How to Find Mentors

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

You know, one of the things that's really, really popular to talk about right now on social media is how much you grind, how much you hustle, how much you you put the work in. Right? And don't get me wrong, that's amazing. I'm really glad people are working really hard and you should work hard. One of the things we forget about life is that you could potentially grind on something, and and not grind on something like sexual nature, but you could potentially be grinding away at something, and you could be grinding away at it for years, and you could be grinding down the wrong path.

Right? You know, a lot of us, we get so caught up in the throes of things. Right? I need to make this happen. I have to I have to force this thing to happen.

That a lot of times we forget to step back and take a strategic look at things to see whether or not we're actually going down the right path, or whether or not there's a better or more efficient way of doing things. And so, one of the things I want you to understand is that whenever you're trying to do something that's difficult, basically anything that's worth doing in life, you know, starting a business, starting a new project, something that's gonna help you to grow and advance your life and move you into another position, there's always gonna be some surprises out there. There's always gonna be things that come up. Right? This is why when companies start big projects, they keep reserve cash on hand because they know there's things that they probably hadn't previously thought about.

The question is, alright, you have the will, you have the drive, but how are you gonna get more efficient? How are you gonna get better at doing these things? How are you gonna put yourself into the best position possible for success, knowing that there's gonna be these types of surprises out there? And it starts with one thing. It starts with humility.

You have to admit to yourself that no matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you grind, there's things you still don't know, and that you have to learn in order to grow into the person you need to become to make this thing happen. And because you don't have that knowledge, you need to go out there and you need to get that knowledge. You need to figure out how you're gonna get that stuff in your head. It happens in a couple of different ways. Like I said, it all stems from humility, but number one, trying to find mentors.

Mentors who've been where you want to go. Right? Now, a lot of times when when people talk about mentors, they think it's like, okay, I'm gonna go sign a contract or I'm gonna go join a course or I'm gonna go do this or I'm gonna do that. But finding a mentor really isn't like that at all. It starts with trying to surround and associate yourself with people who are gonna have a positive influence on you.

Positive people. And amongst those people, finding those who've who've done what you eventually want to do. And you might be asking yourself, well, okay, how do I find those people? How do I associate myself with those people? And that happens through a couple of different ways.

Number one, I'll tell you what not to do. The worst possible thing to do is to contact somebody and say, hey, can you be my mentor? Right? I I'm really I really wanna make this thing happen. I'm super determined.

Can you help me to do this thing? That's definitely not what you wanna do. What you wanna do is when you find somebody like this, you wanna bring some value to the table. Right? Figure out a way you can help them.

Maybe you you create something for them. Maybe you bring them something that's gonna help them do what they do better or make their their practices more efficient. Right? Bring something to the table. Bring some value to the table for them.

And then if you can do that, then you have a chance of starting a relationship. And a relationship means that that both of you are giving value. Now, a lot of you are gonna be like, oh, you want me to work for free, or you want me to do this, or you want me to do that. Yes. I do want you to work for free.

And what you have to understand is that relationships are always give and take. You come up, you give this person who's been where you've been, you give them some value, and then they'll open themselves up to you. Might not happen right then and there. Right? It's not gonna be like, oh, let me tell you about that thing you wanna know about.

Right? But the more you're associated with them, the more conversations you're gonna be able to have. And through that, the more you're going to be able to learn. You'll they'll they'll be able to tell you stories. They'll be able to to give you advice.

Right? They might say, oh, hey, you know, if I was doing this, I would have done that. But, you know, a lot of us don't think of these relationships in this way. We think of finding a mentor as as, oh, you know, you walk up to the office, you present your resume, you sign a contract, that's not how it works. Alright?

99% of the time. There are people out there who will do it, but but it's likely going to be the result of one of these types of relationships. Now what's the other way? Because, again, just just coming in contact with a person who's a a valuable mentor, it could be a rare thing. Right?

So what what else can you do? Well, what you do is is read books. A lot of people out there have put some of their best thoughts into writing. And the reason why they've created these books isn't for the money. You don't make much money off of a book.

Right? It's not a book is not gonna make you rich. Right? What they've done is they've put their thoughts down to to get them out there into the world. And yes, part of that is helping to raise their authority and things like that, but but they're they're putting this stuff down.

Warren Buffett has said over and over again, he won't give financial advice because he's put all of his thoughts in writing already. Right? And so if you're in a position where maybe you're out in the middle of nowhere, or maybe you can't find somebody right now at the moment, what you can do is you can go out and find what they read, what they've written, Read one of their books. And being that we're in the digital age, go out there and maybe read some articles that they've written or watch some videos that they produced or listen to their podcast. Right?

You can get some amazing advice. Right? I'm a big fan of the Jocko podcast. Not just because of the military aspect of it, but because of the way he talks about leadership. He's given me so many insights as to how to manage people.

And we live in this amazing world where you can get a person like Jocko Willink, you can get their words going into your ears directly. That is awesome. Right? I've I've learned so much from YouTube, and I've learned so much from books. Right?

Right now, I'm working on a a marketing campaign, and I'm reading this book, The Advertising Solution, and it covers, six of the greatest marketers of all time. Right? You don't need thousands of dollars to to get a college education or to join some course. You could do it with a few bucks or or maybe some Amazon credits. Right?

So that's the whole point of what I'm trying to tell you here. There's knowledge out there. Knowledge. But in order to utilize that knowledge, you have to admit to yourself first, well, I wanna get to this point. Maybe I don't have everything in me already that I need to get to this point.

So that's when you go out and you start shopping. You find mentors or you find knowledge. And you get that knowledge into your head, and then you put yourself into a better position to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. And that's all I got for this week, guys. Thank you so much for listening.

If you haven't been here before, this is the Warrior Soul Podcast. And the reason why I do this podcast is to help US military veterans to live their best lives. And the reason why I do it is because over the past decade and a half, The US military veteran community has faced a lot of issues. Depression, suicide, homelessness. And so what we're trying to do is, we're trying to get veterans into a place where they can take charge of their own lives.

And that's what this show is about. If you're not a veteran, stick around, because anything we talk about here can help you regardless of if you're a veteran or not. We focus on the veteran community, because I was a veteran, and because that's where a lot of these issues lie. If you like the show and you wanna help promote it, we don't ask for any money or anything like that. We do have, our t shirt shops that you can go and check out over at warriorsoul.shop.

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Use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. And that's about it, guys. Thank you so much for listening. This is Chris Albert with the Warrior Soul podcast out.