Dave
00:00:00
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hire MyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, where we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking your bank, the bank, whatever bank it’s not going to break any bank. Don’t worry about it. I’m Dave Braun here and I’m cohost friend fire evacuator, dude. Larry Broughton.
Larry
00:00:28
Hello, my friend David. How are you sir?
Dave
00:00:30
I’m doing fantastic.
Larry
00:00:32
Good. Good.
Dave
00:00:34
Yep. Let’s hope you don’t have to evacuate again
Larry
00:00:36
Because I’m dressing down. I am like going Mr. Casual, like every day right now for those who don’t know, I just got evacuated from my home for the second time. And about three weeks due to the wildfires here in Southern California. And back in, got back in with today. I got back in Friday today’s Sunday, but it looks like a map to go. They’re expecting big winds overnight and that could kick the fire back up. So take an hour by now
Dave
00:01:06
Yep. Got to do that, right. At least we’re safe here. You’re safe too.
Larry
00:01:10
That’s right. Don’t don’t, don’t be surprised. You’re get to knock on your door in the middle of the night. Me and the dog. Okay.
Dave
00:01:17
We’re open. I leave that door open for ya.
Larry
00:01:19
Yeah. Yeah. Leave the light on as they say at motel six.
Dave
00:01:25
All right. Well, let’s get into our topic for the day. Now. This is going to be a little bit different one, but I think it’s going to be longer episode for sure. But here’s what it is. We’ve gotten some questions and, and, and here it is, I’ve heard a lot about getting a mentor or a coach, but how do I do about how do I go about doing this and what are some of the considerations, the qualities in the person, in fact, you know, why should I even get one in the first place? You know, what, what good is it? Right. So we’re going to just talk about that for a little bit.
Larry
00:01:56
Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is what we do. We are mentors and coaches. Do we hear stories right , Dave, but people who kind of come into our program and there’s levels of frustration that they have with past coaches and mentors that they have, or they’re trying to reach success or certain levels of potential in their life and their business. And they’ve never had a coach. And then all of a sudden they’re kind of propelled forward. Yeah. Well, you know, I remember there’s a guy. I think it’s Bob Nardini is that the former CEO of Lowe’s, I think it is. And he says that basically I’m going to butcher the quote, but basically no one ever reaches their fullest potential without having a mentor or a coach. And in fact, when he was promoted to the CEO position, the board required that he have a mentor and a coach.
Larry
00:02:42
This is the CEO of a large, large organization, right? And for those folks who have been in the mentoring and the coaching world for a while, you hear these analogies all the time, you know, like Michael Jordan, when the best Baxter basketball players of all time, Kobe rusted soul had coaches retirement, right? Tiger woods, best golfer, supposedly, ever, still as coaches, we’ve gotta be reminded. We gotta be doing the basics. And you’ve got to have somebody in your life. Dave, who’s outside looking in, helping you improve someone. Who’s got a little bit more knowledge than you do in certain areas. And someone who’s going to hold you accountable from time to time. I’m just a big, big believer that we must have mentors and coaches. And frankly, be part of a mastermind. If you can swing that one as two. And sometimes, sometimes the, the person who was running the mastermind is indeed your coach and mentor. Sometimes coaches and mentors will bring their clients together to run a mastermind, but they don’t have, doesn’t have to be that way.
Dave
00:03:41
Yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s talk a little bit also then about, we use that term coaches and mentors. And before we go into that, I agree with you. You think about sports teams, right? They’ve got, you wouldn’t even think even little league, literally kids are at five-year-olds. They have coaches. Why is it that they have coaches there, but we sometimes don’t have it in the business world. It really comes down to any place that we want to make fast progress. You’ve got to have a coach. You can learn it on your own, but it may take a lot of time.
Larry
00:04:10
Yeah. It’s interested in this book that I’m going to shamelessly plug an amazing author named Larry Broughton, who might that be a victory seven, seven revolutionary strategies for entrepreneurs. W we have a chapter in here on coaching. And in fact, we’ve got a little grid here that talks about the difference between a coach and mentor. Do you remember that? In
Dave
00:04:32
Fact, I’ve got the book right here.
Larry
00:04:33
What page is that on? But that’s on page 74. And so what I say in here is though, although often used interchangeably, there are a few key differences between a coach and a mentor. A coach is usually for a specific duration. A mentor is a longer term ongoing relationship. A coach does usually a formal relationship with meetings at regular intervals. Whereas a mentor is more informal with meeting set. When the mentee seeks advice. Now I’ve got folks who call me a mentor and we speak on a regular basis as scheduled because that’s what works for both of us, right? Regarding the scope. A coach generally is limited to a specific area of development. Whereas a mentor takes a more holistic view of the mentees work and life more intimate. So, so it’s more intimate. So oftentimes a coach like you tried to learn, let’s say you’re on a baseball team.
Larry
00:05:28
They have batting coaches, right? They teach you how to be a better batter, right? They have pitching coaches, they focus on pitching. They don’t pitch practice on ground balls. They don’t practice on anything else. Right? So that’s kind of the difference where the mentor a good mentor looks holistically your whole life. They look what I try to say. They look beyond the bottom line. How is your spiritual life? How is your relationship with your significant other and your friends? How’s your, you know, financial, your personal financial life health what’s going on? You know, it’s just the whole, all of it, all of it, right? And then focus a coach is work-related specific with immediate goals. Mentors are both career and personal development and then expertise. A coach need not have experience in the client’s profession, whereas a mentor further along the mentees path. Been there done that.
Larry
00:06:22
So one of the things that we like to say is, is based on a story that with my kids, Dave you’ll remember when they were in grade school and they were first where they had reading buddies, right? And the fourth graders would come in and coach and the, the first graders on reading and the, the fourth graders looked like gods to the first graders. Right. But the fourth graders look like idiots to the, to the seniors. So the people that were in high school, right. But really, they, you just need to have someone in your life. That’s further down the path than you are. They can help you see the roadblocks help you navigate the obstacles that come up. So anyway, page 74 of victory, we got a little graph on there, but maybe we either kind of take it to the next step and dive into, you know, the key qualities of an effective mentor coach from this thing that we provided for yoogozi. And this is free to those folks that are in our, yoogozi insider program.
Dave
00:07:16
Yeah. yoogozi insider. We’re making available at hire my VA for those folks as well. So really what we talk about in this document is the really three categories of benefits. And I think you alluded to them and you know what? You just talked about coaching and mentoring and we need both, right. It’s the three categories of yourself. It helps yourself. Right. And they’re going to help you navigate your future for sure. As well as like you talked about looking at the whole person help you navigate all those two things with your family in mind,
Larry
00:07:52
Coaches, don’t usually worry about that. There are a lot of quote-unquote mentors and gurus out there. That’s all they focus on is how much money are you making. Yeah, I see it all the time. And what happened along the way, when all you focus on is your business, your, some something in your life is going to be damaged, ruined, left behind, stepped on squashed, whatever adjective you want to use. And then like becomes this crazy, crazy rollercoaster ride where I’d rather have people doing. I know you, you, you as well, Dave is have great success in business, great success in their spiritual life, great success with their significant other and their spouses, a great success with their families or their friends, their leisure life, all of it.
Dave
00:08:44
So, yeah. And
Larry
00:08:46
Three things are very important with yourself with your future and with your family community kind of thing.
Dave
00:08:52
Well, and I, and I think there’s an aspect of, you talked about where they that success, but I think there’s also the other times where they can speak out of their, their failures. Right. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve got to be successful in all those areas, but they’ve got, yeah. Yeah,
Larry
00:09:10
No, I think it’s vitally important that you have a mentor who’s honest and authentic with you. If someone is speaking just out of their successes and then sharing with you, the full scope of the experiences that they’ve learned, how many times have we been in mentoring sessions, Dave or masterminds and people have started crying, oh
Dave
00:09:30
My gosh. All
Larry
00:09:31
The time, virtually every time. Right.
Dave
00:09:33
And that’s not one of our, that’s one of our success principles is did we get anybody to cry?
Larry
00:09:40
It’s usually, yes. It’s usually that they’re crying out of a breakthrough that they’re having, because someone has gotten exactly because someone has gotten a real, and it’s just a great lesson in life. Dave, I think that when you’re trying to build a relationship and it’s a new relationship, usually there’s just a little bit of a Kabuki dance that goes on, who is going to get real first. Who’s going to get vulnerable first. Right. And generally the sooner someone gets real, the sooner you go deep.
Dave
01:10:08
Well, and that leads, I think to our first point. Yes. So we’ve got really four points that we have to be wary of before you actually choose a mentor or a coach. Right. So the first point, and we’ll talk about this more, but the first point is be sure to ask yourself if you are coachable, because it does start with you.
Larry
01:10:28
Hmm. Yeah. It does start with you. I think we need to connect the dots in our lives. I can think of one client of ours in particular, who’d had several coaches and mentors and was always pissed off because they, they never work coaches and mentors. They don’t really work. My friends. Sometimes you got to look in the mirror and say, what’s the common denominator. Sometimes it’s a, sometimes we don’t like critical feedback. Sometimes we don’t want to be directed. And so we have to humble ourselves. We have to lower our ego, take the pride out of the, out of the equation sometimes and, and be coachable. Be willing to listen, be willing to listen,
Dave
01:11:18
Go ahead. And I’m sorry. No, I was, I was going to say, and I think that’s so important. We also talk about related to that is, you know, we have in here, a mentors are responsible to you. They’re not responsible for you.
Larry
01:11:29
Oh. And that the truth. Say that one more time. Say that one more time. Just to hit at home.
Dave
01:11:34
A mentor is responsible to you, but they’re not responsible for you. In other words, you know, you think about, I mean, the classic is you think about a sports team, right? It’s you know, you’ve got okay. Probably the most successful pro football coach ever is Bill Bellacheck. Yeah. Amazing. You know, and paired with Tom Brady all these years. But Bill Bellacheck did not throw the passes. Right. Tom Brady was the one who was, ends up being responsible for those things. But Bill Belicheck is there for Tom Brady to help him work through all those issues and to get them to that next level of success. Yeah.
Larry
01:12:11
Yeah. That’s so, so true. So this is a reminder. Mentors are responsible to you than are responsible for you. They’re not responsible for your success. You have to do the hard work. Yes. You have to. You have to.
Dave
01:12:27
Yeah. You know, and, and if you are, if you are going to be blaming your coach, blaming other people, for things that are happening in your life, both, you know, obviously the bad stuff, then people are not going to want to be around with you, including your coach. Right. So you’ve got to take that responsibility. And if you’re doing that, chances are your coach is going to look forward to spending time with you. And that’s what you want. That’s what you want in a relationship, your type of a relationship you want both of you looking forward to spending time together. Now there may be some times when you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m Larry. I didn’t get the stuff done. I was supposed to get done. I feel awful, all that kind of stuff. Right. And, but hopefully that’s going to be the exception because if you’re coming every time to that relationship with that attitude, well then what are you having a coach for? Because you’re not doing this stuff.
Larry
01:13:16
There, there are a lot of relationships that are healthy and very good for me that I avoid until I’m actually there in the app, in the meeting, you know what I’m talking about, Dave, there is, I’ll just be transparent with everybody, Dave and I are part of a group. We get together with a couple other guys every week and invariably, somebody complained, I don’t really want to be here tonight. And at the end of it, it’s like, oh, I needed to be here. I was so good that I was here. Right. It’s the same thing with the sessions I’ve had with my mentors. It’s like, oh, I don’t want to do this right now while I could it’s work. It’s work and work hurts. Sometimes there are times when I don’t want to go to the gym, but I get there. And then it’s the best workout I have. Right. And I feel better afterwards. Right. That’s the interesting thing about life, right? You absolutely pain builds character is what my wrestling coach.
Dave
01:14:09
All right. So the first point we just went through was be sure to ask yourself if you’re a coachable, remember it starts with you. Okay. Here’s the second point you need to do before choosing a mentor, seek the right relationship. Okay. And so let’s, let’s talk about a few things to guide them, right? So as far as the right level of relationship, one of those, one of those, one of those things about realize, right. Relationship is just talking with them and figuring out, well, are they going to speak honest with me? It’s like going through this checklist and figuring out if you’re going to be able to work together.
Larry
01:14:46
Yeah. This, we all have personalities. And sometimes there are personality, right? And sometimes there are personalities that actually jive really well with each other. There are times when a mentor brings out the best in the other person. And there are some client, Hey, I can tell you this. There are some clients that bring out a better mentor in me than others do. So I think the point here is just because there is a mentor or a coach that’s available and you can afford them. It doesn’t mean that they are right for you. You have to interview each other right. To make sure that you bring out the best in each other. There are some mentors who are too stink and direct and they hurt people’s feelings. And I don’t know if this is the area that we talked about this or not, but there are, there are other mentors that are really kind of soft and you know, easy breezy cover girl.
Larry
01:15:37
And you need to find out who works best for you. Not as somebody who lets you off the hook all the time, but someone who brings out the best in you. So there should be an interview process along the way. It’s like any other relationship, right? You do a little bit of dating before you jump into bed with each other, but like any other relationship, this is not indentured servitude. You need to have the courage to walk away when the relationship does. So let’s say that you say, Hey, let’s work. Let’s actually work with each other. And you know, maybe it works great for a season, but it might get to a point where, and I’ve seen this, this happened to me with a mentor several years ago. I outgrew that person, my business got bigger than they did. The challenges that I was facing were bigger than, than they could, that they could guide me on. This is why we were saying earlier a fourth grader looks like God to a first grade greater, but that fourth grader might not be the best person to lead somebody in high school. Yeah. Yeah. So don’t be too afraid to walk away, not walk away, but be willing to part ways with the mentor when the time is right.
Dave
01:16:41
And I think that’s going to be, that could potentially be really hard, especially if you’re a personality. Like for me is somebody who is very loyal, like walking away from my mentor for that I’ve had for like three or four or five years. Well, here here’s an example. So I do web development. Right. And I’ve had my web development coach since 2014. Sure. I it’s going to be six years. We talk every month. One-on-one but he’s still helping me move forward. Right. Because he is moving forward in his business and discovering more things. And there is, there is maybe a slight twist in it, in this is that he still coaching me, but it’s becoming a little bit more reciprocal. Right?
Larry
01:17:27
Yeah. That makes sense. And that’s not a bad thing to have either. Right. But yes, your, your mentor ought to be dedicated to lifelong learning as well.
Dave
01:17:38
No, I was going to say the other interesting thing is that he’s almost more from being a coach to a mentor because our relationship has changed a little bit. And that’s an, and that’s a pretty rare quality cause he used to, he used to be a pastor and all that kind of stuff. But anyway,
Larry
01:17:59
Yeah. He’s bringing more to you than just the web development part. Yeah,
Dave
01:18:03
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. So that, wasn’t the second one. So before choosing a mentor, the first thing that we had was ask yourself, if you’re coachable, second thing is seek the right relationship. You may outgrow,
Larry
01:18:18
Oh, before you, before we go to the next one, here is not fast enough is this, I think it’s easier to part ways with your mentor. If in the beginning you both have a conversation that says, Hey, let’s, I’m excited about this journey. And I hope you understand that we’re not married. We may not be doing this five years from now, or even a year. Mentors generally go at least that long. But you know, we may not be together five, five years from now. And I hope that you’re such a great mentor to me that you, I want to outgrow you, you know, it’s like, you know, the little, what was the TV series Kung Fu right? Where Kane outgrows the masters. Right? He did grasshopper. Yes. That’s right, right. So I think you have that conversation early on. Can you say how? I think it’s time for me to find another mentor and
Dave
01:19:08
It might be, yeah. And it might be a good idea to, you know, set up whatever schedule you want to reevaluate for yourself. Right? Maybe it’s every time you change your filter and your furnace, or it could be first of the year, whatever it is. But think about that.
Larry
01:19:24
Spoken like an engineer, you’ve got everything plotted out in your life. Have I ever changed the filter in my furnace? That’s a good one.
Dave
01:19:33
Well, that’s point number four. Change the filtering different number. Yeah. There you go. All right. All right. So we talked about the road relationship there. The third point is review the mentors track record of success. So that’s where you’re going to have to do your homework.
Larry
01:19:48
Well, a good mentor ought to have this stuff readily available for you on their website, or have testimonials have letters of recommendation. Look at the past clients, how they been successful. Now there are some coaching and mentoring relationships today that are confidential. I get that, but I don’t know a mentor out there where every relationship that they’ve got is confidential. So if you find a mentor and they say, Hey, do you have any testimonials or any path clients that I can speak to? They say, Nope, they’re all confidential. I’d start. I would start questioning. Well. Yeah, Because there’s gotta be somebody that they can can, can at least get on the phone with you and say, yeah, I always with Dave as a mentor for X number of years and it was awesome. Yeah.
Dave
02:20:34
And there’s nothing confidential.
Larry
02:20:36
You don’t need to go into detail on stuff.
Dave
02:20:39
Yeah, Absolutely.
Larry
02:20:40
But most clients who have seen exponential growth in some areas of their business or life are usually absolutely willing to blow the trumpet, but for the mentor who helped them get there. Yeah.
Dave
02:20:53
And, and I think one of the things that’s also important about this is when we talk about the track record of success, you know, if they’re doing, if they’re being a business coach, of course you want the business track record, but you also want the coaching track record as well.
Larry
02:21:08
Yeah. Cause you could be a bad, a great basketball player, but you don’t know how to teach or mentor someone. Right. I learned this in martial arts as well. And my twin brother, who’s this amazing martial artist. I remember him as a young black belt saying, Hey, I would rather be a better teacher instructor sensei than practitioner. Now, as it turns out, he’s an amazing practitioner and you know, ment sense of grand master at this point. But not all practitioners are great. Mentors are,
Dave
02:21:44
Some are. Yeah. And, and, and the other thing is that track record of success, I think doesn’t have to be, you know, perfect.
Larry
02:21:52
I was not going to be perfect if they tell you it’s perfect. They’re lying.
Dave
02:21:56
Yeah. I think I was listening. I think it was Tim Ferris or somebody like that, who said from a, from an athlete perspective or a physical or a coaching perspective is everybody would love to have like the gold medal winner in the Olympics be your coach. Right. But there’s a lot of people who just have missed that, that got the silver or the bronze, and yet they might even be a better coach and be cheaper. Yeah, that’s right.
Larry
02:22:26
Yeah. Yep. Alright. Or no, what they did wrong not to get that gold medal and be willing to share that. Yes,
Dave
02:22:34
You’re right. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So we talked about, if you’re coachable, we talked about getting the right relationship. We just talked about the, looking at their track record of success. And then the fourth thing is to consider your industry. So the idea here is that they may not necessarily have to have experience in your industry. It depends upon what you want. Right. It could be like, if it’s a business coach could be business in general or it could be in your specific industry. It just, all,
Larry
02:23:05
It depends. Yeah. Like you, you’ve got a coach that’s turned into a mentor that’s specifically on web design. Right. And there are other mentors like me that are a little bit more broad base it’s on general entrepreneurship and leadership. Right. So it really depends on what it is that you’re looking for. W what area of your life or business are you seeking to improve or get closer to your fullest, fullest potential. So I guess it takes a little bit of self-reflection on, what’s the goal? Why do I want a mentor? Why do I want a coach? And usually that’s an area of significant, significant struggle or roadblock that you’re having. You know, the interesting thing though, is all of this. When it comes down to leadership, it’s always people. It’s one of the things I like to the story I shared, Dave, I’m going to share, now this one, you don’t want me to share this one? No, no, no, no, go for it.
Dave
02:23:59
Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. It’s the four P’s. Right. And I love it. Right. Cause I’m, I’m smiling because I recognize it. And I know that every time I hear it from you, it’s like, thanks for the reminder. TFTR
Larry
02:24:10
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For those who haven’t heard this before, I was blessed that I attended the executive program at Stanford years ago. And there were, I forget, I think at least three of the instructors were Nobel laureates. I mean, these were some really bright people. And I had an instructor who was, who was pounding into our heads, this, he said, listen, if you’re growing a business, if you’re starting a business, you’re the CEO of a business. If you can identify which areas of where the problems you’re having, if they fought, let me back up all areas of all profit, blah. That’s what he said. It’s yeah, I’m
Dave
02:24:49
Sure he said that at one point,
Larry
02:24:52
Basically this, he said that in business, all problems fall into four different categories. People, product, process, and profit. He said, if you can identify the problem area, the category that it falls under, it’s easier to deal with that problem. So if you’re having a problem in business, is it a people problem? Is it a product problem? Is it a process problem or their profit problem? And I said, oh, that was brilliant. Right? And so I had these four categories in the front of my notebook that I carried around. And every time it can’t run into a problem, I said, okay, what problem does this fall into? So after carrying that thing around for a few years, and then after actually starting to actively mentor people, what I realized Dave, is that if we have a product problem or a process problem or a profit problem, you know, we have a people problem.
Larry
02:25:38
What I realized is they’re all people problems, right? Like if we’ve got a, if we have a product process or profit problem, we probably got the wrong person in the wrong seat, in the bus. As Jim Collins talks about, who wrote good to great and built the last also of Stanford, former Stanford professor. So they’re all people problems. So if you have mentors, you understand this and they not only have a high IQ, but a high E Q, right. Which is your emotional quotient that they know how to deal with people. Those tend to be really rockstar mentors. Okay. Like I’m a better mentor than a coach. I just am. You know, like getting granular on a specific topic is very hard for me, you know, but there are some people who are great coaches, like I said, batting coaches, you know, website coaches. So make sure, you know, what, you know, make sure you know what you’re looking for.
Dave
02:26:34
And, and I’m not going to say what is Mo most valuable, but, well, I shouldn’t say that. I will say what I think is most valuable. And really what I think is most valuable is more of a mentor. It’s like say you wanted to learn how to do something and getting a coach. You can get a lot of the way there through all kinds of different training programs that are out there that you can buy individually, depending upon what you want to do. But like you said, having that mentor help you identify the people problem and the people problem may not just be somebody else. It would likely be you, be you helping you a identify what the real causes is then that’s, I think that’s worth a lot more.
Larry
02:27:19
Yeah. Yeah. You know, do this kind of brings us up to this point to these 20 keys that we developed for this packet that we had shared earlier. Maybe what we ought to do is just kind of burn through what are those 20 keys are key qualities of an effective mentor. Key one, is a caring, sharing spirit and willingness to teach. So what we say here is that they shouldn’t be holding anything back. They should be sharing what they know, what they’ve learned, what they’ve experienced and witnessed from others. One of the most powerful things I found in the mentoring program programs that you and I run is that we don’t share secrets with each, with one client to another, but we share lessons learned along the way from them and from us. Hey, I wouldn’t do it that way because here’s what we’ve seen. So we have to have somebody who’s willing to share the track record and really be willing to teach you,
Dave
02:28:17
Can you number two enough wisdom and experience for your needs. So I think this relates to what you were talking about before fourth-grader versus can mentor a first grader, right? Right. We say they don’t have to be the biggest rock star in the industry. They don’t have to be the gold medal winner, but they’ve gotta be able to relate to you and your circumstances and understand where you are at. And quite often it could be that somebody who isn’t the biggest rock star, they can understand where you are a lot better. If it’s been 25 years since they experienced where you’re at and maybe harder for them to, to, to remember that. Yeah, that’s correct.
Larry
02:28:54
We ready for key number three, key three. Alright, possess a positive outlook. This is so important to me. There are, there are enough negativities in life and in business that your mentor ought to be someone who can in a positive way, even frame negative challenges, negative roadblocks, any kind of negativity by being, having the ability to see here’s what the opportunity is and that negative thing that’s going on in your life. This comes easier to some than others. But I can just tell you, I had a mentor with a very short-lived mentoring relationship where he was great in the beginning, but I know it’s something that’s going on in his life or what, but everything just turned negative. It was just like this dour, pessimistic attitude about him. It’s like, ah, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t deal with this. And so I, I, we parted ways. I set him free. He set me free. I guess you gotta have a positive outlook
Dave
02:29:48
I want, but it, and it doesn’t mean positive is ignoring reality either.
Larry
02:29:52
I don’t know. It’s not Pollyannish. Yes. It’s not Pollyannish. Hey. Yeah, I’ve been there. I have clients who have been there. And so here’s what we’re going to do to get you out of it. It’s not like you come to them and say, Hey, I, I have zero cash flow. I don’t know how I’m going to pay the next bill. Oh man. That really sucks. Yeah. Think about all the negativity, boy. I mean, they just take their, they end up being like that concrete block on your foot. When you jump into the water, they can’t, they need to be the life preserver. The, you know, the life jacket that you put on the concrete.
Dave
03:30:25
I agree. I agree. Got it. All right. Key number four. They need to be honest with you. Right? So, and we talked about that a little bit before, but they needed to be honest with you and it’s a two-way street. You’ve gotta be honest. Remember you gotta be coachable. You gotta be honest with them, but they’ve gotta be honest with you. And what that means is they’ve got to tell you what you need to hear, but not just what you want to hear. Right? So sometimes, and, and you gotta be careful with this, is that some mentors, they just, you know, want to be like, they want to be friends and buddies. Yeah, no, no. I think a good way to do it as we have we’ve said in this document is they’ve gotta be saying, if you, they gotta be saying to themselves or to you, like, if you want to fire me at any time, that’s cool. We’re going to end at any time you want, but I’m going to tell you the truth. That’s what they should be saying. But then the truth in a positive way, like, like you talked about.
Larry
03:31:18
Yeah. Right. All right. Key number five is enthusiastic about what they do. They have got to want to be doing this mentoring. They’ve got to be excited about working with you and not just seeking a paycheck or a retainer from you. They’ve got to kind of be turned on by what you’re doing and get jet. They’ve almost, they’ve gotta be codependent like their success. I mean, their happiness is tied to your success. Right. So I think there’s really key. Just positivity and enthusiasm go a long way.
Dave
03:31:52
Yeah. And then I know that the clients that we have when they, when they struggle, I mean, we feel it. It’s like, oh my
Larry
03:31:58
Gosh, we take it too personally. Sometimes.
Dave
03:32:01
Yeah. At, at some times there, there are times, but you know, but that’s a good thing. Right. Cause that causes us to start thinking about it offline. And then when we have that session with them, we’re like, well, here’s some, here’s some options. That’s right. Yeah.
Larry
03:32:15
Yep. Yep.
Dave
03:32:17
Okay. Let’s see. Is my text subjectivity? I forgot. Okay. So objectivity. Right? So in other words, they’ve gotta be willing to look at every side. They’ve gotta be willing to look at your, your perspective, your business perspective, you know, your family’s perspective, everything. Right? So one of the reasons why I think it’s so important for us to have a person in our life that will tell us the truth is because we can ask our, you know, our friends and family, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Oh, well they’ll say, well, yeah, go for it or do that because they’re close to you. They don’t want to get into conflict with you. They don’t want to… you know, sink your boat or anything. They just always want to be positive and, and love you, et cetera. So they’re always one-on-one to be agreed with. They want to always agree with you, but somebody who is a good mentor or coach, they will be objective about the situation and say, here’s the good things. Here’s the bad things and help you to evaluate them.
Larry
03:33:15
Yeah. A good mentor will remind you of this mantra. Reality is your friend. Yes. Reality is your friend and a friends and family don’t want you to live in, in reality. Oftentimes they don’t want to see you hurt. They don’t want to see you, you know, fail. So they may not tell you the truth sometimes. And that’s okay. Yeah. All right. Can you, number seven is compassion, good mentors are going to care about you. And they’re going to do great things for you and with you. And I’m going to use a word here that often doesn’t use in business, Dave, and this and that. I think that mentors ought to love you. And you ought to be able to love them. Compassion goes a long way. They can feel your pain and your hurt. And when you get to that point in the relationship, and this truly is a relationship we’ve had clients tell us that you are the only safe Harbor that I have in this storm. I can’t speak to my spouse about it. I can’t speak to my executive committee or my team members about it. You’re the only person I can talk to about this. And so compassion is really one of the important keys of an effective mentor.
Dave
03:34:29
Yeah. Right? Yeah. Totally. Totally. All right. Key number eight. They need to be a great listener. What
Larry
03:34:35
Are we talking about? Dave? Let’s
Dave
03:34:39
Clean. Our air is Larry, but yeah. It’s and you know, being a great listener is not, I think you guys have heard that. What is it that drive drive through listening technique where you kind of act like you are taking an order at a drive-through and they say, Hey, you want fries with that? And yeah, you say, yeah, I do. And then at the end they repeat back, okay, you want hamburger with fries, blah, blah, blah. And that’s not what we’re talking about here, right there. It’s not this drive by listening. They need to actually repeat back what you said, but they’ve gotta be able to, what we would say is read between the lines, really get to say, well, here’s what I think you’re saying. And here’s what you’re probably thinking. But then they’ve also got to be able to obviously hear what you’re potentially not saying, right? Yeah.
Larry
03:35:29
Yeah. I have a attorney friend that showed us once in a while, who used to remind me that behind every question, it’s really a question. Oftentimes people, you won’t always share the real problem that you’re having with your mentor, because you want to sugarcoat a little better. You don’t want to like open up the Kamado completely. So a mentor needs to know they can kind of laser beam right in. Okay. I got you. I really know what you’re asking me here.
Dave
03:35:52
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. K9
Larry
03:35:55
K9 is dedicated to lifelong learning. I think we’ve, you’ve probably heard this before. Those tips tools, techniques that were used 20 years ago, 25 years ago in business, many of them may not be effective any longer. There are timeless techniques in relationships and leadership that are just going to, they’ve been around since biblical times, even before that, right. That are still effective today. However, there are some things in business that do indeed change nuance, changes, relationships, change, relationships, change. And in business marketing changes all the time. Absolutely. You’ve gotta be dedicated to lifelong learning. And so if they’re still talking to you about, you know, a book that they wrote 40 years ago and there, and that’s the only thing they teach from, you may want to look around a little bit more, but they gotta be dedicated to lifelong learning, not just about their specific area of expertise. Again, I’m talking of mentors. Oh, everything but everything, right?
Dave
03:37:00
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that, you know, as long as we do coaching and we do programs and stuff and like you and I run businesses ourselves and you know, like when we talk about Hire My VA, that’s one of our businesses and we’ve got, you know, people on our team, virtual assistants, we’re actually doing what we say we’ve done and we’re continuing to do it. And I think that’s such an important distinction. And I, and I, I’m going to always, almost always going to have a coach or a mentor who’s actually actually doing it. Yep. Okay. Key number 10, they care about your whole health and not just the bottom line. I think we talked about that a little bit, but they’re not going to just focus on your business goals and helping you there. They’re going to make sure that you’re, they’re going to help you accomplish your goals, but not at the expense of your health, your family, you know, your physical health, your mental health, your, your financial health, all those kinds of things. They’re going to want to make sure that you’re, you know, as healthy as you can from the entire person. Yeah.
Larry
03:38:06
Yeah. This is why we developed this whole health spider graph and our mentoring pro program that measures eight different aspects of your life. Truly. I’m just going to tell you, honestly, 20 years ago, when I started mentoring people, I was just looking at mentoring entrepreneurs. I just had basically five key metrics from business that I used to look at. And most of them were after on revenue and profit and cashflow. Right. And then was wondering, what, why are people getting divorced? Why do they have no relationship with their children? Why is turnover so fricking high in their business? Right? So when we developed a whole health spider graph, there was something visual, something tangible they could look at and start measuring because what’s measured is improved. Right? So I think it’s a great tool. Yeah. Key number 11 is that a great mentor and effective mentor ought to be offering both direct and respectful feedback.
Larry
03:39:02
This is an E Q kind of thing. There are some people who are hyper direct in their right to the point. And what happens when you are too direct with people, you end up hurting people’s feelings, right? And business and life is stressful enough, but someone who, who speaks in a direct fashion without the respect direct, without the respect can be like a bull in a China closet. Sometimes the other side of the coin, Dave, is that someone who’s too respectful and not very direct, they go into, they tap dance around. They’re not able to give the bad news. That’s not good either. This, these are usually the people who want the mentors who just want mentors, air quotes, who just want to be liked. Right. And who are looking for that next paycheck. They’re not going to give the bad news because they probably know how to communicate effectively, but they don’t want to lose you as a client either. Right. And so the key here is both direct and respectful communication.
Dave
04:40:05
Yeah. And there’s a great way to, to communicate. I wouldn’t say negative feedback, but yeah. Negative feedback. There’s a really good way to do that. We’ll talk about that some other time, but there’s a good way to do it, to make sure that it is done in a way that you, as a mentee or coachee are still open to receiving that. Okay. It’s 5 24. We’ll edit this out, but it’s 5 24. Do you wanna keep going?
Larry
04:40:37
How else can we do it? If we don’t?
Dave
04:40:39
Oh, I say, what we, what we do is say, Hey, we, we got to run. We’re going to go over the rest of these in the next episode or just something like that. Cause it’s going to take us a little bit. Yeah.
Larry
04:40:50
Okay. Let’s
Dave
04:40:51
Do that. All right. So let me get going. Okay. Hey folks, we’ve gone through the introduction and the first 11 keys, and it’s a pretty long episode. We’re going to close this one down right now and we’re going to do a whole another episode to give you the rest of them. So stay tuned. It will be part two. And what we’ll do is we’ll kind of do a quick summary at that one and then go through the rest of these keys and maybe have a few extra ones along the way as well. So anything you want to close out with here, Larry
Larry
04:41:23
Mentors are so important to people’s life. If you really want to reach your fullest potential and find freedom in your life. One of the quickest ways to do is to hire a mentor.
Dave
04:41:33
You gotta do it, gotta do it. I’ve done it for years. I, oh my gosh. It’s it’s it’s saved me so much time saved me money, everything right? Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you folks for joining us. It’s been fun riffing with you, Larry on this. But remember folks building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom. And we’re here to help you here at HireMyVA. Part of what we do here is we help coach and mentor you in building your team and helping you to hire somebody. So we help teach you to prepare properly. We help you to, we help teach you to hire properly and help you to thrive properly with them. But given that we want you to do three things right now, subscribe to the podcast, if you haven’t already done. So please do that. And then give us a rating, perfectly five star, and then go to hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community, all our different freebies articles, et cetera, because even without experience, you can properly prepare yourself, hire and thrive with virtual assistants. As we talked about later, and I have helped a lot of folks, we’ve had coaches and mentees ourselves, we had those folks. So we’ve got a lot of experience with that and can help you guide you along the way. So just go to hiremyva.com for more information on all that
Larry
04:42:54
Folks, do yourself a favor, do your community and your family a favor, go do something significant that I
Dave
04:43:00
All right, folks, go get ’em all. Alright. Thanks guys. Bye bye.
