Grandpa would tell me, “You can’t believe everything somebody tells you. You need to be a little bit level headed if you are going to figure out who you can trust and who you need to give the boot.” Savvy?
Eagles or Turkeys
Over the last few years I have watched an emergence of what I call “Social Snake Oil Salesmen” build out elaborate sites that would almost fool even a seasoned entrepreneur/ investor. This is was a huge incentive for me to speak up, call their bluffs and create a true roadmap to the most useful techniques you will ever find with a detailed explanation of why. The first of which is one of the principles that I think is extremely important. It’s directly associated to your why. It’s directly associated to the walk. It’s directly associated to the path. It’s directly associated to your success, it is to seek wise counsel.
Grandpa would say, “You can’t soar with the eagles if you hang with a bunch of turkeys! Savvy lad?” I am sure you know exactly what he means by this. If you want to be at the top of your game, if you want the successful business, then you must form relationships with others that are successful in that area. The ‘turkeys’ in your life will only halt your progress. Those ‘turkeys’ will alter your thoughts. So as grandpa advised, please find some eagles and soar with them.
Now, I think that a lot of people do something that’s a huge mistake. They call seeking wise counsel, running their mouth about what their business. Many people run all over the place, and they ask absolutely anybody that will listen for advice. They go through this great, big, long spiel to anybody who will listen. They’re relentless, and frankly they’re making a huge mistake because they’re forgetting one word. They’re seeking counsel but they’re using counsel as a billboard to tell their business. Just to compound and throw a bunch of these sweet little nuggets that you’ve heard before, but then to tie it all together and make it make sense. It is seek WISE counsel. Seek wise counsel, and do it without loose lips. You have to strategically pick the people that you will look to for advice. They need to be accelerated beyond you in that particular area of your life where you need growth.
Tai Lopez talks about the upper 33%, the 33% of people that consist of your friends and the 33% of the people around you who you can mentor and help. His theory is you should surround yourself with the 33% a third of the time. Basically that the struggling 33% of the people in your life, you are the influencer for them. You have an obligation to lift those people higher. The 33% that are on your level, those are your peers. Those are your friends. The upper 33%, those are your mentors. Just using his belief system for the balance of this example, if you’re asking questions of the lower 33%, you’re bragging. If you are challenging the people around you with your ideas, your peer group, if you’re taking these ideas and seeking counsel from your peers, you’re not necessarily bragging, but you’re definitely billboarding. You’re putting your business out there to a group of people that see you as competition in life. This is a very real, very harsh reality. Some people that could see you as competition include, friends, business associates, business partners, co-workers, sorority sisters, frat brothers, cousins, neighbors, even educators.
Get ready the next few examples are hard to accept: parents, girlfriends, boyfriends, even your spouse! I know what your thinking, “Wait a second Michael! You think my wife is jealous of me?” Not necessarily. What I am saying is that this list of people, although could potentially be a great resource for wisdom in your life, unless you can 100% know for sure that their motives are strong and pure, you should filter every nugget they hand you. Filter their advice with this question: How, positively or negatively, could this persons input be jaded or weighted based on their connection with me and their current position in life in comparison to mine? The reality is that you can extract millions of brilliant nuggets from these people. Everything has to be filtered through the, what is their true underlying motivation behind this advice? What personal doctrines and belief systems do they have that could alter or skew this advice?
Even when you’re thinking about the above questions in relation to getting advice from your peers, you have to weigh out in your mind, is this advice non biased and the very best thing for me to consider? You could also ask it like this, other than my ultimate success, what connections or belief systems does this person have that could skew their loving advice and perspective in relation to my success?
Another one that I love is, we’ve all heard it, loose lips sink ships. It’s true. In the Godfather movies, the don, one of the things that he says is, “A strong position your thoughts can be.” That’s true. When you tell people your business, you give up your position. When you talk about your business, your strategies ,and your moves you’re giving up your position. You’re telling people where you are, where you’re going, and your peers are racing against you in their own minds. By racing against you in their own minds, what exactly does that mean? That means that when you’re talking to them, you’re telling them your business, and you’re seeking their counsel, their input back to you is biased. I have a really great analogy that I’ll share here in the next chapter, but first I’m going to finish this thought.
When you go to the upper 33%, when you go to your mentors, they don’t see you as a dog in the race. They don’t see you as somebody who is hunting their heels. Most of these guys think of you as that 33% that they want to work with and lift up, that they want want to help, that they want to encourage. You’re in the 33% that if you choose to, you have somebody sticking their hand back and saying, “Here, catch up with me.” They’ve seen it a 100 times. They have actually been in your shoes. These mentors will put that hand back there 100 times and out of 100 times maybe only had one guy grab it and pull themselves forward. Most people misunderstand the thought process of seek wise counsel. Seek wise counsel simply means this, reach forward and grab the hand. Unfortunately, what most people interpret seeking counsel as grab the hands of those around you. Savvy?
Good Mentors
And The Crabby Truth
Now I want to tell you an interesting factual story. While you are reading this story that I’m going to share with you, I want you to envision this in your mind. It will become very clear to you what it is that I’m describing, what I’m talking about. It’s a super useful tool for you to decide in your conversations with those around you if they’re your peers or if they’re your mentors. If you’re familiar with crab traps, crab traps are a really interesting thing. Crab traps, you know, a typical box like the shape of a dice has six sides. A crab trap only has five. It’s completely open on the sixth side. Down in the bottom of the crab trap is a little cage that’s wired to the bottom of the crab trap exactly opposite of the open side.
Can you envision this? A steel wired cage. It’s about three-foot wide in both directions and four-foot tall; completely open on one side. On the bottom of the crab trap as you’re looking in the open side is a little cage that’s less than 10 inches square wired to the bottom of that trap. Also, when you look down, there are weights attached to the bottom of the trap. Inside of that little cage, they stuff bread crumbs or loaves or chunks of bread depending on water current, regardless, bait is stuffed into the small cage. Fishermen throw the crab trap over the edge of the boat where it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. What is interesting is that a single crab will make its way into this trap and get to the bait.
Another crab will then recognize that a fellow crab found the bait. The second crab will follow, and more, and more, and more follow to a point where lots of crabs are in this trap now fighting to get to the bottom. All of these crabs are scrambling to get to the bread. However, long ago the bread was already consumed by the first few crabs, but people still follow. Pardon me, oops. Crabs still follow because they believe in their heart, they think that there’s bait down there. You walking by as a crab, see this happening. You watch your family go into the trap. You watch your siblings go into the trap. You watch your best friends go into the trap. Everybody’s tell
ing you, “There’s bait. Come on, follow us.” You follow as well. You don’t even think about it. Most people, probably including you, are in the trap before they ever even realize they’re born into this trap, and then something incredible happens. Your eyes are opened. You realize that what everyone’s fighting for doesn’t exist there. If you’re going to find it, you have to go in another direction. It is at that revelation that you begin to climb out of the trap.
Crabs are fascinating though, when the crabs who feel like they’re working to help each other get to the bottom of the trap, see you going the other way, they grab onto you and pull you back down into the trap. In fact, crabs will completely pull apart another crab trying to escape the trap. They will kill a crab that is trying to leave the trap before they’ll let it leave. Isn’t that fascinating? We, as individuals in this world, we’re looking around at all of the people sitting on all sides of us, and we think of them as our family, as our friends, as our peers, and they are. Their intentions for you on some level are true, loving, and from a place of a desire for you to succeed. Unfortunately if you try to crawl out of the trap, watch what happens “for your own good.”
As you’re trying to climb out, you’ll say, “Hey, I got this idea. There’s this thing I’ve been thinking about. There’s this book I just read. There’s this concept that I just started listening to, and I really think that it’s fire. I want to pursue it.” Inevitably, you’ll have someone speak into your life, “Look, I think you should just play it safe. I think you should just be careful. I don’t know. You have a really good job. You have retirement; you have pension. You have all these good things going for you. I think you should just stay right where you are. Make the right decision.” Wink, nod, and smile. You can see outside of the trap. You recognize it. There’s a great big ocean and a lot more opportunity than this one little spot of bread. And you want out.
Inside of that crab trap, stop looking at yourself as as crab, and start looking at yourself as yourself standing in the middle of a bunch of crabs. Now, think in your life, who are those crabs standing around you? Who are the people that you’ve gone to and asked, “What about this? What about that? Could we do XYZ?” What have their responses been? Now, look up. Look to that 33% that Tai talked about, that mentor percentage, and see them standing on the edge of the trap with their hand extended down to you saying, “I believe you can get out of this.” Make the decision to reach up and take their hand. Every single crab around you is going to latch onto you and try to hold you down. They will try to trap you and keep you where you’re “safe.” This is why you need a why. As you’re seeking that wise counsel from true entrepreneurs, true businessmen, true investors, people who are standing outside of the trap themselves allow your why to focus your vision. Do not stay, hustling amongst the crabs to get out, but reach for the people that have a proven track record to succeed. Reach up and grab their hands.
This is what my information is all about. This is why I started the podcast. This is why we started mentoring and coaching people to begin with, because to my wife and I it felt as though we came out of hiding. We just did us. We just built companies. We just sprinted. We weren’t thinking about, I’m going to sprint and build a social media following. This is why at the time of the writing of this book, I have less than 1,000 followers on Instagram. As we push and drive ahead, I expect that to increase. People will recognize me as someone standing at the top rung of the trap sticking my hand out saying, “I’ll help you if you’re genuine about getting out of the trap. If you can successfully tell me your why. If your why is real and tangible, and if it is attached to your heart.” If I can feel your sincerity in what you’re saying to me, myself, and just a handful of other true thought leaders will gladly extend our hand to you and pull you right out of the trap. We will show you that path. We will teach you what to look for as you’re climbing out. It’s amazing.
The people who are stuck in trap around you cannot see reality. The ones who were telling you, “No, no, no, no. Don’t try to go against the norm!” When you get out and they think you have found your own trap; they will follow you. Instead of trying to hold you back, they will seek after you. First you must break free from the crab trap.
In essence, the first part of this crab trap analogy, you are being able to recognize the people around you for who they are. Are they fellow crabs trying to trap you and hold you in the trap? Or are the people around you the one’s standing up on the lip of the trap with their hand down trying to help you navigate safely to the vast open waters of opportunity? Or are they the people that relentlessly are digging to the bottom, the ones that will never look up? The same ones that think they are just living the hand that they have been dealt. Categorizing those people in your own mind so that you can associate them appropriately and proportionality will give you a new clear perspective to who is there to help and who maybe isn’t. Savvy?
In a Box!
Elementary Mentors
The next section is about the type of mentors that you want to seek. I think that there are several different avenues that people choose to go in relation to mentors. Based on your view of success and what that might be, your view-set in that space will dictate where you can find the most effective mentors. For example, for me initially, without a lot of money and with very limited resources as far as where I lived, it was difficult to find a true mentor. I lived in a small town in north central Missouri. Born and raised in Brookfield, Missouri, population 4444. Inside of that little community, there were some successful people. However, there weren’t very many successful people that would take the time to mentor a snot nosed teenage brat, like yours truly. Someone that wasn’t very studious. I didn’t get good grades. I wasn’t a great example to my peers, I consistently got into a lot of trouble, created a lot of mischief, and barely graduated high school. Not just because I only graduated with a 1.9 GPA, but also because it seemed like regularly I was venturing down to the high school principal’s office.
So, in and out of all of that, there were only a few people that chose to speak positively into my life. Few people genuinely took the time not just to talk at me, but to speak to me. Every single person reading this book can think of at least one person who has tried to help you along this journey we call life. They’ve given you nuggets. They’ve guided you based on your feedback to discover who you are and who they know you as a person to be. The potential that they see in you steers their conversations. They’ve spoke those positive nuggets into your life. One of the things that grandpa always said to me was, “Lad, in this world, you have to walk with your eyes open.” What’s so great is the absolute infinite amount of situations this statement relates. The way time works and operates for us is this, just because you weren’t walking through those parts of your life thinking on that specific day, “Someday I’m gonna be rich. Someday I’m gonna be an entrepreneur.” You can still look back and glean nuggets from the people who have been speaking into your world.
For me at my fathers funeral, as I was being passed from family member to family member in an unending rotation. My grandfather latched onto me and said, “I’m going to take care of you. I will be there. I will never let you go.” Basically, he was my most stable advisor until he passed away when I was 36 years old. So, for 30 years of my life, this man was one of my greatest mentors, one of my greatest teachers. He over the years was actively teaching me about life, relationships, family, and business. I didn’t realize the weight of his wisdom at the time. I didn’t think at the time, “Hey, this guy is teaching me how to think like a millionaire. This guy is teaching me how to think like a successful business person. This guy is teaching me how to communicate and negotiate on purpose and on fire with a focus on my objectives.” You have that person too, you have those people, those family members that are stable advisors. You have educators that are trying to guide you to the next level.
When my dad died, I had a teacher in the first grade. Her name was Mrs. Moore. I’ll never forget Mrs.
Moore! That woman showed me so much compassion and love as a first grader as well as throughout my life. It showed me the difference that I could feel from first grade having Mrs. Moore as a teacher, to my second grade teacher that didn’t recognize me for what I had been through. This second grade teacher didn’t cut me any slack because of the tragedy. In her classroom she had big cardboard boxes that were designed to sit on top of a troublemaker’s desk. These dividers were places to focus the troublemaker. I couldn’t see the people around me and wouldn’t be distracting to the class. Quite literally, I got to live in the box. Alienating me did not help my social skills. In fact, the other kids didn’t understand. They just thought I did not have it all together. Maybe the other kids thought I was a little crazy from losing my dad. I am not certain their thoughts of my behavior, but I am pretty sure they weren’t very positive.
I wish that from a place of integrity I could tell you that I was a good student, a hard worker, an athlete, or even a very good friend. I just wasn’t any of those things. I had been shattered, I was already a bit hyper and mischievous prior to my fathers death. As I rose from the deepest depression you can ever imagine, I emerged a new little person. A rebellious almost antagonistic eight year old with zero fears. You see I couldn’t at the time have articulated what I was feeling clearly. Only in the last fifteen or so years could I have retroactively explained what I had felt. No one knew how to handle me, and everyone seemed to take different approaches. I didn’t know how the adults in my life could have communicated with me in a manner that would have been beneficial. I can only tell you the ones that were the most successful in the end were the ones that approached me from a place of love and understanding.
Savvy Page 4