MBA1875 Q&A Wednesday: Who has been your biggest mentor in business?

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts, so doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey oh welcome to the Hunter. Welcome to the Cryptol RMBA show. Empowering business builders everywhere around the world every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company. I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just email me over at Omar MBA Net and I'll answer your question right here on Q and A Wednesday. Today's question is from Edna. Edna says, hey Omar, love the podcast. Been a listener for a while. I've got a question for you. Who has been your biggest mentor in business? Who has helped you or influenced you to become who you are today as an entrepreneur? I asked because I'm looking for a mentor. I've been running a business for about three years now and I feel like I can use one. Would love if you'd share your insights on this and your own story. Thanks a lot Edna. Thanks so much for the question Edna. I'm happy to share and you might find this as like a common thread. You'll Hear that? A lot of successful entrepreneurs had a mentor, someone they looked up to, somebody they called upon when they needed help or guidance. And in today's episode, I'll share who my mentor is or mentors. We get into that having a mentor has done for me. How has it affected me as an entrepreneur has affected my businesses and what my advice to you is and those who are looking to have a mentor to help them along their entrepreneurial journey. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

ClickUp just solved AI's biggest problem and it's saving 4 million teams from productivity loss every day. Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tools, ClickUp converges all your work into one platform so your AI super agents have full context to prioritize tasks, execute workflows and draft documents instantly. Teams using ClickUp finish work 30% faster and cut meetings in half. Try ClickUp for free today and get 15% off AI upgrades at ClickUp.com podcast. That's C-L-C-Kashp.com podcast.

So Edna writes in and asks a question on Q and A Wednesday. Who has been your mentor in business? And here is the honest answer. I haven't had one strong mentor in my life. In my business journey, I've actually had several and they played an important role in the different stages in my entrepreneurial journey. My first mentor actually was my uncle, my Uncle Ash. He was one of the only entrepreneurs in my family and he's actually the person that introduced entrepreneurship as a concept to me. I didn't even know this career, this way of life was a thing really. I kind of knew it existed. I never heard of it, but I really didn't understand what it was. And at the age of 21, he kind of introduced it to me. He gifted me a book, Rich Dad, Poor dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. And that opened up so many possibilities for me, at least in my mind at the moment. Wow, this entrepreneurial thing sounds amazing. And it got me curious and it got me picking up other books that really helped me along the way. After I got started in business, I had a little drought in my mentorship or mentors that I looked up to. I actually used books as my mentor. I read so many books for the first, I would say, 10 years of my entrepreneurial journey. I still read a lot of books, but in that time period, I read some really pivotal books that really helped me change my perspective. One book led me to another, and the authors of these books really helped me shape my understanding of what business is. How do I start one? How to have a wealth mindset. How to understand how to build an asset. Books like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The Four Hour Work Retim Ferriss how to Win Friends and Influence People. Dale Carnegie I just picked up one book after another and they kind of helped me just get going. And it also made me feel like, hey, I'm not alone. There are other people that had a entrepreneurial journey as well, struggled, learned through their mistakes. As I started to develop my businesses, started to get more confident. One of the people that I met that became my friend and mentor in business in a lot of ways is Michael Port, who's a New York Times bestselling author, wrote the book Book Yourself. Solid. Actually read that book before I actually met him in person, which was kind of interesting to meet your heroes. When I met him, he was exactly like I hoped and even more so. He was incredibly helpful and super friendly and we became fast friends. We're still very close friends and he helped me along the way by not only giving me advice here and there as I was growing my businesses, but but also just giving me perspective. He's a few years older than me, has been around the block a few times, knows business inside and out in different markets. He's built and grown multiple businesses and it was just great to have somebody to call upon. He was part of my mastermind at some point and just somebody I can reach out to and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this, I'm struggling with this. Can you give me your take on it? Another good friend and mentor that I made around the same time as well is Jordan Harbinger. He's helped me tremendously in the podcasting game. Jordan is an incredible, incredibly successful entrepreneur, incredibly successful podcaster. His podcast, the Jordan Harbinger show is one of the top, top podcasts in all categories around the world. He's been podcasting for over 10 years and it's been great to know him as a friend but also just learn from him, not only from his work but just having side conversations, spending time together, vacations, asking his take on different trends that's going on in marketing of podcasts and growing podcasts. Uh, it's been great to work with him, collaborate, but also just have him as a friend and mentor. As I started to grow my software company, webinar Ninja, at the beginning I was fortunate enough to be friends with Noah Kagan who is an incredibly successful entrepreneur, runs a nine figure business, AppSumo, was employee 30 of Facebook was like, I think employee three of Mint.com runs Sumo.com. he's just a very exceptional entrepreneur and help me big time. When I first got started with some advice on what to look out for, how to, you know, change my mindset when it comes to growing a software company versus a content product company like the 100 MBA, he built and helped build multiple software companies, including, you know, a few of his own. So that was incredibly helpful as I progressed in my journey in the software world. A few years later, one of my coaches and mentors was Dan Martell. Still in touch with Dan, still follows work, still will reach out to him if I do have a question here or there. But for a good two years, Dan was our business coach. Now, even though there is a paying element to this, you know, we paid Dan to be our coach and he was our mentor and helped us through some rough patches in our business. That's okay. It's okay to pay for mentorship, especially when you need it or you're in a rut. And that relationship with Dan was great. We learned a ton about building a successful SaaS company, building great systems, and we met some great people along the way. Today I have some people on the horizon I'm trying to get closer to because I feel like they would be a great mentor to me in the next chapter of my business journey. So my message to you is that you don't need one mentor for the rest of your life. You could have multiple. I've had multiple, and I've had periods of time where I didn't have one. And I chose books to be my mentor. And sometimes there were friends and sometimes I hired them to be my mentor to be my coach. So if you want to get started and you're not really sure, there's a couple things you can do to find a mentor. Number one, they're just not going to show up to your door. You have to be actively networking, meeting new people, going to events, virtual events, physical events, whatever you can do. That's how I met all the people I just talked about today. You know, with exception, my uncle. Right. And all these people came through introductions. Somebody introduced me to somebody, or I saw them at an event, or I met them through some sort of collaboration or conference. The point here is that you have to get out there, you have to kick up dust. You have to be a part of the scene to meet people. And even if you're introverted, you can do this. Doesn't mean you have to be boisterous or the Next coming of Robin Williams, you can just be yourself, okay? And eventually you might find somebody that you click with and they click with you. And it could be formal, could be informal, whatever works for you. Another avenue is like I mentioned, you can hire a coach. My only advice when it comes to that if you're looking for a coachmentor, is find somebody who has been there, done that, somebody who's done what you want to accomplish, okay? Has been to where you want to go and try to find somebody who has accomplished as close as possible to what your vision is, okay? Be picky, okay? Because you're going to be paying for this person. You want to be dedicated, you want to give it a good go. So don't choose somebody who you don't know for sure can do or has done what you are going after. The other thing I want to note is sometimes you're going to go through periods of time where there is no person that you will call. There is no person that you consider a mentor or coach. And that's okay. I kind of struggled with that a little bit when I was in that drought I mentioned. But then I realized, you know what, it's okay. I'm learning a ton and I don't want to force it. I will work on my networking sales, I will work on meeting people and when the right person comes along that I want to become friends with or you know, have some sort of mentorship relationship with, it will happen. In the meantime, I can utilize all the other things I have at my disposal. I love books. I feel books are great value for learning about business, entrepreneurship, life, personal development. But for you, it might be videos for you, might be courses for you, it might be in person, classes, whatever. The point here is is that don't just feel like there's nothing you can do in the meantime until you find that person. I got more on today's Q and A Wednesday. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor.

What should you invest in and how often? Making investing decisions is easier with Fidelity. With their step by step experience. You can find investments based on your goals and comfort level. And if you'd like, you can decide how much and how often to invest with recurring investments that happen automatically. Ready to make your next investing decision? Head to fidelity.com trading Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC LLC Member NYSE SIPC.

To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Edna, who was my biggest mentor in business? Well, I mentioned a few and I Imagine I'll have a few more in the future as well. As you grow as an entrepreneur, your needs will change. You are constantly evolving. You're constantly growing. Who I was as an entrepreneur yesterday was different from today, let alone a year ago, 10 years ago. So your needs are going to change slightly as time goes on. And sometimes you're going to outgrow certain people. It doesn't mean that you just forget about them. They just become friends. They become somebody that you look up to still and respect, enjoy their time. But maybe the mentorship aspect of it does not continue. And that's okay. And by the way, mentors know this. They know that at one point you will learn everything you need to learn. Or maybe outshine the master, might even surpass that master in experience and success. And that's okay. Every mentor wants that for their mentee. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. Thanks, Edna, for the great question on today's Q and A Wednesday's episode. If you got a question you want to ask, just email me over at omar100mba.net and I'll answer right here on Q and A Wednesday. Don't forget to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Sometimes they call it subscribe, sometimes they call it Follow. Just press that button so you get the next episode automatically, and it also allows you to access our archived episodes. All our episodes in the archives are instantly unlocked when you click subscribe. This allows you to go into over 1800 business lessons in our archives. It's our gift to you absolutely free. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the things I really love doing, because I honestly get a joy out of it, is reaching out to my mentors, present and past, whenever I can, to see how I can help, how I can provide value to them, how I can support their efforts, to their work. I feel like it's the least I can do for all the great insights, all the great moments and insights that I got from that mentor. Plus the friendship means so much to me. I value it, so I want to give back to it. This is one of the great things about these kinds of friendships. You just get a lot of joy from kind of saying, hey, you've helped me so much. Let me help you in any way I can. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. I'll see you. Take care. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%.

Tap the banner to learn more and.

Get a'@usaa.com Bundle restrictions apparently.