There is a lot to learn when building your income in alignment with who you are and I am a huge believer that finding the right mentor can be your fast track to what you desire.
It was the case for me, more than once, and the purpose of this article is to help with clearing the air around choosing a mentor that is right for you.
I found my first mentor after hearing a woman speak at an event about how much she loved her life. She had a business she loved, serving her clients (people she loved) from home, while she was able to parent her child. She had written a book about branding, so I bought it — not because I wanted to learn branding, but I wanted to learn her secret for having a life and business she loved.
I found her secret in the acknowledgements. She named the coach she worked with to design her life and business in alignment with her life. I tracked her down and hired her. Now, this was back in the day when hiring a coach was still weird, and I had never spent any money on myself, so this was no small thing.
$325/mo. was a big investment for me. And, then, as soon as we started working together she began to ask me things like “When did you get your last pedicure? Your last haircut? When did you last go to the dentist? Exercise?”
I was pissed. I didn’t hire her to ask me about such frivolity! I hired her to help me love my work life (I was an associate attorney at one of the best law firms in the country, earning a 6-figure paycheck and I was miserable.)
But, that coach of mine, she was smart. She told me I’d never be happy in any work situation if I wasn’t taking care of myself.
And, she was right.
Within two years of starting to work with her, I had left the security of the corporate job and the big paycheck to start my own law practice.
She was the real deal.
Fast forward a few years and thanks to being smart about who I hired to mentor me along the way, I had built that practice into a million dollar a year revenue generating law business.
I was ready to find the mentor that would help me make the leap from the one-to-one service-based business to the one-to-many business that would support me to impact on a much greater level.
The first mentors I hired weren’t the real deal. They sold me a dream that they couldn’t actually then give me the step by step to implement. They hadn’t already successfully done what I wanted to do. They didn’t have a process around their program. And I left every call more confused than when I had picked up the phone.
Perhaps, they had transformational results with others, but they were not the mentors for me.
Fast forward a few months and I didn’t give up. I flew to Cleveland, OH for an event that changed my life because I met the mentor who would guide me to do exactly what he had done — go from the one to one service based business into a one to many business impacting many from my home.
The $325/mo investment I had paid my first coach now seemed like a teeny drop in the bucket.
This time, the investment was $30,000.
But I knew it would be worth it, if he could lead me to do what he had done. Sure, there was an element of leap of faith, but I had also done my due diligence this time.
Within 60 days, he had guided me to launch my first teleseminar event online and we did $117,000 in sales. Yes, it was worth it. Over the next 18 months, we would work together to build a $1,500,000 stream of revenue serving lawyers.
Yes, he was the right mentor for me.
Hiring a mentor can be the most important investment you make when it comes to stepping into the new economy, so long as you choose the right mentor.
There are a lot of people out there who would like to get paid to teach others what they haven’t actually done themselves. Folks that are selling – not what they’ve done – but what they have learned from another “Internet Marketing Guru.”
If you would prefer to learn from your mentor’s mistakes instead of from your mistake of hiring the wrong person…
Make sure the people you are learning from have actually done what you want to do, and are not just selling the dream.
You will take on your mentor’s shadow, your business could look like your mentor’s business, your life a lot like theirs as well.
This is why it is super important to take responsibility and practice vigilance so that you, and have actually received the results that you want for yourself.
Personal Example #1: I Teach Lawyers
I teach lawyers how to create a New Law Business Model that allows them to create great relationships with their clients, make a great living, and love being lawyers.
Why? Because I built and have had success with the New Law Business Model. I love my clients and my clients love me.
I did this myself first, before teaching others.
Personal Example #2: I Teach Entrepreneurs
I teach entrepreneurs how to create New Economy Businesses.
Why? Because I have created more than $10 million dollars in training programs, products, and courses — based on my own experience, working from wherever I was with my laptop, and all while raising my children as a single mom.
I actually live the New Economy Business Model. I did it, and I’m still doing it.
If You Can’t Work with the Mentor Yourself, Learn their Proven System
While it’s important to learn from someone who has been there, done that, there are times when you don’t necessarily have to learn from your mentor personally, but instead you can lean on their proven system.
For example, most people couldn’t hire me to personally create their Money Map for them because an hour of my time is $2,000, but they can hire one of our Money Map Masters who are trained on the Money Map program and can guide them through the process I designed for building your business model around the life you really want to have rather than trying to fit your life into the business that makes you money.
While the Money Map Masters may not have personally done $10 million in sales as I have, they have a proven model to use and a process to follow that is proven to work, so they can hold you accountable to my system. The key is to look for a Master who is one to three steps ahead of where you want to be, instead of learning from someone who is right where you are.
The Bottom Line
No matter what stage of business you are in, it will shortcut your process considerably to access mentorship at whatever access point you can, whether that’s through a product, a group program, or with a one-on-one relationship.
Receiving the reflection of others is key to getting out of the isolation of your own mind, and into right relationship with what’s real and true for you so you can do business and live life with your eyes wide open. Choose wisely.
