[Business] How to provide value for older, more successful/experienced guys?

[Big Daddy]

Hey gents,

Last weekend I attended to my first business event ever. It was very nice to see so many entrepreneurs in one place

Before attending it, I have read who were the coaches/mentors/every guy who gave a talk and what they did and how they did it. There was one guy that grabbed my attention. He had majored in a top tier university in the same area that I'm majoring in, had worked in big, multinational companies that lead their respective market segment, then left and built his own (successful) business. He's quite young, but almost 10 years older than me.

Towards the end of the event, I saw an opportunity to talk to him, and I did. We talked for almost an hour and he gave me his business card. I emailed him the next day with a link to an article that I have mentioned in our conversation at the event and thought he'd like to see.

He replied, saying that he'd read the article and that if I needed anything, I know how to contact him. He doesn't live here, so most of my "contacting" will have to be though email. Maaaybe calling him once I'm sure he'll remember me. I have read "How to find a mentor" (https://www.girlschase.com/content/how-find-mentor) a thousand times already, and I think it'd be better to have him as "The Good Friend Mentor" since I want to be surrounded with people like that...

My problem is exactly what Chase describes in that post: as a novice, I may not have enough value to provide just yet. And I can't just "hang" with him because we live in different cities. I don't want to seem like this annoying kid that just shoots emails to have his questions answered, but I don't want him to forget me as well... we just talked in an event. He must attend multiple events year round. How can I email him frequently enough that he wouldn't forget about me and not be annoying?

If you say to me "look, establishing an obvious mentor-mentee is the way to go, because of this and that," then it is what it is. I won't stress over it and give what you guys suggest me a shot, because, frankly, I never did this before, so a little bit of experience would be nice (and would be heard). If I mess up, sure, I can try again with someone else in the future and learn lessons from now. BUT, if I manage establish a friendship/mentorship... it wouldn't hurt at all

 

[Rage]

Big Daddy,

I had a good bit to add to this thread, hope some of it potentially helps you.

Regarding the types of mentors, typically you don’t really get to choose the type of mentor a mentor will be:they will determine that for themselves. Some people naturally like being the teaching-mentor type and some don’t and would prefer being a friend. Age doesn’t necessarily dictate what type of mentor they’ll be either; to give an example, I train calisthenics exercises with a mentor of mine who is only a couple of years older than me (in his early 20’s). Despite being pretty near the same age as me, he prefers to be exactly the teacher-mentor type: he’ll critique me, teach me new tricks in an instructive style, tell me that I can do it and to believe in myself and that he believes in me etc. he does all of that.

On increasing your value, I’d say it’s imperative that you really add to your value and build it (it happens gradually over time; https://www.girlschase.com/content/how-master-anything is a good article on how to rigorously go about the process). Work forever on upping your value and also I think that it’s important to really truly follow the guidelines for being a good mentee (in the mentor article; being a good mentee is a skill that you need to learn to get the most you can from mentors). Value's one of the key elements to making ambitious like-minded friends https://www.girlschase.com/content/how-m ... riendships

Regarding being friends with your mentor; to some degree you can’t be buddies on an equal footing with someone whose value is leagues ahead of you. To give you an example of this: I’m a regular at the gym and a friend of mine is a competitive pro bodybuilder. We’re both 19 years old. My friend and I have been good friends since we were little, played soccer together, and won a few championships together. In the gym, my friend is much stronger than me and because of this (to some degree) I really can’t work out with him. He can bench 400 lbs while I can only bench 200 lbs. We can sometimes have a workout together (if he’s lifting lighter on arms) and I can learn an insight or tip or two from him, but typically we are at levels varying so far (he is so much stronger than me) that even as a friend type mentor that he is to me, the time spent and value received I can get with him isn’t a great deal and is somewhat minimal (hope that’s a good metaphor couldn’t think of a better one at the moment).

That’s one key thing here: when someone is a higher up successful person, typically they’re not going to be of much value to you (this is because what they tell you, you won’t really actively be able to use until you come across the experiences yourself). Instead, a person who’s around your level but maybe just a little further than you will be the most value to you.

I like to ask Chase a lot of questions, and am very curious; the best thing I can get from a high value mentor like him though is a point in the right direction. It may be minutely to moderately insightful; but it won’t change my life (your experiences and the choices you make do that). My value grows and one day I might meet my mentors and be around the same level as them (there’s a “you have to kill the master” /become greater than them element here too, fascinating thing where the mentee fights and builds and grows and eventually surpasses the master), and when that happens awesome! But till then they’ll just be people for me to respect, learn from, and imitate. Your friends will tend to be the same level as you, have similar values and traits to you (you’re most like your 5 closest friends) and they’ll be a mirror of you: what you most value in them is what you most value in yourself.

You can only really have a mentor you can actively spend a lot of time with and learn from who’s around the same level (typically a little bit higher) than you (Chase has talked about this somewhere before). Otherwise, they’ll get annoyed of answering questions (if spending too much time/asking too many questions) that are already obvious to them. If you and a mentor/friend are around the same level (and ambitious, driven, willing to work hard and get your hands dirty), you can and should become partners who work on projects together who create, work on, and build new things together (whether it be creating a program together, or building a machine, or something simple even like helping kids at a charity). You’ll both run into stuff around the same time and can tell each other about it, help each other, and experience it during roughly the same times (ending up being a great invaluable source of value to each other during these times) .

For your situation, I’d suggest shooting the odd question now and then to your mentor and reporting back to him with results. Keep it concise (as best you can) and always have a purpose when you write to him. Do this infrequently and as your value increases through the years you will know more, have built more, and altogether be of more value to your mentor and then you may be able to consequently be of great value to each other.

A few last tips/ideas to leave you with:

• Things may or may not work out after writing to your mentor. Things will happen for a reason; maybe you don’t connect with your mentor in the way you had anticipated (when you are ready the mentor will appear, quite often the mentor isn’t the right mentor for the right moment/time/circumstance).

• Write down your questions all of them, (whenever they come to your head) that you can ask your mentor. Write them in stream of consciousness style (just whatever thoughts come to your head you write down) and just have them at your hand (helps to have a phone or something so whenever you think something you can just write it). Quite often you’ll find you learn the answer to your questions yourself (and not from that particular mentor’s answer) either from a new mentor or a different source or a new experience.

• Lastly, read a lot, from different areas and different fields and write to your various mentors; most of them might not write back but a few may. And here, maybe you can’t get a ton of value from them at that time because their value is so far over yours (but they give you an insight or two that points you in the right direction); that’s fine, the purpose of writing to them and writing your questions down is to be asking questions: you will know what you want and by writing it down you cause your subconscious mind to be looking for the answers. And whoever looks for the answers hard enough finds them.

Good Luck,

Gem

 

[Big Daddy]

Lots of valuable insight. Thanks, Gem.

I often forget to look for like-minded people that are in the same level as I am. Good to read about that reflection things about your 5 closest friends again, great reminder.