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Avoiding Mentoring Disasters with Mark Timm

“Last time I checked, God gave you two ears and one mouth. That means you want a mentor who will listen.” - Mark Timm Click To Tweet

As we start the new year, we often contemplate resolutions and adopting new behaviors into our lives. Good mentoring relationships can have an amazingly powerful impact on both our personal and professional lives, but a bad one can lead to a devastating outcome. Learn how to identify a great match in today’s episode with Mark Timm.

Mark Timm has been a serial entrepreneur and exponential thinking practitioner for nearly two decades. He started more than two dozen companies, several of which have multiplied and been sold. His experience with dealing with the entrepreneurial challenges has fueled his passion for teaching people how to balance the demands of family life and business.

“One of the keys of being a successful mentee is you have to be the mentor’s best student.” - Mark Timm Click To Tweet

Show Notes:

“A mentor that won’t hold you accountable is a bad mentor.” - Mark Timm Click To Tweet

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Transcript:

Mark: I wrote the book Mentor to Millions with my co-author, Kevin, because we've had a lot of mentors in our life. Chris, I'm going to be here to tell you, not every mentor I've had turned out to be the mentor that I needed or that I thought I should have. 

We wanted to write this book because we wanted everybody to understand what mentorship can do for you, but also how to find the right mentor and what to watch out for in getting the wrong mentor. 

In my life, I was very fortunate to have Zig Ziglar as a mentor when I was a young man. That's a pretty good place to start when it comes to mentorship. Not all mentors are like Zig Ziglar. Ironically, Kevin Harrington also had Zig Ziglar and that's how we met, not through Zig himself, but because we both had the same mentor. When he passed away—this is how legacy works. 

His children actually introduced us to each other. That mentorship legacy carried on and we wouldn't have been able to write the book if it wasn't for having that mutual mentor. I know a lot about it. I love to talk about it. I'm really fine to get in the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesomeness of everything mentorship.

Chris: Let's jump right into it. Let's start with the bad of mentorship, where it can go wrong, and how a bad mentor can really cause issues.

Mark: Where mentorship goes bad is when you think you found the right mentor and they turn out to be exactly the wrong mentor. Often where that comes is that you see somebody, they've achieved a certain element of success, and you're like, boy, if I could just have that person as a mentor, they could really help me. 

You forget that there are some critical elements that you must find in a mentor. If you choose the wrong mentor, then they'll send you down the wrong path. Oftentimes, you don't figure out it's the wrong mentor until you're way down that path. It can really cost you a lot of money. It can cost you a lot of time. It can cost you some relationships. It can be severely costly to have the wrong mentor. 

What do I mean by the wrong mentor? In my opinion, there are a few things you've got to look for in a mentor. Number one, don't look for someone that has all the success that you're looking for because that person may only know how to succeed in one area. I want to find a mentor and I would encourage everybody to listen to make sure that they ask their potential mentor about their failures.

You absolutely, Chris, want a mentor that has failed. I'll tell you why. If they failed, then they have experience in multiple areas. If they've only succeeded in one area, they're only going to give you advice in one area, and that may not be the area for you.

Now, you're headed down this path and it's the wrong path because it’s the only path that they know. You want someone that's going to let you fail because we learn from our failures, but they're going to be there to pick you up. You want to make sure you've got a mentor that's failed.

The second thing is, last time I checked, God gave us two ears and one mouth. You want a mentor that listens. If you've got a mentor that just tells you everything, you've got to do this, go do this, and go do this. They're not really listening to you to see what your unique gift to the world is and what you're trying to accomplish. Then you're going to go down all these different paths because it's the only paths that they've gone down. They're not really taking the time to learn who you are and help you to become everything that you were put on this earth to be.

You're looking for a mentor that's failed.

It's important to be a life long learner.

You're looking for a mentor that listens. And then the last thing is you're looking for a mentor that has a mentor. You're looking for somebody that's continuing to learn because learning is a lifelong process. I don't want to be coached by anybody that's not got a coach. I don't want to have a mentor that's not being mentored by somebody. 

Make sure that they are lifelong learners. Otherwise, you're catching them and they've plateaued. They're not going to take you beyond where they're at. You want a mentor that wants to see you go way beyond anything that they've achieved as well.

Chris: Got you. Those are great. Have you had any—without naming names—bad mentor experiences, and what did that look like?

Mark: Yeah, I definitely have had some bad mentor experience. I got into a new industry, and I really felt like I needed a mentor in the industry. I sought him out—here's a guy that's really successful. I said, hey, I'm new to this industry, can you mentor me? Can you help me? Oh, absolutely. I can help you. 

Basically, what he did was he told me everything I was doing wrong. It made me think I was incapable of being in this industry or incapable of being successful. Only over time did I realize that he was telling me everything I was doing wrong because he felt that everything he had done was the only way to do it right. 

Really, because he didn't have the broader experience of any other industry but this industry. He was the type of person that just really felt like his way was the only way. He wasn't really open to any other ways of doing it. 

It was very demoralizing to have him as a mentor because really I just wanted to get out of the industry. If I'm that bad at this then I probably should get out. Instead of saying, hey, look, you've got some real genius in this area. Let's pour some gas on this, and let's don't do any more of this, there really wasn't anything he could find that I was doing well. 

I thought it was more of a reflection of my ability when in reality, his view of the world was anything that's not done the way I do it is wrong. That's not really the kind of mentor you want. There are a hundred ways to get to a destination. Not every way is the best way, but a lot of ways are good. 

As a mentor, you want to encourage people to go down their path to get to that destination because then they have ownership and they feel more confident. Not everybody has the same resources that you do to be able to do it. 

I'm a big one to be an encouragerfind ways to help make it work instead of just tell someone how badly. In the end, I actually ended up changing, pivoting, and not pursuing that business venture because it was just a bad experience. Unfortunately, I've leveraged and put a lot of my (let's say) view on this with this one person. And with some wisdom now, I realize I should have got the opinion of more people, or I should have asked more questions before asking them to mentor me.

Chris: When you say getting the opinions of more people, do you recommend having multiple mentors for either one area of life or different areas of your life?

Mark: Yeah. I like to have more than one mentor because I don't think one mentor is capable of helping you in every facet of life. Now, sometimes you just have somebody that's very well-rounded and they can advise you. I tend to have a mentor in my finances. I tend to have a mentor for business growth. I tend to have a personal mentor either in my faith and family. I really don't have more than three people that I'm interacting with in that kind of way. You can't have 50 mentors because you can't implement them. 

One of the keys to being a successful mentee is you have to be the mentor’s best student. You can't be the best student of 50 mentors. I like to get mentors that have expertise in areas I don't.

Chris: Got you. When you talk about finance, are you talking about personal finance or business finance?

Mark: Typically, when I'm talking finance, different seasons of life. Listen, when I just started as an entrepreneur, my personal finances and my business finances were the same thing. When I was getting financial advice, it was all the same. I'm in a different season in life, so I've got someone that really mentors me and my personal finances. I still, from time to time, will reach out and talk to some people that are elevated from me in the business finance world. 

But I don't need as much help on the business side as I do on the personal finance side as I'm now looking at how to protect the assets that I've built over the years.

Our season in life may determine the type of mentoring we need.

It just depends on the season of life, where you're at. Earlier in your endeavors, it's all the same, right? I mean, a dollar in was a dollar the same no matter where I was at. Now, I'm a little later in life, so I've separated business and personal a little bit more.

Chris: Got you. We know what a bad mentor looks like, how do we make sure that we find the right ones? Where's this pool of mentors that we can go to, and how do we give back to them as well?

Mark: Well, let me step back and just say that most people come to me and say, how do I find a mentor? They don't even know how to find a mentor. It begins by having some vulnerability, having some courage to just raise your hand and say, I'm ready to be mentored. 

A lot of people want a mentor, they need a mentor, but they're not ready to be mentored. It even goes a step further back. You've got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, am I ready to be mentored? Am I ready? Am I ready to be coached and taught? Am I ready to implement? Because you may not be, and it's okay. The last thing you want to do is throw a Hail Mary, get the right mentor, and you're not ready for them.

Winston Churchill once said that there comes a time in every man's life where he's tapped on the shoulder. He's asked to do something extraordinary. What a shame if that moment finds that man unprepared or unqualified for what could have been his finest hour. It's one of my favorite quotes. 

Well, what a shame if the mentor that you want is there and you're not ready. Make sure you're ready to be mentored, that's number one. 

Number two, have the courage and confidence to raise your hand. We've done many of these interviews talking about Mentor to Millions where after the interview is over, the host says, hey, would you stay on for five minutes? Then they say, hey, would you mentor me? We're like, what are you talking about? Why didn't you ask us in the air? Well, this is my community. They look to me as being a mentor, and I didn't want them to think I needed a mentor. 

I'm like, oh my gosh, you blew the biggest opportunity of your life because they're all sitting out there going, I'm too afraid to ask for a mentor. I mean, look at Chris. He's got it all together. He doesn't need a mentor. Here I am, I need a mentor. Well, guess what? We all need mentors.

Have the courage and confidence to raise your hand and say I'm ready. Whatever stage of life you're at, you're ready to be mentored by somebody, and then put yourself out there. Be courageous enough to put it to your inner circle. You already know. Are you ready for this? This is profound. You already know everything you need to know to accomplish everything that you need to accomplish in this world.

Just marinate on that for a second. You already know everybody you need to know. […] you were put on this earth to accomplish. Now, are they in your immediate inner circle? Maybe not, but your immediate inner circle knows somebody who you need to know. If you put it out there to your world, when students are ready, the teacher will appear. When you're ready to be mentored, you put that out to your inner circle, and if you're vulnerable enough, your mentor will show up. 

That's kind of the pregame routine that you need to be saying yourself and making sure you're ready. Then once you're ready, then you need to be confident enough to ask for somebody to be your mentor and then be courageous enough to interview them. Make sure they’re the right fit so you don't end up with a bad mentorship experience. Raise your hand. 

There's a formula. It goes like this. Get the right mentor. Then you've got to become that mentor’s best student, that's step number two. Then, step number three is you have to take everything you've learned and you've got to teach it to someone else. That is the exponential formula of mentorship. 

Chris, it's like this brick wall behind me. A brick wall is strong. We build houses out of it. We build foundations out of it. The brick wall is a lot like a mentorship journey. The mentor gives you the bricks. Your job as a mentee is to collect the bricks, stack them up. Anybody can knock over a brick wall if it doesn't have the concrete and the mortar. What locks it all in place is when you teach someone else. 

The mentors give you the bricks, you collect the bricks, you stack them up the way you want, and then you teach someone else. When you do that, you've built a foundation that you can build a business on, you can build a family on, you can build relationships on, and you can build your life on.

Chris: I've heard that said that the best way to learn something is to learn it with the attitude of I'm going to teach this to somebody else.

Mark: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

Chris: How does this apply to family as well?

Mark: Yeah, well, my favorite topic, you just crossed over. In the book, Mentor to Millions, we've been talking about here. Every chapter actually ends with how I take all the business lessons that I learned from Kevin Harrington and then I apply them to my family.

It may seem easier to be at work where we have more control.

In all reality, the book starts with me actually sitting at the end of my driveway not wanting to go home. The reasons you don't want to go home are—I filed bankruptcy, I lost a lot of money. In my life, the reason I didn't want to go home is because I had one of the best days of my life business-wise. I had my biggest sale ever. I made decisions with confidence, but I was going home to a world of chaos and confusion. 

I knew that wasn't right. I knew that wasn't who I was supposed to be. I knew that wasn't how it was supposed to be. That driveway moment was when my life changed and I realized, what if the business I was going home to was the most valuable business I will ever own, operate, and be a part of? 

What if everything I was doing in business was practice so that I reflect on what I'm doing at home? I'll tell you, there's no more important mentorship job that you have than to mentor your family than to be the mentor you've been put on the start to be for your family. 

I believe that if you're good at anything at work, you can be that good at home. If you're good at graphic design, then go home and create a logo for your family. Do that with your family, okay? I mean, if you're good at meetings, then start having intentional meetings with your family. We did that every night for years on Sunday night. 

Truly, truly, truly apply what you've learned, be the mentor at home. It makes all the difference. What happens is that you start mentoring your family and your kids when they grow up. I've got young adults now as kids. My kids have left the home, and I've only got one left at home—until COVID hit. They all came back. 

My kids call me. They text me because I'm their mentor, and I get to mentor them now for the rest of their life. It applies just as much at home as it does in business.

Chris: Are there specific examples that you can share where some of those business lessons have really paid off in the home?

Mark: Yeah, for sure. I'll give you an example. I was using a personality profile test for team building in my company. We happened to use one called the DiSC personality profile. I'm using that to help my team synergize. All of a sudden I realized, wait a minute, the most valuable team I'll ever have is the one at home. 

I literally bought eight extra DiSC profiles. I brought them home and had my whole family take the DiSC personality profile. Then, I had my kids one by one, week after week at our family meeting, give a presentation on who they werethat they were a D with an i or they were an S or C.

The coolest thing of all was that when it was done, my kids got to see that they’re not just—let's just say, what do kids say about each other? Weird. They are just wired differently. Their brothers and sisters aren't just annoying, they're just wired differently. 

It gave them permission to just be themselves. It gave us a talking platform to say, hey, the reason your brother or sister gets on your nerves is because they're wired differently. They were just made different from you because remember, their personality profile is a Di when you're an SC, you couldn't be more opposite of each other. That's why you sometimes get on each other's nerves. This is also why this sibling is good at this and this sibling is good at this. 

It was a simple thing that we were doing every day in our business. I brought it home, and it just opened their eyes to this cool tool that dad had that helped our family be the better version of ourselves.

Chris: That's really cool. It sparked a question when you talked about being wired differently. My wife and I are similar in a lot of ways and we have some differences. My mentor thinks differently than I do. He's just wired totally different. Do you find that that is a strength, a weakness, a benefit, or not having your mentor-mentee being wired differently?

Mark: There's really a lot of different circumstances. Oftentimes, we end up finding a spouse or significant other that's the opposite of us. 

My wife and I took the StrengthFinders test, and there are 33 different strengths that they evaluate. My number 1 strength is her number 33. Her number 1 strength is my number 33. We couldn't be more polar opposites.

Sometimes in a mentorship relationship, you need to have this knowledge, like, and trust. Sometimes it's good to find somebody that is wired at least in the same swim lane as you because then they understand you better.

Having someone that's completely opposite of you as a mentor could be a little problematic because they're not your spouse, they're not your significant other. There can be some friction there in that scenario. 

The biggest thing of all is that you find out who they are. I like to use that equation, and I’ll go over it real fast, so I'll break it down. You know them. Meaning, you get to know them. You know what they stand for, you know what's important to them. Then, you decide you like them because the worst thing you can do is have a mentor that you don't like. That works for a few meetings, but then you're just coming up with excuses because you don't like them. 

You get to know them and say, I really know this person and I know this person can help me. I like this person. We like each other. Then, the last piece—and is probably the most important piece—is I trust this person. 

When you can check the boxes: I know this person, I like this person, and I trust this person, there's a great mentorship scenario and great mentorship relationship. 

Whether they're wired the same as you, whether they're wired differently than you doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is, you know them, you like them, you trust them, and therefore you're going to implement what they say. You're going to look forward to the next time you meet with them. You're going to feel bad if you haven't implemented it. You want that feeling of accountability. I prefer to go with the know, like, and trust over any other scenario.

Chris: It's funny that you mention accountability. I think in today's society, there are certain areas of life where accountability is this great thing. If you've got a gym buddy, a workout buddy, the accountability is there. Hey, did you up your way? Did you run when we weren't around each other? It seems to me that when we get to our personal lives and family accountability, it becomes almost this no-no, you don't ask people, what's going on in your family, in the same way, that you do at work or in the gym.

Do you find that as a challenge for some people with mentoring?

Mark: Yeah, of course. I got to tell you, you asked about bad mentorships, good mentorships. A mentor that won't hold you accountable is a bad mentor. 

See, I believe everybody can be a mentee, but not everybody can be a mentor. That's why we wrote this book, Mentor to Millions. The millions are about impact. It's not about money. You do need to find the right mentor in your life and then you need to become the right mentor. That's the magical equation that we're talking about. 

Anyone can learn from someone, but it takes a special somebody to be a good mentor because they've got to have some wisdom. They've got to listen. They've got to be able to teach and then they've got to be able to hold you accountable. If they can't do any one of those three, it's going to be tough. 

They could be the smartest guy in the room but if they can't teach their wisdom, they're not a good mentor. If they're good at teaching but not holding accountable, they're not going to be a good mentor. You need somebody that's courageous enough and confident enough in the relationship to hold you accountable. We're human beings. We weren't put on this earth to be alone, but sometimes we need a little kick in the pants of accountability.

Chris: I know one of the things that my mentor has been great about doing is helping me to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So much of my life, it’s just been like, I just want things nice and easy. I want everything in this place, and I don't want to disturb those little things. 

He's been good about nudging me into this uncomfortability zone. Not so much that I've fallen off a cliff and that I hate him over it, but enough that it's like, okay, I see what you're doing here. I see how you're getting me out of my skin a little bit.

Mark: Yeah. That's a good mentor. You've got a good mentor there. 

Chris: I believe you. 

Mark: As long as you are becoming a good mentor and you're his best student, then you are well on your way to impacting millions because that's what we talk about. You follow that formula and you will impact millions of people in your lifetime.

Chris: I like the idea of working to become a mentor. If we don't have those skills that you talked about earlier, how do we learn to become a better mentor?

Mark: I think listening is a definite skill. What I said earlier is you need to find a mentor that listens. That's definitely a skill that you can work on. I also said find a mentor that's failed. I don't propose you go out and fail a whole bunch so that you can be a mentor. My guess is if you're living life, you've failed some, and you probably fail more than you've succeededmost successful people have. It kind of is a given.

The question is, have you learned from your failure? Have you taken some inventory on what you've done in your life that you do differently? That's a good way to be a mentor. Again, to be a good mentor, you've got to be able to share your wisdom. You can't just collect it all yourself. That's the point, you've got to share it.

Here's what it boils down to. There's a quote by Zig Ziglar and it goes like this, “You can have everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people get what they want.” You want a mentor that believes in that quote. You want a mentor that lives with that quote because really good mentors are abundant thinkers. They believe if they help enough other people that good things will happen to them. 

You do need to find the right mentor in your life and then you need to become the right mentor. Click To Tweet

Oftentimes, it does. It happens in an exponential way, meaning for every person they help, it seems like times 10 comes back to them. That's abundant thinking versus scarcity thinking. Great mentors have abundant thinking where they will share without any reservation their wisdom.

Chris: I like that. It's almost that, I'm just willing to give whatever I can out to the universe, give whatever I can out to other people. I've known people who are only doing that because I know you're going to give back to me, but it's really got to be that mentality of like, I hope it comes back to me, but I'm going to give unconditionally and that other people benefit from it.

Mark: Yup, that's exactly right.

Chris: Are there any particular success stories that you have about mentoring and maybe tied in with the pandemic that we’re all so exhilaratingly going through? 

Mark: The book is about one of my mentors. It's about Kevin Harington. He was the original shark on Shark Tank. He did 175 different segments on Shark Tank. If you're a fan of Shark Tank, you saw him in the first few seasons. 

Here's a guy who had taken businesses to over $100 million20 businesses. I had him as a mentor. One of the things we talk about in the book is we talk about aggressive curiosity. What that means is that where are the eyeballs, where people are looking. 

During the pandemic, here I am. I'm a serial entrepreneur and I start thinking, where are people looking? Well, everybody started looking at ecommerce. Well, I had an ecommerce business, but it wasn't my priority business. Let me tell you something. By March 15th, it was my priority business.

I'm here to tell you that business, at one point, is up to 500%, then it was up 1000%, then it was up 1500%. I quit keeping track of it, and I had two business ventures that completely shut down as a result of COVID. All of the staff of those business ventures are now working for the ecommerce company. 

What I did was I took the lessons I learned from my mentor and I followed the eyeballs. Everybody was looking at ecommerce. I took this small business I had in ecommerce. Now, it is the biggest business that I have because people's eyeballs are there. People who weren't shopping in ecommerce started shopping in ecommerce. People that were are shopping more. I just put myself in the path of the eyeballs and my business started to blow up. 

The second thing I did is I put a dream team in place. I took the very best people that I had and I created a dream team. We have another chapter in the book all about the dream team. I literally just pulled out the lessons I learned from Kevin, implemented them, and I am well on my way to my first $100 million business because of the lessons I learned from my mentor. That's a direct result of the lessons I've learned. 

Now, I'm also going to tell you that as a result of becoming very public with this book, I actually have agreed to mentor a few individuals that are high-performing entrepreneurs that have succeeded in business, but they're not having the same success at home. I've helped them take their success in business and apply it at home. Now, they're winning at home instead of just winning at work. 

I love that because that's really the fabric of who I am as a human being. I feel like I was put on this earth to help entrepreneurs, to help people in the work world win at home like they win at work. I'm thrilled to be able to help them do that as well. They're seeing results at home now like they were getting at work. That's what I want everybody to experience. If you're good at something at work, you can be that good at home.

Chris: I appreciate that balance. I've known a lot of people that are very successful in business, but their home lives are a train wreck. Some of it is because of the success that they've had in the business. They've been so singularly focused at work that whatever goes on at home now, there's no mentoring, there's no learning.

Mark: It's sad. I can only tell you about it because I got it wrong longer than I got it right. I know what it feels to get it wrong, and I know what it feels like to get it right. Unfortunately, I've seen many people, some of which I would consider friends before I figured this out. I watched them careen into that train wreck and actually lose a lot of what they had built, personal relationship-wise. 

They started their business to be the mom or dad that they were put on this earth to be and then the business took over. Then the business was the only place they were winning, so they spent more and more and more and more of their time because it feels good to win. It doesn't feel good to lose. 

Then ultimately they realized at some point they've lost it all in the personal department. I don't want to see anyone in that department lose it all. That's where you have to learn that it's not about balance, it's about integration. That's what I did. I just integrated my family and my business so that we could win in both areas.

Chris: I've heard that discussed before that there isn’t a work-life balance. There's just life. 

Mark: Yeah. Work-life balance is a Holy Grail. It's a quest for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can search for it your whole life and you're never going to find it. You're just on a continual journey to find it. 

When you realize that it doesn't exist, then you give yourself permission to say, hey, let's just integrate this thing. Let's bring these two worlds together. Let's integrate them. Let me bring my family my first and my best so that they can help me be my best in my work world. That’s what happened to me.

Chris: My wife and I when we're out walking the dog, she talks to me about what's going on in her work. I talk about what's going on in my work. It really helps both of us to be a great sounding board for the other. 

Sometimes, even the process of talking through decisions verbally with someone—even if they don't know the nitty-gritty specifics—just that process of talking it through, hearing yourself speak. You're like, no, that's a bad idea. No, no, no, I don't want to do that.

Where can people find out more about you and the book?

Mark: Yeah. The book is available. Mentor to Millions is out now. You can buy it anywhere books are sold—Barnes & Noble, Amazon, et cetera. 

One of the things we wanted to do, Chris, coming on the show, I talked to Kevin. We did something really special for some people who pre-ordered. We're going to offer that to anybody in your community as well. If they'll go to kevinmentor.com, we're actually going to give 30 days of mentorship to anybody that buys the book, goes there, and then shows us they bought the book. 

If they'll go to kevinmentor.com after they bought the book, put in their information, we'll give them 30 days of mentorship. We want everybody to experience mentorship so that they'll have the confidence and courage to go out and get mentors in their life. And then be the right kind of mentor.

Remember, if you have the right mentors, you become their best student, and then you mentor others. Then you are well on your way to impacting millions. We want that journey to start right now.

Chris: That's totally awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the Easy Prey Podcast, today.

Mark: Thanks, Chris, for having me. I appreciate you.

Chris: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Easy Prey Podcast. Please support the podcast by leaving a review at easyprey.com/review. Notes and the transcript of this episode with Mark Timm can be found at easyprey.com/45.

 

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