. Some days I'm your mentor, some days I'm your student, and I'm grateful for each role and every role that I get to play.

I want every day for you to be my friend.

Amen. And that's a given. That's an absolute given. That's why I'm here. Thank you.

It's such an honor.