Find a Mentor, Be a Mentor

What if you paid someone to call you out on your shit? That’s what I do and have gladly, successfully done for years.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, of fighting through life alone. Jeremy, my brother, had been suggesting a coach/ healer to me. One morning, I woke up and I knew that I couldn’t go another day without help. Three hours later, I was sitting down with Josh, who has changed the course of the boys’ and my life, who has helped me heal. After one hour with Josh, I was bawling my eyes out, and I sobbed for an additional four hours. He was with me for five hours. When I left that session, I thought I had lost one whole part of me. I thought and felt that I had been carrying hundreds of pounds, and I didn’t even know it until one hundred and ten pounds were released that glorious day.

One of the smartest things I have ever done is hire Josh. I saw him every week for years, and I had the boys start going to him, too. They saw him every week — it was the biggest thing that I paid every month. Our coaching cost more than my rent, more than anything else. And it was the best thing I could have ever done for my kids. He became a father figure, a positive role model in their lives.

They listened to him. When we started, he looked like a surfer dude. But he is wise beyond his years. And, wow, did he ever help me heal and change my perspective on what I thought the world was, and how it behaved, and how to look back on my past and see it differently. So I salute the mentors and the coaches and the healers out there who are making a big and positive difference in people’s lives.

God bless Tom Wilhoit, another mentor of mine. He was an older gentleman in Branson, Missouri, and he took me under his wing. He was on oxygen and would drive 30 minutes to my house, dragging his oxygen tank with him, and he would sit with me around my humble little table. My time in Branson was perhaps the hardest and poorest time in my life, but this man sat at my humble table and mentored me. He put into my hand CDs of Jim Rohn, Success magazine, Wayne Dyer, and John Maxwell. Tom Wilhoit warmed me up and got me started on personal development. Then I found Tony Robbins and, wow, did he change my life! I’ve been to almost every event that he’s put out, and I’ve taken tons of friends with me to get mentorship, help, coaching on life, and on how to see life differently.

Get a mentor, be a mentor. This is important. When you’re a few chapters ahead of somebody else, you have the right, based on your experience and your knowledge, to help somebody get one step further than they are. Then you get someone who’s a few chapters ahead of you, to help you get a few chapters further. Mentorship is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced.

I saw that this worked so well that when the boys wanted to learn music, I hired other teenagers to teach them because, again, kids don’t want to learn from old fuddy duddies. They want to learn from kids their age. And so I hired kids who were a few chapters ahead of them on the drums and on the guitar.

So thank you, Giuseppe, who helped Tate play the drums, a drum prodigy, and he took time out of his life to get Tate started. And Lindan, I thank you for teaching Brayden the guitar and for being a friend and getting him going on what is now my son’s career. They are musicians. They are musicians at their core, at their heart. They are successful musicians, and they got their start from two other teenagers. Amazing!

Then I hired two other guys, a DJ and a busker (someone who plays music out in the streets). A Canadian and a Russian, they had moved to Mexico for a few months. And I hired them to spend time with the boys and to teach them even more about music and how to present yourself and how to be organized and how to practice and how to rehearse and how to jam. And now my kids can touch almost any instrument and play it.

We hired mentors, we hired teachers, we hired coaches, we hired people who were both masters or a few chapters ahead, and guess what my kids are doing now? At twenty-two and twenty years old, they are mentoring kids. They are helping others. They are teaching kids music and about life and how to get through the divorce of their parents and how to change perspective and how to see all the blessings that have come from it. Get a mentor and be a mentor. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Here is how you can learn from me:

Step 1. Where do you need help? Who could you help?

I do this step by sharing the story of finding and hiring Josh for the boys and myself every week for years.

Ask yourself, “What areas of my life need help?” Write down anything that comes to mind. I needed help with navigating raising my boys. I needed help to learn real nutrition. I needed help, especially to heal all the pain and trauma I was holding in my body.

Ask yourself, “When I get this help, what would change in my life for the better?” I am putting this together at a writing workshop in Guatemala with a coach named Michael Drew, who has helped hundreds of authors get published. He is guiding me on this journey because I have not done this before. It is changing my life for the better because I have help and support, and the book is actually getting done. I have talked about doing this for years, but now it’s actually happening. Why? Because I have a professional coach. When you get this kind of help, what would change in your life for the better?

Ask yourself, “What am I great at, that I could help someone else with?” Write down anything that comes to mind.

I discovered that I am a great teacher, and a great implementer. When I learn something, I implement it right away. I am great with systems and procedures and steps on how to create change. I love people and I love to inspire. That’s why I decided to start coaching officially. I was already coaching in my regular life, as people would come up to me and ask me how and what I was doing. But I wanted to do it full time because it brings me so much joy.

Ask yourself, “If I coached someone in an area where I’m a master, how could I help impact their lives?” Write down anything that comes to mind.

I love impact; it’s one of my favorite things to do and to have done to me. The beautiful souls who have trusted me to lead, teach, share, and grow with them are the best! The transformation that I’ve seen in their lives is astounding. It not only helps them but their spouses, kids, friends, and extended family — it’s huge! The ripple effect is amazing to watch! It’s the greatest reward for me. If you coached someone in an area where you’re a master, how could you impact people’s lives? This is something you can chew over and see where it might lead you.

Step   2. Find a master in that area.

I do this step by sharing how I looked for and found Josh and my other mentors, like Tony Robbins and Tom Wilhoit.

Here’s what you can do:

Research who you would like to coach you. Get out your computer, or call someone you know who knows, and do some research on who you would like to coach you. It’s important that you have confidence in them and feel aligned with them. Otherwise it won’t work. I read Tony Robbins’s book, “The Power Within,” and had heard from many different friends how awesome he is. So I felt very excited to go to my first Tony Robbins event. Do your research as well.

Get referrals, or have enough social proof to feel good about it

If you can get some referrals, that would be great! For me, it was my brother Jeremy who had gone to Josh and had raved about him, so I felt good about trying a first meeting. Don’t be shy about asking people in your circle who you trust for referrals. Schedule a first meeting and see how you feel. Listen to your intuition.

It’s wise to schedule a first meeting to see how you feel about your new coach/teacher and make sure it feels good and in alignment. It’s normal to feel out of your comfort zone because you are doing something new. What I do is ask my Higher self, “Is this the coach for me?” and listen to the answer. You will know. Follow your intuition. This will take as long as your first coaching class takes.

Step  3. Hire them to help you.

Here’s what you want to do:

Figure out your budget (I know how important and necessary it is). Write down anything that comes to you. I budget for further education, because it’s that important to me. If you haven’t and this is new, look over your finances and see what can give a little. It’s important to know and understand how important and necessary it is to get the coaching. Your mind might tell you you are fine, but the heart knows. Find the number that works and write it down.

Hire the coach. This step is easy. Pick up your phone and hire the coach! Just do it! Start. Dive in! For me, I knew I needed the help, and then a few hours later I was with Josh. It might not happen that fast for you, but you get the idea. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and for my kids. So hire them, now.

Set a time to meet, and then reevaluate. I encourage you to set up a time period for the coaching and then schedule an evaluation to make sure it’s still working well for each party. If you are expecting one session to make all the difference, I believe you are missing the mark. Most relationships need some time to turn around or to change course. Give yourself a good shot at transformation and set up coaching for three months to a year. I paid for 20 sessions up front to get started. The more skin in the game, the more you will take it seriously. Trust me. Go all in. You will thank me later.

Do what they ask you to do in the way they ask you to do it! This step is important — listen to your coach. If they ask you to do something, do it. Unless it’s morally or ethically wrong, do what they ask, no matter how uncomfortable you are. It’s important to expect to be uncomfortable.

Here is one of my favorite Tony Robbins sayings: “The more comfortable you can be in the uncomfortable, the better life is!” So get uncomfortable, so what. You can’t expect to do the same thing over and over and get a new result. You will have to think differently, act and be different, in order to get a different result. So do what your coach asks you to do. Trust them.

When you follow these steps, you will realize how awesome it is to pay someone to call you out on your shit and learn new things. It’s important to discover what area of your life you need help/support with, and who in your life could you add value to, as well.

It’s also important to make sure that you or your kids are learning from the best, a master in the area you need help in. If you are going to teach something, make sure to teach something you are a master at.

By following these steps above, it will also help you take the leap to hiring a coach, so that you can break through where you are stuck and move on to the next level. You will have the exact steps on how to do that. They are:

•       Where do you need help? Who could you help?

•       Find a master in that area,

•       Hire them to help you.

Implement the steps above, and come back and let us know what your results are!