Why The Best Mentors Are Busy & How to Find Them
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the benefits of a good mentor and how to approach them so that they can help you grow your business and become a better version of yourself. We also talk about why you should have a mentor and why you need one.
Transcript
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So today we're going to talk about three aspects of mentorship.
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One is how mentors can help change your life, then different levels of mentorship, and last
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but not least, how for you to approach a mentor so hopefully they can mentor you.
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So stick around to the very end to get the PDF of everything we're talking about today
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The number one point in why and how a mentor can change your life.
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The right mentor can teach you what you can learn in two years and six months.
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The question becomes where a lot of people say, you don't need a mentor.
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However, what you can do on your own and figuring out on your own by taking whatever books you
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read and all this other stuff and no one-on-one relationship with a mentor?
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But with the right mentor, you may do it in six years or five years or four years.
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The main difference is you're condensing timeframes if you have the right mentor and you're lengthening
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Number two, the right mentor gives you a safe zone.
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Very similar to how Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting finally felt safe around
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The right mentor is going to make you feel that way.
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You can be vulnerable and really have deeper conversations with them to help you elevate
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There's a brother and a sister team that I'm mentoring.
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They run a medical billing business themselves and they're doing very well but the older
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sister and the younger brother, six years or so, they have a fighting going on between
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two of them and the younger brother is the CEO and she's the CEO and they're fighting.
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It's like, well, sometimes she's condescending towards me and all this other stuff and I have
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these fears and insecurities and she messes with my ego.
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You see, you can't talk about that publicly with other people.
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You need an outlet to have that conversation with them and we addressed it and they understood
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how to go about it and they moved on and their business is growing, they're doing well.
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Those types of conversations has to be had somewhere because if you just try to bottle
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it in with your partner and you can't really get past it, you're going to hit a plateau
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So, the other benefit of having a great mentor is you can process issues with a person that
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Point number three, the right coaches always give you an out, meaning it's a binary.
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They'll give you their feedback and they'll say, look, here's what I would do if I'm in
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If you do this, this is what's going to happen.
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Let's process it together and you go from there.
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But the right mentors are not going to give you this, they're going to give you multiple ways to
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get to where you want to go to and then you're going to have to make a decision which route
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Point number four, the right mentor is not afraid of challenging you.
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They'll say to you, yeah, I think you're just making excuses.
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You've been making a lot of money and quite frankly, I think you forgot who you were.
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I think you think you're better than your employees.
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And you totally forgot about what it was like to build a company when you were smaller.
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Do you not sit there and talk about the vision and the mission of the company anymore?
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I feel like you've gone a little bit too much about just money and the lifestyle and all
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Why you started this company in the first place.
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Not going to sit here and tell you you're amazing all the time.
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I'm telling you, you're getting in your own way right now.
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Go back and read the original reason why you started this company so you can remember
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They're willing to have a conversation like that with you.
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Great mentors will do that to you and most of the time you're going to feel a little bit
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So point number five, say you get a new mentor and you start getting close to this mentor.
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The more you get closer to this advisor, mentor, whatever you want to call it, eventually you're
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So their contacts of people they do business with is now yours as well.
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By the way, typically the best mentors are a little bit protective of giving the access
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too early because they don't know what your motives are yet.
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Maybe they'll watch you a little bit and then they'll give you a little bit of a sprinkle
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of access and you're like, okay, that was kind of cool, but they're not yet sprinkling
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And then eventually you're like, oh, okay, I've really earned this person's trust.
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Once they open up their access of their contacts to you, you go from living in a world like
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So there is just as much pressure on you to deliver on you being serious to commit to
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your mentor and work your advisor because if you don't, they're going to go find somebody
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The market is very much looking for great mentors.
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So once you go in, you earn the right to be mentored by them, you're going to get access
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to who they have, which can completely change your life.
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If you ever notice someone's style of how they are, how they communicate, how they process issues,
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how they solve problems, and you go and find out who mentored them, you will notice similarity
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You're going to get that person's style of leadership.
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So the right mentor style, if they mentor you long enough, you essentially are taking
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and receiving their style of processing that you start implementing to your life.
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And by the way, what's crazy about it is 6, 12, 24, 36 months from now, when you start
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picking that up, all of a sudden you'll do something.
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Well, wow, that's what, that's crazy, I'm naturally now doing it and I'm not even aware
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That's what's going to happen if you've got the right mentor.
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So point number seven is the right mentor gives you a different lens.
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Meaning, if you have this lens, you see the world, and you put the lens of a mentor over,
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then all of a sudden you're seeing things you're not seeing anymore because they're creative
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Meaning, there are creative ways on how for you to raise 10 million bucks, but you didn't
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They'll share with you creative ways on how to hire the right CFO you're trying to hire that
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The creative ways I'll have for you to expand in a new market that you didn't know how to
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Launch a new product that you didn't know how to do before.
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Build a new division that you didn't know how to do before.
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Because they'll allow you to borrow their lens and they're creative in the way they got to
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So the right mentor will share with you creative ways of getting things that you want now.
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Point number eight is when you borrow an advisor's way of thinking.
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A crisis that was a nine before is all of a sudden a five.
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A crisis that would make you lose sleep at night, oh my god, it's the end of the world.
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So while you feel like it's the end of the world, they make you feel it's okay, it's part
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And here's what you need to do, which makes you be a little bit more poised and you make better
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decisions, not at a place of reacting and emotional, but at a place of reason, logic,
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If you have a great leader that's not afraid of holding you accountable, you're going to
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improve in areas that you're not paying attention to.
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You need accountability and the best mentors are great at holding people accountable.
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Point number 10 is there's levels to mentorship.
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Okay, let me explain to you what I mean by this.
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I may be a great, a specialized mentor in an area of business, right?
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But if you ask me to be your mentor to teach you piano, I'm a zero.
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I may be a great mentor in an area of you saying, Pat, I want to go out there and figure
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out about how to market and tell my story better as a company to go get a half a million
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We have nearly a half a million insurance clients over the last 12 and a half years.
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I know how to show you how to do that because that's my area of expertise.
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I have no clue how to edit a video except for my phone when I'm making small stuff for
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So again, your mentor may be great in the way I would put it for you to visually see it.
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Put yourself as areas that you're an expert at and score them.
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So say, okay, in the game of soccer, I'm a six.
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When it comes down to sales and negotiation, I'm a nine.
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The same way with mentors you want to work with, the key is to find as specialized as
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As you're newer and you're coming up, you're typically not going to get the best coaches
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Two, you haven't yet proven yourself that you're ready to compete at that level.
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Three, even if you got that best mentor to mentor you, you would not have a clue what
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For example, imagine if you're a 12-year-old kid who just started playing basketball three
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months ago and you say, I want to go find the best mentor, where's Phil Jackson?
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And Phil Jackson starts talking to a 12-year-old kid about triangle offense.
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Your son's like, Mom, what the hell was this man talking about?
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He kept talking about triangle the entire time.
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I don't think this basketball thing is for me, right?
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Versus that 12-year-old kid could have learned how to play basketball by a sophomore in high
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school could have told them how to dribble and how to do crossover and how to shoot and
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So some of you are so eager about finding the best mentor too early, even if you got him
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or her, you would not be able to get the most out of them.
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First, you got to climb up the ladder and learn the basics and maybe a little bit more
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Then you need the higher laws, then the specialized mentor starts showing up.
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So there's the understanding of knowing what is the difference between a generalized mentor
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By the way, in regards to the mentoring with specialized, let's just say eventually you
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The guys that are kind of people that everybody wants to be mentored by.
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Say you're lucky enough and fortunate enough to get one of those people, great.
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Here's the sensitivity part of it that it's unspoken, not a lot of people talk about
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If you do get a person like them mentoring you, if they sense all of a sudden that you're
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no longer coachable, learning, implementing, they give you a challenge of an article to
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read, a book to read, a video to watch, something to study and you no longer do it, they disappear
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And then you'll try to get a hold of them and you're like, well wait a minute, when
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I used to call him five times, he used to answer the call four out of five times.
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Now I call him five times, he only answers one out of five times.
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Because it's not like they're doing it, oh, it's five, four out of five, no.
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It's just in their mind, they don't want to talk to somebody where they feel like they're
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forcing them to do something that they no longer want to do.
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And they feel if you're no longer taking a feedback and you're no longer willing to be
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I don't want to challenge you or push you anymore.
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You got to be aware of that with specialized mentors.
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They're not going to wait too long if you don't show the hunger that you once had to
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So now in regards to approaching a mentor, I will tell you, I've done this to many, many
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different people throughout my life and I'll tell you what's worked and what's didn't.
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I reached out to a mentor of mine, Dudley Rutherford.
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I went and heard him speak at a church and I said, I want this guy as a mentor.
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And I emailed them in the email and I said, I'd like to get closer to you.
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At that time I was 25 years old and I said, I don't have much to offer to you today, but
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I promise you I'm working on myself to be able to return any kind of value you're going
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I'm going to do my best to give it back to you.
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I knew when I sent the first email, I'm probably not going to hear back from him because I just
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I'm one person and I have nothing to offer in return.
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Well, took a year and a half after multiple follow up where he responded back.
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I changed my wedding day just so he could marry me.
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He made a very nice video, something he had never done for a company before ever.
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And to the point where that video was like, why would you do this for him?
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You haven't done this video for any other business owner in the entire San Fernando Valley.
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And then from there, by the way, no money was given, nothing to the church, I'll give
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And anytime he asked me for stuff that he wants, to the best of my abilities, I go above
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and beyond to help him out, family, himself, son, no matter what it is, right?
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So you approach the higher level, you approach knowing they may not follow up with you because
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The mistake a lot of times people make is, I can't believe I emailed him three times,
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If that's the approach you have with the person that doesn't get back to you, maybe you're
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not cut out to get to the next level in business in the first place.
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To address and approach the right mentor requires a lot of patience from your end until they say,
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And once they do, you best exchange value, you best bring value, you best keep your
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If you got a meeting at four with them, show up at 345.
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Every time you leave a meeting with them, send them a book, send them a gift, send them
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a card, send them something so where they're like, oh my God, this guy's on top of this
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Nobody is this hungry about wanting to learn from me as this guy.
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They admire other hungry people because that's how they used to be when they were coming up
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So that's the approach I suggest you take with them.
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And eventually, hopefully the people that you want mentoring you, eventually some of them
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will say yes to you because the right ones can change your life.
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So if you want the entire message I give to you in a PDF, click on the link below to get
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the whole thing in a PDF, as well as if you do want to watch a video a little bit more
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in the content like this, I gave a talk a few months ago in regards to what makes the difference
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between those in the top 1% that win at the highest level and the rest that don't.
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If you've not watched that talk before, click here to watch that video.
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With that being said, have a great day everybody.