Why You Need a Coach or Mentor

And welcome to this week's show entitled:

Why You Need a Business Coach or Mentor.

Okay, an interesting topic.

Here's a truth bomb. Look, nobody achieves great success alone.

It's just not possible. You need an eclectic band of characters all singing to a singular purpose.

And one of those characters in that Motley crew should be a coach or a mentor 'cause they can act like a G P S for your mission. I mean, you wouldn't embark on a cross country road trip without a G P S unless you wanted to end up lost sleep derived, or on the edge of a, a edge of a meltdown.

See a coach or mentor can act as a personal navigation system helping you dodge the potholes, the detours, the frustrating, wrong turns that land you in the middle of nowhere, and usually they've crossed that business terrain that you are facing. I mean, imagine if you were wandering through a dense forest, filled with thorny problems, and right next to you is a seasoned guide with a machete clearing the path.

That's your mentor, right? They've already fought the dragons, slayed the trolls, and conquered the wild beasts of business. And if I look back on my career, I've had probably two or three mentors that have made a big difference to me. And I fondly remember a mentor from in 35 years ago, Gerry Burke, I've talked about him in previous episodes.

He was such a character, but he brought out in me a level of performance and capability and belief in my own talent that I, I didn't have. And he helped me succeed at a higher level much more quickly than I would've done, you know? Pursuing things the way that I was, I was doing it so you, you know, why would you stumble through the same mistakes , we've already made with their guidance, they can take you to, you know, a better place to wisdom much more quickly.

 I, I, I like playing a little bit of golf. And if you think about all the great athletes, they've all got coaches. I mean, think Tiger Woods, his first coach was Butch Harmon, and then he worked with Hank Haney. You don't think he got to win 15 majors , without help. And if you really get behind the scenes of some of these athletes, not only do they have swing coaches, They have exercise coaches, all of them, pretty much all of them now have mental coaches, right?

 Having a good mentor is like having a therapist without a couch. And I do a lot of business coaching and as I'm working with business owners, a lot of the issues they're dealing with are people related, they've got a lot of stress. How do you navigate those things?

They need a little bit of help to describe what they're talking about, separate the emotions from the facts, and be able to navigate a course where they can keep their employees happy, growing, and productive. And so coaches can really, really make a big difference because you don't want to stagnate, you don't want to stay where you are.

You want to continuously improve. I think of myself as sometimes like, a shark. If I stop swimming, if I stop improving, I'm just going to die. And you've heard my expression before.

Comfortable is a word I would choose to describe an old sofa. Yet many people in business seem to consider it a destination.

They get comfortable, right? I've learned everything that I've learned, you know, I can't possibly improve. We all have unlimited amounts of potential, huge amount of talent that we largely leave untapped. So as I'm speaking to you, I'm telling you that you have potential personally and from your business to be able to step it up many, many levels. 10 x as I've talked about before.

I mentioned, uh, in a previous episode, I think it was e episode number 31, how to 10 x your life and your sales. I mentioned that I had this crazy, wildly ambitious goal to swim across the English Channel and never having had a formal swimming lesson.

 I felt I needed a swim coach to help me train for this brutal 21 mile swim through choppy seas on favorable tides, swarms of jellyfish and frigid water. And I mentioned that , I accidentally bumped into a coach at my local rec center, turned out to be Cullen Jones. He is the, uh, world record gold Medal Olympian from 2012. He won that gold medal in the four by 100 relay with Michael Phelps and I thought, this is the guy, I gotta get him to coach me. I asked him, would you, would you give me coaching? And he does that. So I managed to find some time in his calendar. And I'd, I'd already taken a, a lesson or two, and two, two other coaches, when I asked them to critique my swimming, they said, oh, you know, you look pretty strong.

You just need to work out a little bit more in the pool. They, they couldn't see an improvement, which was perplexing because as I can see it, I'm swimming up and down the lanes in the pool and I'm splashing around like , doggy paddle, almost, splashing. I'm panting, I'm outta breath.

And , the people in the lane next to me they don't seem to be swimming. They just seem to be gliding at a much faster pace, using less energy. I think something's not right. Something's not right. So I went onto YouTube and I started watching YouTube videos and they talk about all of these things and I'm trying to do these things and I've get all the little gimmicks, you know, I've got the floaties and the fins and the snorkels, and the things you stick between your legs.

I've got no clue what I'm doing . Anyway, Cullen, right? I go for my first lesson, with with him. He's the Olympian. He says, yeah, well we need an hour. I think I can't swim for an hour. He said, no, we're not gonna be swimming the whole hour, but, you know, we're gonna rest between the drills.

 Let's get started. He says, swim a few laps and, I'll see what we need to work on. So I swam a few laps and then he leans over and he get, he says, well mate, He says, you're a strong swimmer. He says, but you're not gonna get across the channel that way! He says, you're using way too much energy. You'll never make it.

Now, this is what you want from a coach or a mentor. You don't want them to tell you how good you are. I think a lot of business consultants, they come in and they Tell you how wonderful your business is and how, how well everything's working.

But , you need to know what's not working. You need to know , how can I improve? Point out the deficiencies, point out the opportunities for improvement. And actually, you know, relish this point, at least he can, he can see Now I know there's a potential for improvement, which was, was, was very liberating. And in like the first seven, eight minutes, he started talking to me about hydrodynamics.

 What I needed to do was, instead of splashing and using a lot of energy, was to glide through the water and to create a shape that would be sleeker, longer and more effective. And I was just lapping this up. And then he started giving me a couple of, of drills.

 I'll give you, I'll give you an example. He said, look, what you're doing, Mick, is you're doing small swimming, you're splashing around with your arms, your arms aren't really very long. He said, look, by stretching your arm out further forward, you lengthen your body. And the big benefit is now you've got a big lever.

So now instead of , you looking like you're, you're four feet long, you're seven feet long and your arm is stretched out way in front, and when it pulls back, you've got a big, big, big lever that is now gonna propel you much more effectively through the water.

 The second thing he says, you, you're swimming on on your stomach.

I'm flat in the water. Well, if you watch the top swimmers , they swim on their side. They, they flip from one side to the other like a fish. And that presents less drag in the water. And when you do flip, you stretch more so your arm goes out even further to create, you know, an even more powerful lever. So you've got more leverage, you've got less drag.

 Now, I've had two lessons and yesterday was a real revelation because it was where he taught me how to swim on my side and you can just feel yourself going faster through the water. It's just unbelievable.

. And then I, I shared something else with him. 'cause I don't just want him. For, you know, swimming technique. I'm talking about a major undertaking here. It might take me a couple of years to get ready to do this. I need the mental stamina. I want to know how he overcame adversity.

I said to him, you know, everybody, I tell that I'm gonna go swim the English channel laughs at me pretty much. Pretty much everybody. , I don't think that I can do it. And he said, , I grew up in the, in, in the city, you know, African American. Everybody telling me I couldn't do it.

He said, I put all those, all those voices into what I call the funny jar. Just put it to one side, he says, and what you'll find when you've done it, all those people suddenly come out the jar and start saying how wonderful you are. He said, so, so just, just, just ignore them and get, get on with it.

So I'm looking for that mental coaching as well in order to get there.

Now, could I, could I work this out on my own? So let's say you are in business and you, you're doing pretty well. You're thinking, I know how to do this. I'll just keep doing this. I'll do this a little bit differently. I'll do that a little bit different.

You're on a journey. You are making some, some improvement.

Yeah. I could go to YouTube. I did go to YouTube. I watched some videos and then I tried and practice those things in the pool. But I really wasn't mastering the technique. I didn't have the comprehension. I didn't know that I was building bad habits.

 So quite simply, no, I, I can't get to where I need to be on my own without having a mentor coaching me. I just came outta the pool yesterday and I was so happy because there's a deep joy and satisfaction in improving. I actually could feel that I was going through the water better. I was in a different position. It felt very different.

And you know, I'm, I've got this big smile coming out because I know that I'm improving. And that's what a mentor, that's what a coach can do for you. It can bring out this capability, can accelerate, can help you go forward. So I would urge you, if you want to improve, if you want to get better, if you want to grow your business, you want to grow your profitability, you, you should have somebody helping you think through that.

So here's a shameless plug. Over the last 40 years, I've worked with hundreds of business executives from many in Fortune 500 companies, leading armies of people, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people to owners of third and fourth generation family businesses that may be 5, 10, 20, 30 people in that organization and , I've seen what can happen.

I know where the potholes, I know where the perils of poor cash flow can catch you out. I know where you get enslaved by the business and the the bigger you grow, the harder you work, the less time that you have. Because you haven't put in the the systems and the disciplines and the processes to free you from the the tyranny of the urgent, so that you can enjoy the benefits of being an owner and that you are creating long-term wealth.

On average the businesses I've been working in, small family businesses, you know, I help them improve their profitability by hundreds of thousands of dollars within a year. Almost help them get a million dollars worth of cash flow, positive cash flow on average, which allow them to eliminate a lot of their debt, take away a lot of their stress.

So I can help you grow your business, grow your revenue, optimize your profitability, and make sure you got great cash flow. So I'd love to help you. I'd love to help you get there faster. I'd love to help you get there more efficiently with less stress.

So reach out to me, have a chat. You've listened to me on the podcast. You know how I think.

You can call me, (704) 904-0994.

Or you can get to my calendar by going to www.speaktomick.com

so go out there, have fun. , Go find your mentor and go and unlock your unlimited potential.

We'll see you next time.