Hey, creative, do you have a mentor, someone to guide you through your entrepreneurial path, to ask questions to, to give you advice and wisdom? I can’t overestimate the importance of a mentor. And the reason I know how important mentors are is because for most of my business journey for like 20 years, I never had one, never had a mentor. And it costs me big time, big time because I didn’t have one. Um, there are a couple reasons I didn’t have one. Um, one is completely my fault and one was just my circumstances a little bit, but that’s not really an excuse I have. Um, so I don’t have a lot of entrepreneurs in my family. I that I know of. My mom was adopted, so maybe there are a bunch over there, but that I don’t know. But my family are amazing, loving family, super supportive, but no entrepreneurs.
And so I didn’t know any entrepreneurs growing up. I didn’t, I’d never met one really, um, no one who could, who could gimme, who could notice in me that I was entrepreneurial and that I wanted to start businesses and, and, and gimme some early advice. And so I, I kind of missed out on that. But again, that’s not, that’s not an excuse. I could have found a mentor, but that it, it, you know, it is what it is. The other one was I was kind of stubborn and I wanted to figure all this out on my own, and I thought, I thought I could. I, you know, I, I, I’m a smart guy and I’m hardworking and all that stuff, and, and I also didn’t want to admit that I did not know things <laugh>, that I needed advice and I needed guidance and I needed somebody to tell me if I was making a mistake or something like that.
So I didn’t have one for like 20 years. I’m 48 years old, and I’m not kidding you when I say just in the last three or so years, I’ve met people who can help me and mentor me a little bit. So I lost 20 years in my entrepreneurial journey, which brings me to the, the, the number one value of having a mentor is they will compress. They will save you so much time. They will compress the amount of time you have to experience things because they’ve already experienced things, and if you listen to them, they can save you a long time. For instance, I did an episode on overhead. My overhead in my first business was way too high and it bled me dry. Well, when we lost that business inevitably lost that business. It took me, no kidding, it took me more than five years to get started back on my feet, back up to zero.
Five years. I lost five years. What could I have done in those five years if I had a, if somebody could have helped me avoid that, that pitfall. So the number one thing a mentor will do is save you so much valuable times, sometimes decades. The other thing is they will help you avoid mistakes. Because what a good mentor does is they will look you in the eye and they will say, I love you, but this is a terrible idea when you have a terrible idea. And we need people to tell us that when, so you don’t pursue something that’s going to waste your time, your money, your energy, and sometimes run you completely out of business. You need a mentor. Um, so I have learned now that I did not have one, and I lost so much time and so much money and so much opportunity because I did not have somebody to help guide me.
I didn’t go find one. The question is, how do I find a mentor? Like where do I go for that? Great question. Luckily, um, we have the internet now, but I want you to start in your local area. Here’s the thing about entrepreneurial people, about business people. They are the entrepreneurial, uh, community is so generous. They, they are, they are so generous and they just want to help. Especially if you’re young. You don’t have to be young by the way. You can be like 45 and just starting to find mentors. But, uh, just ask, find an entrepreneur that you admire. You see they’re working like, wow, I could learn a lot from that person and message that person straight up. Just send ’em a DM on Instagram and be like, Hey, you don’t know me, but I’ve been watching your stuff and I’m young and I have some questions and I just wanna start a bit.
You might be surprised. They are so generous with their time. I have some in my life, um, that have just taken immense amounts of time to give me sage advice. So they may not be able to take time to like spend, you know, days and days and hours and hours, but they’ll go to coffee with you and they’ll be around if you have a question or a, you’re thinking about a making a big move or a purchase or something like that. And listen to those people because they know, they remember what it was like when they were starting out and they had questions that they were scared they didn’t. No, you need a mentor. It’s invaluable. It will save you, it will set you on the right track. And sometimes it’s the difference between you staying in business with your art form and your creative outlet and going out of business and going back to the day job. It’s that big a deal. Okay? So find you a mentor, swallow your pride. Listen to what they have to say, and be a happy, happier, more lucrative, uh, creative business person. That’s what I want for you and I, and I and I look back and I’m, I have some regrets that I didn’t pick up on this sooner. So don’t do like that. Let me mentor you a little bit. Go find a mentor. I love you.