Mentorship for Mental Health and Personal Growth: Tips and Insights

Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you are doing well, wherever you are in the world today. Super excited to be back with you with another episode.

And today I want to talk to you about something near and dear to my heart and that is mentorship and why I have mentors plural and why it's been probably the most important decision that I've ever made in my life, to invest in myself, and to really put myself in a position to be successful by doing the thing that I'm always telling you, and that is to look for the people who are simply one step ahead of you and to follow course, learn, grow and change.

And so when I go back and I look at my history, look at my life being a little kid, the only thing I ever wanted I think about this all the time, the only thing I ever wanted as a little kid was a father. I wanted someone to teach me, I wanted someone to show me the ropes to help me understand not only what it meant to like be a boy, but to be a man, and to guide me into to help me through this process of creating and building a life, and I didn't have that. And so, my mentors when I was young, they were library books, you know, I've said it jokingly and passing, I used to spend all my time in the library because I had air conditioning and in part, that's true, but also it because I could get all of this information. I could just go and read these books, I would read about athletes, I would read about celebrities, I read about people who were real life people, you know, and I've said this before, I never really had any interest in fiction, even to this day, I struggle through it, but I started learning at a very young age to educate myself and I found so much power and so much benefit through books. And so that slowly transformed and went into music, and I started listening and I've mentioned this before to people, like Jay-Z and just feeling like there's a lesson in these lyrics, there are lessons on these songs or something for me to take from this. And so I would sit down and we just kind of taken meaning and understanding, okay, can I process this kind of learn from it? And in part, you know, I've said this before Jay-Z's my hero, right? And that's not enough figurative sense, in a literal sense that be and the reason why is because I go that's a point of measurement for possibility.

So here's what I think about very often, when I was in that window of 18 to 21 years old, when I was trying to figure out how to make $100,000 a year legally because I didn't want to go to prison, I didn't want to get murdered, it was very, very important that I held to this. I started going deep into this idea that the only way that I'm going to create actual success in my life, as I'm going to have to go and get a job that I'm underqualified for that. I can sell myself enough to get hired for that I can, then go and learn skills from the person who hires me to help me become better. Now, at that time, the logic was very simple, okay, what do I have to do? Maybe I can go get a job, working in a management position somewhere because the only thing that made sense to me at that time was like I need a job where I can see the roadmap towards money and that job for me initially, so I worked a bunch of dead-end jobs, and I finally landed this position working for fast food restaurant, and my general manager there when I was in training was amazing, and this guy taught me so much and then they put me into a store. It was the number one busiest store and all of Indianapolis where we were literally doing like ten thousand dollars a day and cheeseburger and fries. I mean the amount of human foot traffic and consumption that came through this place was unbelievable, but I had my manager, the general manager of that store as I was an assistant was absolutely profound and the way that I think about my life today because you taught me lessons the hard way and what I mean by that, it's not that she wasn't supportive, but the way that I had to learn was from really paying attention to the intricacies of the mistakes that I was making and when she would follow up with me, she was literally coaching me. Now, go back to being 18 years old, that didn't feel like coaching if feeling ridicule because I was making mistakes. I didn't know how to deal with this thing around the idea of perfection and having people go, that was a mess up and things like that. I had a lot of armor on and unrest, in retrospect looking at in measuring that I go, ‘Man, the lessons I learned there were so profound because she let me fail and when I did fail, she would sit me down and guide me through it start to finish and help me understand why that happens. And that was so incredibly profound for me because it taught me how to think critically, well fast forward a couple more years. I'm like, all right. I'm going to dead end and fast food. I could see it coming. I was working 60 hours a week. I was exhausted, all of my money was gone because I was living by myself, while I was living with roommates, but I'm paying rent, had a car payment, you have a whole nine. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to make it at 30 grand a year whatever was making so I was like, okay, what's next? Trying to think about elevation going to the next level? And I land this job with this Fortune 10 company and I start making all this money and this was the point where I stopped having mentors. So from 21 to 25 and a half, what's called it 26, I was under no tutelage. I was under no mentorship. I was under no guidance. I was going about the world in this very nonchalant way, just thinking that I had it all figured out.

Now, obviously, that wasn't the case, you know, my backstory, my 20s were insane, lots of drugs, alcohol, women, clothes, money being spent that whole nine because I didn't have again going back to being a child-like I just wanted somebody to guide me, I wanted someone to teach me and so I thought I had it figured out because I hit my goal. Well, and behold this gap of time this for five years was the most traumas and devastating years of my life. If I had a redo, I would abso-fuckin'-lutely, no questions asked. Go and get a coach during that period of time and so fast forward a few years later, I'm going through the healing process, I'm thinking about this idea of getting coaching, and I'd been spending a lot of time as someone who's an entrepreneur, like reading all these business books, going to the seminars, watching the YouTube videos, really diving deep into a lot of content that existed. And one of the things that I realized when I was going through that was like, oh, this is actually a form of mentorship. I'm learning here. I'm sometimes when I'm lucky enough to be in connection with these people, in a real way. I'm taking away so much information. I'm gathering so much data. I'm learning so many lessons from the people who are directly in front of where I want to go. And so I would be copious notebooks upon notebooks upon notebooks. And in fact, it's funny. I just finished coaching, and if you're watching you'll see this red notebook in my hand tabbed out and it's full of notes from tonight where I just finished a coaching session with one of my business coaches. And the truth is when I rewind and I'm in the midst of this healing journey at the beginning, I'm trying to figure this thing out called life. It was the mentorships that I had when I could be in connection with these people when I could read their books, when I could study their work, where I can watch their video series, where I can go to their conference, where I can ask them a question because I raise my hand in the room that I started getting the most value returned in my life, and there was an investment in that. I say this all the time, time, effort, energy, money, team, you're going to have to invest something, you're going to have to invest something to have the life that you want to have, and to work with the people who are around you. And the truth is that sometimes, what you're going to have to invest is time, effort, energy and money. And so as I got further and deeper into this and into the healing journey end of this place where I was elevating my life. I was working with different coaches, working with different mentors, I was hiring different people, I was investing myself in different people, so I could grow and I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the most incredible mentors, business owners, coaches, life coaches on planet earth, and not going to name drop, but the point is this, it wasn't always like that. It was a struggle at first because they would be like, it's $500, 1,500 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 25,000 dollars to get coaching, and I was like, ok, cool, how do I get there? Because here's the truth, the measurement for how I think about investing in myself, as where am I at today right now? And I do have the fortunate ability to be able to invest in myself at a higher number, but I remember when I didn't have two pennies to rub together.  I remember borrowing money from my girlfriend. I remember selling everything I own to hire my first coach. I remember going through these processes to figure this out, I remember this feeling of just joy, in knowing I was making the right decision for myself, people get on the fence all the time about coaching there like I know this will make my life better but money, right? I'm going to tell you this, one of my mentors, teaches me every single day, commit first, and figure out the rest later, why does that matter? Because we get caught up in the intangibles, we are caught up in this idea that we need the immediate return on investment, we get caught up in the idea that if I give somebody five dollars or five million, I expect something back immediately. And what I've adapted in my life, is what price do I have to pay to have the life that I want to have? If that meant that I had to sell everything that I owned, I would do it again. Without hesitation, I would do it again, I would do everything I owned, I would get another job, I would do whatever it took to get to this place where I could be on this trajectory forward and creating the life that I want to have.

And so, what I want you to think about in this is this question, what are you willing to do to have the life you want to have?

Mentorship comes in many forms, it's books, it's audios, right? It's YouTube, it's courses online that are seven dollars, nine dollars, twenty-seven dollars, ninety-seven dollars that all counts. Don't get caught up in this idea that and look there are coaches, they charge a hundred thousand dollars for a weekend? Some of these people are my friends like I know what they do in their business and they're hard hitters and the space that they're in whether it's business or entrepreneurship or whatever. And people get caught up on that, like, I don't have $100,000. I don't either. I get it, but I have four hours of time and I have a library card, like, I'm not even joking right now, all of the books in my phone right now, most of them, let's call it 91% are from the library. They literally are right now from the library. Don't get caught up on this money thing. There's always a way to make money, but investing in yourself is everything. So go and read the book, have the late fee who gives a shit, get the audio, go to the online seminar pay the ninety-seven dollars. You don't have a $97 problem in your life, $97 isn't the problem. You have to be thinking about bigger problems. Why can't I show up for myself? Why am I stuck? Why do I feel this way? Why can't I seem to create momentum? Why can't I hold myself accountable? Why can't I do these things? Those are the problem that's what the investment is for. The ROI is moving through to the other side of that and saying; “Ah! Got it! My life is different.” right?

Don't get caught up in money because there's always away, there's always a way to create massive change in your life and have mentorship and have support. And if someone today, who looks at this as a must, I have a fitness coach, life coach, health coach, business, coach, I have a voice coach and I have a mindset coach because the biggest thing that I want to do is make sure I have support in all the areas of my life where I always wanted them.

All I ever wanted was support and if you're listening to the show, but sometimes we weren't lucky enough to get it, but you have the ability to build it. And so maybe today, it's a podcast. Maybe today, it's a book. Maybe today, it's an online conference. Maybe in three years, it's a small group program and then 10 years, it's one on one, and then it's masterminded all those other things. Mentorship can be in a song, it can be in a book, it can be in a lyric and can be an Instagram post, it can be anywhere but you have to be willing to find it, you have to be willing to invest, your time, effort, energy or money, and when you do the return, man, there's no limit.

So Unbroken Nation. I hope that you have an amazing day. I hope this fire jump and inspired you to grab that library card, it's still free! Go get it! I use it every day.

Go and put yourself first. Take care of what you need to take care of and build the life that you want to build.

And until next time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

-I'll see you.