MBA2711 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Find A Mentor?

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Today I answer a question from John, an aspiring entrepreneur. How do I find a mentor? And my answer is, you don't. You don't find a mentor. A mentor is not going to save you. They can't. And if you're willing to accept that, you can start on the path to where you want to go. But it starts with you not believing that the perfect guiding voice is going to tell you what to do next. If you wait for that, you're going to be waiting your whole life. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives. So. So if you could hit the Follow button on this podcast app, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. Today I want to show you why mentors don't give you the answers and what actually will. I know this firsthand because I struggled with this for years. I thought if I only had a mentor, if I only had somebody who just guide me to where I need to go, that person does not exist, number one. Number two, they don't know. They don't know who you are. They don't know your challenges are. They don't know what's best for you. Only you know what's best for you. And that's the truth of the matter. That's the bad news. The bad news is that you gotta figure this out on your own now. There's strategies, there's skills that you can learn from other people. But when it comes to figuring out what you want, this is going to take internal work, and I'm going to share with you what to do step by step. Number one, a mentor can teach you skills, but they can't be make the decisions for you. You need to build that muscle to make decisions for yourself. You can learn strategies, you can learn tactics, you can learn techniques and frameworks. Absolutely. That stuff is important. That stuff is valuable. And I learned a ton from other people when it comes to those areas. But no mentor is going to be able to tell you what to do or what you should do because you're living in a different life. You're living in a different situation with different goals and responsibilities and resources and fears and baggage and priorities. I go on and on and on. The point here is, is that when somebody is going to maybe attempt to tell you this is what you should do, this is the decisions you should make, they're making it through their own filters, through their own baggage, their own experience, their own wants and needs and aspirations, not yours. The truth of the matter is, is that people outside yourself, they don't have your context, they don't know your commitments, they don't have your skill set, they don't know what to leverage. Right. Because they don't know who you are, really. They don't carry your responsibilities. A mentor can how they build their life, only you can build yours. And I'm not discounting the value of learning about other people's journeys. I absolutely love this. I read a lot of biographies for this reason, because I want to learn through other people's mistakes. I want to learn from their triumphs, from their victories, from their decision making. But I use that information as a data point, and I take that and I filter it through my own filter and make my own decisions based on what I learned. I'm going to give you a perfect example. I read the biography of Elon Musk, actually read two biographies, one by Ashley Vance and the other one by Walter Isaacson. And through reading those books and learning about Elon and his life and his achievements and the decisions he's made, the good, the bad, the ugly, who he is as a person, I gathered a lot of information. Now, there is a lot that Elon has done that I would not do. I would not make the same decisions, I would not take the same path, because that's not what I want. That's not the life I want to live. I actually felt really sad for Elon, especially after reading Walter Isaacson's Biography. It was really heartbreaking to learn how much pain he goes through every day because of how much he's put on his blade and how much responsibility he's put on his life. And he's really a tortured soul. And it's a cautionary tale in a lot of ways, but that's my opinion. I think it's a cautionary tale because I don't want to live that way because I'm using my own filter, and I learned a ton. There's some things I will adapt from his ways and things I learned from the book. But in totality, if I followed that blueprint to the T, if I did what Elon did, I or does I should say, I would be unhappy. And that is not the result I want. Number two, the myth. If I just find the right mentor, everything will fall into place. No, it won't. You still have to do the hard part, which is making tough decisions with incomplete information. That is life. This is why I love poker so much as a game, because that's what poker is. You're making decisions with limited information, and you have to try to make the best decision based on what you know. Entrepreneurship and life, by the way, is uncertain. It's all about uncertainty. No one can promise you an idea will actually work out, that your business is going to be successful. Anybody who does that is a charlatan. You should not trust them because they don't have everything in their power to control that success. Right. They don't control the marketplace. They don't control your abilities. They don't control your attention span and your focus and how much time you have to pull this off. There's a lot of factors that you can't control. There are some that you can control, and you should definitely control them. But you have to recognize the fact that, hey, in entrepreneurship, not everything's going to pan out the way I think it will. No one can choose your sacrifices for you. There are some things you're going to have to sacrifice to make room for the new things you got to do so you could be successful. And you need to make those choices. This is why the greatest entrepreneurs that I've learned from in this world rarely talk about mentors. They talk about teachers. They talk about examples, influences, people that have impacted them in some way. But the decisions, they're made by them alone. You can extrapolate this to artists, musicians. They are influenced by some of the greats, but then they make decisions that make there are their own. A good example of this is Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino is really outspoken about how his films are very much flavored by the people that he followed, the people that he loved, the people that made movies that really impact him as a kid. And he never really had a mentor, but he takes the art that he enjoys and he puts it through his own filter and he creates something that is really Tarantino esque. What do we say? That when you watch a Tarantino movie, it's clearly Quentin Tarantino movie. It's his own brand, his own style, and it's very, very branded in the Tarantino way, which is really good because that really makes him stand out and makes him really make an impact not only in theaters and to the audience, but also makes an impact in the film world and makes tons of money because of it.

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Number three, you gotta start doing the real work, which is figuring out what you want. This is one of the hardest things in life, period. Understanding, having a clear vision about what you want. What do you want? What is the end goal? What are you trying to achieve in life? What's going to give you the most joy and happiness? This is actually a really tough thing to answer sometimes because we avoid this question constantly in our life. We don't think about it much. We just kind of buried it on the rug. We never actually face it head to head and say, hey, what do I actually want? What am I doing this all for? Most people want a mentor because they're hoping Someone will hand them that clarity. But that clarity doesn't come from someone else. It doesn't come from someone older or wiser, just giving you a map or something, or giving you some sort of hidden message. No, it comes from doing different things. Trying, having experiences, failing. Noticing what energizes you, noticing what gets you excited and what drains you as well. What makes you feel like, I don't want to do this anymore. Having a coach or a guide or even a therapist can help you through that path of answering those questions. But you have to choose a destination. You have to answer those questions. They can't answer them for you. Number four, what to do instead. I believe in building a board of directors for yourself. A council. Not a single savior, not some magic guru that's going to give you all the answers you need. A board. I like to call a board or a council. A circle of people at different stages that you can learn from, right? People that might be really high flying in a different career, Maybe they have a job, they're not entrepreneurs. Maybe somebody else that you know that you can seek guidance from or get some advice from that is a few steps ahead of you in business. Maybe a peer group that also is in the same stage as you, but maybe see things in a different way. A few friends that can just level with you and tell you the truth and really want to see you win. But no one person should hold the power to shape your entire life. That is a recipe for regret. Number five, I want you to apply this. Ask for insight, not direction. Instead of asking the question, what should I do? That's a horrible question. We want to ask a much better question, which is, how did you think this through when you were at my stage? How did you work through this? Now that's how you learn. Thinking models and not barring somebody else's life. This is much better because you're learning how they went through the process to get to the answer that they needed. You're not stealing their answer. You're actually learning the process so you can find your own answer. You're not outsourcing responsibility either, right? You're learning the framework they use, the strategies they use. You're building your own decision making muscle so that you can continue to do this, not just now, but in the future. Every major decision in my life, from leaving my job and teaching, to starting a business, to starting this podcast, to starting my software company, Webinar Ninja, to the fact that we sold this company, every decision. I asked for advice, but no one could tell me the right choice. What was the right choice for me or for Nicole? We had to figure that out on our own. The only thing that really worked was trusting our intuition, understanding that when I choose a path that I want to make sure I choose a path that I will not regret, number one. And number two, one, that even if that path is going to be a little bit hard, I'm willing to struggle for it because that's what I want. The end result is what I want. So you need to figure that out with yourself. That's tough. And by the way, intuition is something that you need to work on. A lot of us, we forget about intuition. We just think it's a muscle. That is for somebody who doesn't have an intellect. No, intellect is one thing. Intuition, gut feeling is something else. And you should stop ignoring your gut. The more you pay attention to it, the more it will serve you. The trap is thinking. A mentor will remove the uncertainty of life. That someday someone is going to give you permission, give you clarity, give you some sort of green light. But that moment never comes. You need to greenlight yourself, okay? You need to give permission to yourself. You need to just go after it. And clarity doesn't come with inaction. It comes with action. You got to take action. Because as you take action, you learn what you like, what you don't like, what lights you up, what doesn't. And through that, things start to get clearer and clearer. But if you just sit there and just kind of, oh, I wish I had some clarity. I wish I knew what I wanted. That stuff, that wishing it doesn't help. You need to actually take some steps forward, try some stuff, have some experiences so that you can start to learn what you like. A mentor can kind of give you some tips, some guidance, maybe even a compass along the way. But you still have to walk that terrain for yourself. You need to, have to go through the path and go through the adventures of that path. Yeah, it's going to be tough, but it's also going to be exciting. It's going to be probably some of your favorite memories of life. A lot of us, we get stuck in this, like, I don't want to take action. I don't want to make a mistake. But you're actually holding yourself back. You're depriving yourself of an adventure, of fun, of excitement, something you probably been craving for a very long time. So it's okay. Most of the choices you're about to make as you take action are not life threatening. They're reversible. They're things that you can change and pivot. Like Jeff Bezos says, two door decisions. Most things in life are two door decisions, meaning that you can go in one door, go out the other door and it's not a big deal. You can just reverse the decision. You know, very few things in life is a one door decision where you go in and you just. It's very hard to reverse that decision. So my message to you, stop waiting for someone else's wisdom. Start trusting your own wisdom. Start building your own wisdom. Learn from others. Take the information and filter it through your own life and your own circumstances and your own wants and needs and goals and start taking some actions so you can start building that gut muscle. Start building that intuition. This is what I want you to do. I want you to write down your personal counsel of five people right now. You could do this this week, okay? Write down one to two people that can teach you a few skills. Maybe somebody who you admire has done something pretty interesting. Maybe two people that will challenge you and hold you accountable and keep you honest. And maybe one person that grounds you, somebody that's supportive and will keep, you know, cheering you on and wants to see you win. Then write down one decision you need to make and ask them for perspective, not permission. So, for example, maybe the one decision you want to make is like, what do I want to focus on in 2026? What's the one big goal? And you want to ask them their perspective. How do you choose your goals? What are some ways that I can figure out what I want and focus on? What are some of the things that you do to plan out the next year, whatever it might be? Speak to these people, get some information, and then you have to make a decision based on everything that you learn. You'll come away with a lot more clarity that feels like yours, not borrowed from somebody else. You're taking everybody's information, you're taking notes, and then you're looking at all this. It's like, what does this mean for me? How does this make me feel? How does this change what I want? Or how does this inform my next decision? I've personally learned from so many people along the way. I've learned from people that wrote books and I read their books. I've learned from people through courses, I've learned through friends, through founders, through meetups, through, you know, talks, on stages. But the strongest decisions, one that actually shaped my life, came from listening to myself. And you need to practice that over and over so that you feel more comfortable that mentorship is guidance, but really wisdom is built alone within yourself, so a mentor won't save you. And that's actually the best news possible because it means you already have everything you need to be saved to start. Learn from others, but trust yourself. If this episode's given you clarity, share it. Share with somebody that you think would benefit. Just send them the link on a text message or WhatsApp or whatever you like to do, or even just tell them when you see them in person. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. This is the toughest part of life, and entrepreneurship is building your intuition is trusting yourself and making decisions based on what you believe is best for you. And in order for you to know what's best for you, you have to know you. You have to spend some time really with yourself, journaling, writing things down, think walks. You know, a lot of us, we just like to be busy, whether it's in our business or on our phones or with our friends, and we don't give ourselves time to reflect. More about that in a future episode. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. Whether it's Apple or Spotify or ever, you listen to podcasts by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

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