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Glenn Mattson
Welcome back, everyone. Welcome to Building Blocks of Success. Today is season Four, Episode Six where we're going to be taking a look at mentors. Mentorship is an integral part of leadership and personal growth and is not a casual interaction. It's a key element of leadership and deserves a fair amount of our attention. Let me share what I mean. When we look at leadership, sometimes we're looking at things like supervision, coaching, training, mentoring, right sales development, among some other things. Yet, when we look at those five or six different roles within sight of leadership, there's only one based on authority, and that's supervision. The others are based on relationships. You know, training imparts awareness and knowledge. That's what training does. Coaching is really about, are they applying that awareness in knowledge, the right way in the real-world environment, that that's really what coaching is all about. Right? Yes, a teaching coaching, a tactical coaching, mindset, etc. Still, coaching is filling in the gaps of day-to-day life by applying what they've learned through their training in the day to day lives, then we have mentoring. Now, mentoring is a very, very interesting process. It goes way beyond training and coaching. It's really understanding how someone thinks, how they approach challenges, why they react the way they do in certain circumstances. It's a journey of shared perspectives and a journey of shared experiences when we really look at our ability to be a good mentor.
Glenn Mattson
So, let's take a look at really what I think is a mentor in the process and how to be a good mentee. There are a couple of things that we can talk about when it comes to this process. So, the first is when we look at a mentor and a mentee, there are two parties that are involved in this; there's a mentor, who's the one that's actually giving the advice, and the mentee is the one who's actually having the advice given to them. So, if we take a look at this, there are a couple of rules I just throw at you and there's more to this, but I want you to just take a look at this for a sec. To be considered a mentor, there are a few rules to this. The first rule is that the mentor has to be someone who is actually successful in the role in which they're in.
Glenn Mattson
You don't want to have a mentor someone who hasn't hit the plan in 17 years, right? You don't want to have to mentor someone who is constantly being written up, you don't want a mentor someone who is not successful in their job, right? So, they have to have the ability to be in essence, to be a model. What I mean by being a model is they need to be whatever a winner is within their role. They need to be successful at what they do within their role. The second thing is they have to be someone who utilizes the tools, and the processes in the systems the way they're supposed to be used. So, it's really hard to have a mentor who doesn't buy into the CRM, doesn't follow the sales process or the firm makes excuses on why things aren't getting done. That's not someone you want to take advice from.
Glenn Mattson
It's having the ability to be a model, to do the things that are expected of a person and they excel at what those things are and they utilize the tools, the processes, and the systems that they're supposed to. In essence, they're a model of excellence, and part of what they're going to be doing is sharing their experiences really, on a socialization, which we'll talk about really seeing the curve of the road before the road shows you the curve.
Glenn Mattson
As a mentee, you have to have a few behaviors and beliefs inside your own mind. One is that you're going to have learning agility, learning agility is a desire to say that I am not awesome, right? I have areas for improvement. Learning agility is the curiosity that you need to have that doesn't make you defend what you're currently doing. It doesn't make you defend what you're doing and the results that you're getting. Someone who has the ability to learn agility is really their desire to say, Hey, I may be good, but I know there are better people out there. I know, there's a better way to do this than maybe what I'm doing. I'm successful at what I do. I know there's a better way. So, learning agility is that you're curious, and you have a sense of motivation to get outside your comfort zone. So that's important peace, learning agility, get outside your comfort zone. You're not going to defend what you currently do.
Glenn Mattson
The second one is criticism. As a mentee, you have to understand that any advice, feedback, and interaction that you're getting, in essence, is exactly that it's interaction. It's advice. If you look at the word criticism, and you say, well, that's negative, they're telling me what I'm doing wrong. They're never nice to me. Why do you only bring out the things that aren't working, or what I should have done differently? Criticism is just information that is about things that you didn't do that you should have. Or things that you should have done that you didn't? Maybe things that you should have said that you didn't say, or maybe things that you should not have said that you did say. So, a lot of times criticism is something that people will say, look, I want feedback yet when you start giving them feedback, they defend everything that you're giving them feedback on. That's not a mentee. So, a mentee is someone who is looking for feedback, they're looking for areas for improvement, and they don't have to sugarcoat it.
Glenn Mattson
A good mentee is someone who would, I would say, be right after the play, they would run over and say, Okay, what could have done better, and their mindset is that I have to get outside of my comfort zone. I have to have blind faith and sometimes what the mentor is telling me. Now a good mentor-mentee relationship also has some components to it that I want to share with you. Now, of course, this is not all-encompassing, but there are a few that I want to share.
Glenn Mattson
The first one I want you to write down in your notes, or think about is if you want to have a relationship with somebody in your office, etc. It has to be mutually beneficial. Let me explain what I mean because some people like to do how is it benefiting a mentor to have a mentee do well? Well, it depends if you're on teams and if you're in uncertain areas. But you know, a lot of executives will be seen as how many people did you mentor? How many people did you help grow not because you were told to but because you wanted to? That just shares and shows you a different type of leader.
Glenn Mattson
Mutually beneficial means that your mentor gets as much excitement out of your success as you do. You may say how's that mutually beneficial? It is because many of them are reliving part of their experience and part of their lives through you. So, the mutual benefit is they do get excited when you win because, in their mind, they helped you win. It's an exciting juice for them. If you want to be a good mentor, a good mentor, it gets just as good, just as much excitement enjoy out of someone else being their best version of themselves than just them.
Glenn Mattson
The second part, the second piece for this is a mutual agreement. What I mean by mutual agreement is that it is our purpose here to give advice. You don't have to take it as a mutual agreement that if I give you advice or we talk about it, you're going to take action is the mutual agreement that I'm not here to hurt you. So, we have to make sure that we're both on the same page about the mere fact that it's two people trying to help one person become better in their professional career.
Glenn Mattson
Now, you may ask yourself, A. What does it do for you? Now, some companies have mentorship programs very structured. They get together on a monthly basis or quarterly basis. They have objectives, they have a scorecard. They have action plans, etc. I have found my best mentors, which I've had a fair amount in my professional career. We're not ones that were formed by somebody else. Mine weren't just paired randomly together. They were genuine and had respect for each other. There was a massive amount of trust. There's a strong connection between the mentee and the mentor.
Glenn Mattson
I was lucky enough to have my brother who has been very successful in this business be a great mentor, but I also had someone phenomenal throughout my career at different points. He's a peer of mine is a colleague, Bill Bartlett. Now, Bill has guided me through lots of challenges, coaching me on strategic moves, helping me find my sea legs underneath me, and it's from a coaching standpoint, entrepreneurial development. Yet, there are some important things about Bill and Dave too. But for now, Bill has successfully done what I was trying to do.
Glenn Mattson
He was someone who had wisdom and experience in the field, he was like a guiding light for me. I want you to realize that there was a relationship there. I knew that Bill, the advice he was giving me, things he was sharing with me, were what I needed to hear at that moment in time. I would also share with you that there was a heightened level of trust. If Bill suggested I should do something, or I should say something, or act in a certain way. I knew deep down inside, that he would never ask me to do something in a direction and I wouldn't even say asked me to but right we would have a conversation that would become my own idea something that he believed with every ounce of his body I could do. He was helping me become the best version of myself. He was also making sure that I stayed away from the lineman through the line landmines that were out there, he had helped me understand strategy inside of large corporations, who had immensely helped me with equal business stature.
Glenn Mattson
So, when we look at this, we have to remember that as a mentor, you don't tell people what to do. That's a trainer. The mentor does not tell you what you need to hear, right? Or a lot of times they don't even tell you what you want to hear. What they share with you is what you're ready to hear at the time of where you are and what you need to hear the most. It doesn't mean it's going to be comfortable. It doesn't mean it's going to be nice, it’s their job to give us the amount of information that we can handle at the right time so that we can make a difference in our projection in terms of our trajectory.
Glenn Mattson
A mentor not only shares wisdom, but they open doors of opportunities that you may not have seen in your own. They give you the key takeaways, how to invest your time, and how to make sure a better payoff balance is in your life. So, I wanted to make sure everyone realizes the importance of having a good mentor.
Glenn Mattson
I coach, or work with, you know, well over 15,000 entrepreneurs and in all stages of entrepreneurial development. At all levels of success, right, some have a two or $3 million business, and some people have 100 200 $300 million business. We shoot sweet spot, right around that 20 to $80 million. When we look at this, most of those individuals will tell you, if they were lucky if they had somebody, and they will tell you how influential that person was, as a mentor. What starts to happen that's exciting, is that and this is something I want to I want everyone listening in to hear. If you're a mentee, and you're looking for someone for a little bit of mentorship. Almost every entrepreneur that I know, is self-made, that worked hard to get to where they are, I don't know one of them that wouldn't share their journey, or help someone else not make the same mistakes that they made in their journey.
Glenn Mattson
So, I don't want anyone listening in to think that you can't go out and ask for a mentor and ask for help. Many people, are the ones that can help you. It's called EBS, which is equal business stature. Many of them would walk over to themselves and where they are right now, right, their 20-year-old version of themselves would walk over and say, Hey, do you mind if I buy a cup of coffee? I'd love to have a conversation with you about how you got to where you are. The mentor will look at the mentee and say, Okay, do they have the same values? As I do? Do they have the same work ethic as I do? And if the answer is yes, that relationship can start to take hold pretty quickly.
Glenn Mattson
Now, again, I was lucky enough to have Bill. He helped me understand how to create a coaching practice, and how to look at building my practice in a much different manner than I was doing it before. I will tell you, there are times that you and I would go out and more times it will be at one of our annual meetings, right? We go see each other face to face, and we go out for sushi and we'd have a conversation. I’d always go back into my room afterward and sit down and think for two or three hours about what we just talked about. I knew inside of what he was sharing, there were glimpses of gold. Part of it was my job is to figure out in essence, what are some of the things he was mentioning or saying to do. See, we have to realize mentor is not a good mentor who does not talk a lot.
Glenn Mattson
A good mentor does not tell you a lot. A good mentor doesn't say you should or shouldn't do this. Those aren't. That's not what a mentor's job is. It's more of a trainer. Mentors, the ones that will give you the availability by asking questions will help you discover your O's. See, a great mentor will share things with you so that you don't see your blind spots. For instance, one of them said to me is Well, Glenn, let's just suppose this takes off. This happens. What's the build-out of your firm if you accomplish half of what you're trying to accomplish?
Glenn Mattson
I was ready for it. So, we're going to do this when hiring is going to take a look at this. Bill who's already been through that as two more questions and I sat back and said I'm looking at this wrong RNA. I was looking at how to build something for today versus what he was trying to share with me is if I build something for today, I'm going to have to change it tomorrow, and then change it again tomorrow. So why wouldn't I want to build tomorrow? Just the version of it today. As I started to think differently, what I thought could be in where I could be in where my practice could be changed a lot.
Glenn Mattson
So, the power of a mentor is immense and if you take a look at mentorships, and some of the areas that I can highlight here, like for instance, career advancement, right career advancements huge for for mentoring and mentors, it'll tell you that 75% of all executives will turn around and give credit that having a mentor as part of their development was one of the keys for their success. 75% will tell you that job satisfaction is another huge one. Right? The Association for Talented Talent Development found that employees who receive mentoring were twice as satisfied in their careers and more engaged at work.
Glenn Mattson
So, career advancement satisfaction, what about leadership development? Right? 84% of every CEO will say, I've had a mentor and they were crucial to my development as a leader. So, leadership development, is another big one, how about entrepreneurial success? They that five times more, to likely start a business and be successful. Oh, those individuals that have mentors, right, either success, successful entrepreneur roles. Now, we talked about advancements in job satisfaction. What about employee retention?
Glenn Mattson
You know, corporate leadership alliance will tell you that those who receive mentoring are five times more off five times. Right? Continue to continue and have higher retention rates. So, we're talking about higher retention, better satisfaction, climbing up the ladder faster, and being better at leadership development is all because of mentoring. Well, what about if we get into a diversity inclusion, which is big in a fair amount of places right now that if you just take a look at for instance, from a gender standpoint, women who have mentors are more likely to ask for age raises, and they're more likely to move into leadership, and there are a lot more likely to move up the ladder of leadership with mentors.
Glenn Mattson
Now, if you look at it again, as we talked about satisfaction development and retention, Applied Psychology will tell you that employees who receive mentoring increase their job performance by 100%. Right 100% More than those who didn't have mentoring. So, there's a lot of stuff that can happen because of mentoring succession next levels, the financial impact, right skill retention is through the roof. I mean, look at it. A couple of things that you may want to ask yourself. If you're a mentor or mentee, let's do a couple of questions real quick. The first is, if it's you're looking at a mentor, do you trust them? Do you trust that they have there that they have your best interest at heart? Number two, are they respected? Are they fouled in the people? Who are your mentors? Are they listened to? Too they have credibility?
Glenn Mattson
Next one, is it more about them telling you their history and telling you how good they were? Or do they spend more time asking questions? When you look at a mentor, a mentor will do about 30% of the talking and they listen 70 80% of the time. Because they're asking good questions.
Glenn Mattson
The other piece about being a good mentor is you have to care. Let me tell you what I mean by that. To have a good relationship between a mentor and a mentee, you're going to have to share things with the mentee that they may not want to hear. What I mean by that is, is that if you're going to share with somebody a concern or an issue that's impacting somebody, then we're not looking for one-offs. Hey, you shouldn't have said that to that person. Right? Okay. It's fine. That's okay, that's more coaching. But what we're looking for is patterns, patterns that create ripples. So, for instance, if you have someone that you're mentoring and they just see everything from a selfish standpoint, they always put themselves first. Yeah, they don't understand why they don't have team loyalty.
Glenn Mattson
Well, sometimes holding the mirror up to somebody so they can see reality is not a job that many people like. As a mentor, sometimes the mentor's greatest strength is making sure the mentee sees what reality is not the rosy glasses of what they believe reality is. Sometimes, you may have your mentee say that some pretty harsh conversations we're having right now, but if you love somebody, if you want them to be your best version, if you're looking really to help develop somebody, you don't work on the easy stuff. You work on the patterns of things that are the biggest rocks that are holding them back. Granted, you're going to work on some easy stuff to get the wins. But do not forget about working on the big stuff.
Glenn Mattson
You guys have to be the right fit for you and your journey towards success. So are they devoted to you? Do they have the time for you? Will they give you the advice that you're looking for versus telling you to remember, if I if someone just tells you, that's amazingly powerful for that moment in time? But if you don't understand the pattern, if you don't understand how to make the right decision next time, that means the next time the scenario happens, you're not going to know how to pull the trigger. Because someone else told you last time what to do. But if you learned because of the environment, if you learn because of these scenarios, this is what I'm supposed to do. Now that's repeatable.
Glenn Mattson
So when you look at your ability to have a mentorship relationship, I would say to all of you, regardless of your age, regardless of your tenure, and, regardless of the position that you're in, go find somebody inside the organization who is higher up the food chain than you are, they will have, again, doing it politically, you may want to have the right people that make decisions about your future being those that are mentoring you That's all fine. Sometimes having a mentor that's not even in your division is great. Sometimes hiring a coach to help you with that is fantastic. But if you're a mentee and you're young, don't be uncomfortable, do not be embarrassed, realize that almost everyone is successful, work their butt off to get there. If they believe that you're going to work as hard, and you're going to take the same risks, and you're looking for help, and they know what that journey will look like when they first get started even better. If they had someone helping. That was a mentor, they're much more apt to help.
Glenn Mattson
So when you look at it, as a mentor, take it very seriously. Make sure you have a good upfront contract with your mentee about what are the rules of the road. What are you allowed or not allowed to do? How far can you push or not push? What are the areas we're going to talk about or not talk about? How do you want me to handle if you're pushing back at me and you have bravery issues? Yet you think it's a lack of competency and you're just afraid? Do you have to have chats about what are kind of the rules of the road between both of you?
Glenn Mattson
I asked the people that asked me to be their mentor. How do you want me to handle something when I see it, you may not want to hear it. How do you want me to handle something that if I start bringing it up and you're defending it, that means you're not ready to hear it, but it's still having a negative impact? What do you want me to do? If we have a conversation and you agree to some action items, yet you don't do them in between our calls? What are the things that are the ground rules? Of course, what are the things that you're trying to work on? I always find when mentor mentees come to me. They say I would like to work on these three things.
Glenn Mattson
Those are really never the real problem. And when if I asked someone who just calls us up and says hey, can I have a conversation with a peer or someone who's a little below us? I have a mentor relationship with you. They don't realize I'm putting a lot of time and energy and effort of mine into your success. And I get very excited when you become successful. I have one individual Brandon, what a great great, great person. He has goals. He's being coached. He has, he has hit his 2027 goals this year and 23 is moving faster than his plan calls for he's accomplishing great things. He's knocking down everything that he should be doing just in a faster manner and at a very high success rate.
Glenn Mattson
So when he shared with me an email that was coming from his Managing Partner, congratulating him on a new position within the firm, and showed all the accolades of the things that he's done the last two years to earn it. He wanted to pass it on to me to say, Hey, I'm very humbled, but I wanted to share with you as being my coach, this is the outcome of the work that we've done. You have to realize I'm on an airplane ran from a meeting, sat in traffic at the airport, basically ran to the airport and barely made my plane, I'm sitting down, I'm exhausted, tired, the whole thing. And that's fine as the choices I make, I'm not complaining. But when I read the email, and then the text that he sent me.
Glenn Mattson
I want everyone who was a mentee to hear this, it made my day to hear and read that Brandon got to this phase of his professional life based on a lot of the stuff that we were doing together. His success was mine. Not because I was part of it is because I was helping these individuals achieve their best version of themselves. So, if you can find a mentor who has just as much excitement in your success as you do, they're invaluable. But remember, they have to fit those criteria, they must be a model, they have to follow the process. They have to be very gifted in whatever you're asking to work on. You have to be truthful, you have to ask a lot more questions and tell.
Glenn Mattson
As a mentee, you have to be ready to take the advice has to be ready to take the information that someone's giving you. You have to take it with kid gloves and treat it as if it's a real holiday present, Hanukkah, Christmas, whatever, it is a gift. If you take that gift, with the right respect, they will keep giving. So look inside your agency, look inside your firm look inside your place of work. And who is someone that is where you want to be? Who is someone that you would consider yourself an X number of years from now, walk right up to that individual. If you know him, great if you don't introduce yourself, but there's nothing wrong with saying I have a passion for being the best version of myself, and how to be an Excel within my role at work.
Glenn Mattson
I've noticed that you are a to-be model of what I'm trying to become. And if you're open to it, I would love to talk with you about you being a mentor. And me being a mentee. Is that something that you would even contemplate? Is that something that you would pursue? Is that something that you would like to have a tough conversation about? I always found again, those that who are successful, do not mind helping others who are willing to do the work to be successful. Because it gives them great joy. As a mentee, you don't take it personally and you look for the advice. It's amazing what can happen.
Glenn Mattson
I've gotten advice on dealing with very large clients, very large opportunities, very large nightmares and fires that had to be put out personnel issues, etc. Each time I was ready, my mentors were ready to give me advice. And when I wasn't ready, there were two of my mentors who wouldn't let the conversation go until I saw what they heard and saw what they saw. And that's a pretty powerful person because it's easier for them just to say alright, he doesn't want to hear it yet. My brother David, in my mid-30s I thought I had a trait that was making me successful, but that trait overexposed was becoming a weakness and I didn't see it. I still remember he and I were down in Cape Cod with our families. And the kids were in the in the water and he and I were just walking down towards the beach and he turned to me and he flat out said what the problem was and I looked at the beach and I was ready he'd be defensive.
Glenn Mattson
He said, you know, I know it's done you well. But do you think it's having a positive or a negative impact on you currently? And I started to defend those feelings that I had, I started to defend what he was giving me advice on or bringing up as a pattern. When he paused and said, Hey, why don't we have a conversation that doesn't start with defending it? Let's just start with being curious and talking about it. And once I get past my defense, he was 100%. Right. And that took an immense amount of courage to come over and have a conversation with me. So he wasn't doing it for him. He was doing it because he saw and noticed that that pattern wasn't going to bode well, in one or two years. And he was strong enough to come over and confront it with me. That's a phenomenal mentor. So, as I leave this podcast, I want you to realize the power that comes from mentors and mentees. I've had numerous extremely influential mentors. And they've been with my journey the entire time. You know David is one of them. And as I mentioned before, Bill Bartlett has been very influential in my professional career.
Glenn Mattson
So, when you're out there looking around, and you're newer in the market, I highly suggest you find a mentor, find someone who has become or has accomplished what you're looking to do. And they will help you socialize there faster. When I was in my early 20s, my first manager, in essence, was my boss, Mark. I remember Mark bringing me out and I had no idea what the hell he was doing. I honestly thought he was bringing me to play golf with his friends. So he wouldn't feel guilty that he was playing golf, I take the only sales guy he has with him, and therefore he doesn't feel guilty. But what Mark was doing was a stroke of brilliance. You he was socializing Lent, a country kid from Connecticut.
Glenn Mattson
Money is different in Connecticut than it was in New York, the amount of money is the comfort of money talking about it. So, Mark would bring me to go play golf with his friends. Like, remember 2829 30 years old, right? 27 years old. And we're playing golf and I remember Jeff one of his friends talking about this again, this is 30-some-odd years ago talking about how we just spent 120 $325,000 on redoing his kitchen. And I'm listening to him complain one hole to another but the cabinets and the countertops and, and there was nothing wrong with the kitchen, I just had to have something done. And next thing you know, you do do the counters. Next, you're going to get into the cabinets. So of course you got to get a new, new floor. If you're going to do that you might as well get some new appliances while hell if you going to do that you might as well just move around the kitchen. So, all of a sudden,
he was talking about his project $140,000 And his friend right next to him was laughing because he just spent 80,000 in a walking closet. And I'm sitting there going.
Glenn Mattson
Mike's first home isn't worth 140,000. They spent more money in their kitchen than I did in my house. It wasn't about them gloating. It was about Mark sharing with me that the perception of money is conceptual. That I thought a lot of money was way different than how others think a lot of money is. And what I would choke on as a lot of money was things that they wouldn't even hesitate to write a check for. So, I needed to expand my money tolerance. And without realizing it, Mark was doing a great job and increasing my money tolerance. He was also doing a great job showing me and sharing with me that these exceedingly wealthy, exceedingly successful entrepreneurs were no different than anyone I've ever met in my life. They still had the same type of kids, they still had dogs and cats. They still had husbands and wives, they still had people not doing what they should be they still had people right putting their dishes in the sink but not in the dishwasher. They had all the same issues everybody else had. They just had a bigger pocketbook, and that started to help me increase my equal business stature because I started to realize deep down aside, they are no different, besides the fact that they run big businesses, and have different levels of stress. That made me very comfortable at 2526 27, sitting down with people who are twice my age, and making a significant amount of money. It also made me feel subconsciously comfortable talking, and six, seven figures where previously anything over 100 hours would get me nervous, there's a lot of money.
Glenn Mattson
So, you're going to have mentors in your life, find them, go and get some, you're going to find some mentors aren't great, in some respects, honestly, you're going to learn lessons from them too, and what not to be right. But if you're younger, go find somebody. If you're more tenured, and you see someone who has what you were when you were younger, they have the same values they same, they have the same attitudes, they have the same work ethic. Nothing wrong with bringing that individual out, having a bite to eat, and saying, so tell me a little bit about what's going on in your life. Tell me a little bit about what you're struggling with. If you are a mentor, and you're looking for a mentee, a lot of times you don't want to ask questions in the first or second person, right, you should be let me tell you what I did. Those are not the best places to start a relationship. You do everything in the third person. And I don't know about you, but an awful lot of times when you're first getting into management, especially when the people you're managing are your peers. A lot of times your head will tell you what you should be doing. But your belly button tells you something different you are experiencing the same thing. That's how a good mentor will ask questions. I asked the third person, so you have more trust and affiliation to answer it honestly.
Glenn Mattson
So, moving forward, I want you to take a Building Blocks of Success is finding mentors, building blocks of success, having mentors in your life. Building Blocks of Success is also being a mentor to others. Having the capacity to share the journey that you've done, and you'll be happily surprised by helping others you're going to be reliving some of the best things that you've done in your own personal and professional life.
Glenn Mattson
So, as we move on to the next episode of building blocks of success, take a look at mentorship and find the power that comes from having a great mentor and the satisfaction that comes from being a great mentor. I'll talk with you soon.
Glenn Mattson
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
S3E11 with Glenn Mattson: How to Network Effectively