Episode Transcript

Eric: 0:00

That's the wrong question. You cannot find the perfect mentor. There is no such thing as the perfect mentor, nor do you need the perfect mentor. That is the problem. So what you said right there is the biggest fallacy that's in the world of mentoring.

Cody: 0:22

Welcome to the MindHack podcast. I'm your host, Cody McLain. And today we're talking about the impact that a mentor can have on your life. our guest today is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Georgetown university. Professor Eric Custer, the founder of Manuscripts, a platform that has been instrumental in transforming the landscape of writing and publishing. Eric also holds the prestigious title of Entrepreneurial Educator of the Year. Bestowed upon him by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of the influential book, Super Mentors, the ordinary person's guide to asking extraordinary people for help. A work that challenges conventional wisdom on mentorship and provides a fresh strategic perspective on achieving success in today's competitive landscape. Throughout this episode, we'll delve into Eric's remarkable journey. Unravel profound insights on mentorship, entrepreneurship, and the evolving landscape of education. Without further ado, please welcome Eric Kuster. It's a pleasure to have you.

Eric: 1:28

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to dive in and, lots of different things to go here today, so I'm looking forward to it. Should be fun.

Cody: 1:35

Yeah, and so I'd love, to start out on this concept of mentors. I think it's something a lot of people know and that they've heard about. Why is this? Even more important of a discussion now than maybe it was 10, 20 years ago, who needs a mentor and how can we go about getting one?

Eric: 1:53

Yeah. So it's interesting. You know, I think the first thing to know is that the concept of, of a mentor is something that people, no matter whether it's true or not, they believe it matters. And so around 80 percent of people, when you ask them, they believe is having a mentor is critical for, uh, success in their lives and their career. So people believe it. Yet on the other side of it's really interesting, like less than a third of people have a mentor, so there's this disconnect, right? Like people know it's important or they believe it's important and yet they don't have one. And so for me, this actually started out originally as a bit of a, personal, quest. I was in between sort of, I just left a company that had exited, that I started and I was moving into something else. And I was trying to figure out like what I wanted to do next. So I, you know, I teach at Georgetown and I just said to myself, you know what? I'm just going to do a bunch of mentoring and do whatever it was. So, um, I, it was funny enough. I was, talking to a good friend of mine and he was asking me what, what was I doing? And I told him like. Well, I'm gonna do some mentoring. And he literally turned in kind of a very offhanded way. And he said, do you know if you're any good at it? And I thought like, am I good at mentoring? Like I, I never thought about it. Right. But I said, well, of course, right. Like people want to talk to me about it. So therefore I must be good. Right. Kind of this interesting way. But the truth is, is it sort of stuck with me. I kept thinking about it as like, Am I good at mentoring? And so I thought a lot about it. I was like, well, I should figure out if I'm any good at mentoring. Right. People come to me for advice and mentorship, but am I any good? So I decided to run this little experiment and I said, all right, for the next three, four months, anyone who wants to meet with me about anything mentoring related about their lives, about their startup, about their business, their career. I'll take it and I'll do the meeting and I'll do a great meeting. And then I was going to do to figure out if I was any good is when I would give them advice. I would give them a little homework of what to go do with this advice and then told them to come back and tell me what they learned. So this is what my goal was. So over those next four months, I did 81 meetings with people. it was the first kind of mentoring meeting and on every one of them at the end of it, you know, I prepared for it. I thought about it. I was really, really intentional. About how I could help them. I said, all right, now go and blank, whatever this blank was, do something. And then I'm happy to do a followup meeting when I hear how it went, what you learned, what those things were. And, uh, and then I waited. And after six months later, I looked and I said, let me look to see how I did. And I was shocked of those 81 meetings. Zero of them came back for a followup meeting. And I thought to myself, like. I'm the worst mentor in the world, literally the worst mentor. And what it got me thinking about is like, why, what was going on behind it? And I started to kind of like unpack this one. And once I had this insight, I said, I've got to figure out what it takes to become an exceptional mentor. I want to be a better mentor to people. So I went on, started studying people and I studied, hundreds and hundreds of the world's best successful people. The, you know, the Steve jobs, the, you know, Sheryl Sandbergs, the, you know, everyone that I could Find to learn about their mentoring experiences, and I will try to understand what was the process that they went through to basically unlock the power of mentorship. And I realized something very, very staggering from that research is that most of us think that mentoring is about getting advice to help us. Make decisions. Here's what your advice is. Truth of the matter is, is that we don't need more advice. There's amazing pockets of advice out there on the internet, on YouTube, on podcasts like yours. The reality is what we need from mentors is opportunities. And once I started to get into it, I realized that it's not anymore about giving this smart person saying, here's what you should do. Instead, it's that person who opens a door for us. They give us an opportunity. They move our resume, the stack, they make an introduction and really like modern mentorship is not about advice. It's about opportunities. And when you start to realize that's what's going on, you see things differently. So, yes, 80 percent of people believe mentors are important because they think that that person is going to open that door, help them get that introduction to an investor, whatever it is. But the reason that so few people have them is they have a first meeting with a mentor like me, and it doesn't undo that. It's just advice telling you what to do. And so we drop it. And that's where I saw like there's a disconnect out there. And it started to say, how could we redefine mentorship? And what it is is you don't need a mentor. You want this person that we call the super mentor. And I've been fortunate to have six of them in my life at least. And that's what it is. So the modern approach to mentorship is very different. And I think quite frankly, it's very, very powerful. Like all these hyper successful people have mentors, but they don't really have a mentor. They have a super mentor and understanding how to unlock that is the key.

Cody: 6:27

so what is the difference between a regular mentor and a super mentor?

Eric: 6:32

Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to sort of understand the path that people is. So we kind of think of it as a better, better way to maybe frame it as a casual mentor and someone who is a sort of a super mentor. So in general, when you think about mentorship, we sort of think about this formal mentoring is what the world is. So a long time. You know, we've thought about this idea in the movie is in television of having your formal mentor and so examples of this are Yoda was Luke Skywalker's formal mentor, right? Like, Dumbledore was Harry Potter's formal mentor or Glinda was Dorothy's formal mentor. This idea of there's this person that like. I am your mentor kind of relationship, and there's designed to guide you over a long period of time. We think about this person who kind of puts the head and it's been, you know, it's been embodied in society from like Joseph Campbell's heroes journey. We think of this mentor, and that's really what it is. We have this perception of it. Turns out that's not actually the way that mentorship actually happens. Like we didn't see that actually in the research very often at all. The idea really was slightly different. What we found is that modern mentorship today is about having you. Yeah. A sort of a basket or a bundle of different people that are your casual mentors. So these multiple relationships you have and usually that relationship is built around some kind of a shared project, a shared experience. And what happens is, is when you're going through these shared experiences together, this collaboration stuff, some of them rise to the top and open doors for you. So the better way to frame it in the movie context, it's not like Harry Potter and Dumbledore or Yoda and Luke Skywalker. It's more like Ocean's 11, right? You're Danny Ocean and you build your team of these 10 people. And you use their sort of opportunities, their connections, their guidance on these specific things along the way. So the way I would frame it back to you is you don't need a mentor. You need a project. And that project is where you attract casual mentors. You go through these experiences together, whether it's interviewing them for your podcast, having them be involved in your book, putting on an event together, whatever the thing may be. And then some of those people see how awesome you are. And then they turn into super mentors where they say, Ooh. You're awesome here. Like we should get you to do X. We should have you come here, do this talk. We should get you hired at this place. So it's a very different way to think about mentorship as this formal kind of formal mentor relationship versus having a bunch of casual mentors that again, you teach them or share with them or show how awesome you are through a project. And that leads to the outcomes that you want. That's what leads to super mentoring.

Cody: 8:54

So is it a good analogy to say something like casting out a net and you find people that naturally become interested in what you have to offer and therefore they become. A connection that you can then work with to help accomplish your goal.

Eric: 9:12

Yeah. It's a great way to frame it. It's all about context today. And I think that's the biggest thing is that Most of us, we want help to solve our biggest problems. I want help to get the job I want. I want help to get the customers I want. I want help to get an investor I want. And so you don't just want some general like person to be your mentor. You want tactical help behind it. And so casting and that is a really great analogy. And the way that you do it is you actually, I would even make it more specific. That's not even just a net. It's very laser focused. I'm fishing in this pocket because I know there's these people here and these people and you want to bring them all into the fray so that then when you need their help, they can unlock those opportunities. And that's really the core of it is you want to think about this as sort of having this basket at this bundle of, of people, right? This great group of people around you who are seeing how awesome you are, who are being able to experience. So that then when it comes time to say, Hey, You know, I know, John, that you have a connection here at Oracle, and I'm trying to sell this product. And can you help me? They already know you're awesome. They've already seen this in play. It's they're willing to make that piece for you. So it's not just they want to say that you should go sell to Oracle. They should say, I have seen how awesome you are. I'm going to make this opportunity. That's what makes a mentor. Super.

Cody: 10:26

Do you have any examples either in your book or you personally of having a huge problem solved with a mentor that you found?

Eric: 10:35

Yeah. One of the first stories in the book that I think is a really interesting one. I talk about, an individual named Rahul Rana and, uh, Rahul was someone who his problem was that he wanted to get hired in an industry that's very competitive. So he wanted to get hired in venture capital and venture capital. as many people may know, it's one of the most competitive fields in the world to get hired into. you basically need to have an elite MBA and have worked at some of these, you know, four or five companies and really, really have that one. Plus it's, have your father or mother work in the industry, right? So it's really, really hard to get into. And so when I met Rahul, he came to me, by, uh, you know, shared connection. because I started a venture capital firm. So I started venture capital firm with a bunch of people and, this connection came into me and I met Rahul and when I met Rahul, I would tell you he was very, very ambitious, but he certainly wasn't credentialed in the ways that would play in venture capital. the interesting story about Rahul when I met him, he was a sophomore at Rutgers. And what he told me is, when he was in high school, he had this goal. I'm going to go to a really great school. I'm going to work in startups and I'm going to get. hired at venture capital firm. he applied to 14 colleges, all elite colleges, no safety schools because he knew I would get into one of them. All of them rejected him. And so very last minute he had to scramble and he went to his home state school at Rutgers and Rutgers is a fine school, but it's also not a school that's a pipeline for venture capital. There's not like a lot of people who went to venture, went to Rutgers that he could even talk to. So he found himself sort of stuck and he was thinking, maybe I can, you know, transfer in, or I don't even know what to do, right? Like I'll transfer to a better school and then get an MBA in this whole long. path. And so when he came to me, I said, so what have you been doing? Like, how are you doing? He says, I'm meeting with all these smart people and all of them tell me the same thing. You should get a mentor. And he's like, I've talked to these people, but why don't they be my mentor and the stuff? And I said, here's the thing, Raul, you don't need a mentor. You need a project. And so what Rahul and I cooked up there is to say, you need a project that can attract casual people that can show them how awesome you are without having to do all this other stuff. So you can skip the whole line and get to where you want to go. And I think that's really the biggest piece that fits in all of this one. So what do Rahul do? I said, let's start working on a book. And so we decided to work on a book together. He wrote, started working on this concept of his fascination was these sort of ideas that we call moonshot companies, that the ideas of, the SpaceX is the people who are, you know, reinventing the world. They're mining asteroids. Big, big idea. Companies behind it about longevity and all this stuff. And so he said, that's the kind of stuff that I want to do as a venture capitalist one day. And so what we talked about doing is okay, if you want to write a book about this, making moon shots is what the book title became. Go out and talk to people who are investing in these companies, who are these entrepreneurs. And so we went out and started reaching out to people saying, Hey, Hey, I'm working on this book. Could I talk to you for 10 or 15 minutes about your approach, your philosophy behind it? It wasn't to sort of say, will you be my mentor? It was, will you help me on this project? And so he reached out to lots and lots of people. Some of them never got back to him, right? Okay. But some of them did and they said, yeah, I'd be happy to talk to you. And some of them said, like, I'd be happy to be interviewed or be involved. And so one of those people that he got connected to was actually a guy named Josh Wolf and Josh is a venture capitalist at Lux capital, which for anyone who knows Lux capital is one of the premier venture capital for probably the top five in the world. And what's really funny about that one is I know Josh. And so Rahul said, Hey, I see that, you know, Josh, would you make an introduction? And I said, listen, it's going to be even better. I'm gonna make it so you don't need an introduction to Josh. You're gonna be able to get there on your own. And he did. He basically started building up these interviews, these conversations, and he reached out to Josh and said, Hey, I'm working on this concept. You have 15 minutes. Josh said yes, and then rescheduled on him eight times before he finally got on the call with him for 15 minutes. And they had a conversation about Josh's philosophy. So that's great. That's powerful, but that's not the end of the story because then five months later, Rahul was working on the book and he built a chapter around some of Josh's insights. He sent that chapter to Josh said, Hey, really enjoyed our conversation. I would love to send you kind of what I'm writing up about our conversation. And 30 minutes later, Josh responded back is this is awesome. How can I help? And Rahul says. I really want to work in venture capital. Rahul got hired at Lux Capital for a job that was not being advertised for a job that would only typically go to MBAs from elite schools. And not only that, he got to work with Josh. Fast forward again to a few months later, sort of Rahul was named one of the 29 best venture capitalists in generation Z. And it all happened because he said, I am going to create a project. Attract people to it, and then some of them are going to spit out. And the key thing with Raul is he's not done that yet. Like he's now having these other opportunities. He's working on his own things. So it's not like this was the end, right? He's now working on other stuff with other companies. But a lot of it comes down to that very fact is that everyone told him he needed a mentor. I said, you don't need a mentor. You need a project. And that project attracted, you know, he attracted other people into it. And they literally changed his life. So that's why it works. It works because everything's in context and everything is easy for these casual mentors to do, but it's powerful enough for you. And it proves that you're Epic and awesome and leads to the opportunities that change your life.

Cody: 15:48

Fascinating because everybody is always trying to advertise themselves. People, you can have 100 people apply to a job, but it's really hard to differentiate yourself because we're all thinking inside of this box in terms of how can we make our resume stand out? And then how can we get to the interview phase in which we're going to be scrutinized? To a higher degree than you would otherwise and in this way, it's about trying to attract the people that you want to associate with or you want in your life with some kind of a mutual or external thing of, hey, I'm working on this project and making a small ask like I would love your feedback on this and who isn't willing to offer feedback or advice. And so that's by making a small ask that you can let them know who you are and hopefully they can see the work that you're creating and then that can help spawn and create a relationship that can probably be supersede what you might be able to find even from a job.

Eric: 16:44

what's fascinating about it, even beyond that, like this context too, is I think that like, you know, the example there is okay. Rahul used this one to get an epic job. That's a great story, right? And I think what sometimes people think about is, okay, that's an awesome anecdote. Eric. Rahul is awesome. He had this thing. He worked with you. It's amazing. So kind of that people can sort of Often discount this and say, Okay, like this is an interesting anecdote. But here's where I'll tell you it gets even more interesting. So I wanted to figure out, is this just this kind of thing that exceptional people do? Or is there a pattern that all of us can do? And this is where some of the research that I did really kind of illustrated something for me that helped me say, Every one of us needs to do this, no matter what our own pathway is to do it. And really, like I said, it all comes down to this idea as there is signature content or signature projects that we can do that lead to these outcomes. So the way that I actually tested this is I wanted to find a pool of exceptional people who are in their early stages of their career. And so I went out and started studying, researching the winners of the Forbes 30 under 30 for the last 10 years. And so the 30 list, whatever people think about it, right, wrong or otherwise, it's a pooling of people who've been designated to be exceptional people. Usually they recognize somewhere between about 300 and 600 people per year. and they basically have this panel that helps identify them. So I went out and I took the pool of about 6, 000 or so people from the list. And what I wanted to figure out is like, what was their, what was their story? What happened to them? How did they basically become this designated group of people? And again, there was all these things about, they know people, whatever it was. And so I wanted to figure out like, if that was true, because a lot of people are like, Oh, you have to like. go to these certain schools or have these certain relationships or whatever it is to do it. So the first thing I wanted to figure out is, okay, well, if this group of exceptional 20 somethings, have this advantage, this network advantage, maybe it's because they all go to the most elite schools. And that's their in, right? This thing behind it, like that piece of it turned out that wasn't true. Actually, funny enough, only about 16 percent of the people on the list went to one of the top 10 institutions in the world. So it wasn't that they went to this is great school and therefore they got in the club and they got this next club. Funny enough, there was over 600 schools represented on the list. So it wasn't the school you went to. It suddenly gave you this opportunity. certainly it helped some people, but that wasn't the broader pattern. The second pattern that I wanted to figure out is okay, well, maybe then it's that, you know, you go to a fine undergrad, but then you go to an elite, you know, graduate school, also not true. It turned out that from this list, there was more people on the list who dropped out of college or didn't even go to college than who went to graduate school. So it wasn't that either. And then the last thing I thought about was maybe these people are. They're big risk takers. They're starting companies in college. And then, they get this early advantage. Some of them did start companies in college, but the vast majority of them started something in their mid twenties and beyond. So it's interesting. Like what was the pattern turned out the project? What we found is that 84 percent of them had this signature project, the signature thing. These were people who, you know, they had a day job, but they also put in this event, this event that they were doing became their signature product that attracted casual mentors to become super mentors. Like Rahul, they wrote a book, they did a podcast like you're doing all these people have these things. We identified nine signature pieces of projects or content. We call them signature, content that they created these demonstrations of their excellence that they put out there. And that was really the core. And so what I found is It's not this thing that like you have to do something radical, you just have to do something, right? You have to do this demonstrated project that attracts people. because if you want to stand out and compete, whether it's to start a business, whether it's to get your dream job, or whether it's even just to do something that doesn't have a designated path to it, you want to use this pattern to accelerate and skip steps. Like Rahul would have otherwise had to wait a decade to do all the dues paying, right? Go to this school, then transfer to a better school, then get a graduate degree, then go to these companies. That's 10 years later. He skipped all that because he did a project that used super mentors to get him where he wanted to go. And that's the secret. It's about efficiency with your life, getting you where you want to go fast.

Cody: 20:56

And you talk about having two different types of mentors that you can possibly attract. Can you talk more about that?

Eric: 21:02

Yeah, there's, two types. And I would sort of say, there's one type you do not want, and there's one type that you do. And so the intent determines a little bit of the context. So there's what we call. inspirational mentors. And there's what we call, problem solving mentors. Now, inspirational mentors are typically the ones who give you advice, right? Like I'm going to tell you, I am a success. And therefore, if you be like me, you will be a success. You get advice now that can be helpful. And some people do find that motivations and that kind of mirroring or mapping things certainly helps. But the reality is, is you want a problem solving mentor. You want someone who's Gone through this project onto these things that contextualize with it. So for example, like Rahul, he wanted a problem solving mentor, people who were in the space of venture capital and the space of moonshot companies so that he could build his relationships that way. he doesn't need someone who's like a startup lawyer who once has, you know, worked for the startup. Cause like to inspire them, like you can do it too. Instead he needs someone who can help solve his problem. So that's the way to understand it is you want contextual relationships, someone who is. contextual to what you want to do, to help you solve your problem. So someone who can again, get you hired in those places who can teach you what you need to know, or who can ultimately open those doors and access. And that's really the core of the distinction between the two.

Cody: 22:15

And so how many successful people have mentors? Is it required to have a mentor or in order to find the success that you're looking for,

Eric: 22:23

we don't know. Right. it's one of those interesting things I have. you know, part of the journey for me was I, after I started to realize this, when I went back on my life and started to map out like what it. Who are my mentors? And it's interesting. Like I had, I identified six really critical people in my life that I would just designate based on my definition is super mentors. I'm not sure that if you went out and interviewed them that they would say, yeah, Eric is my mentee. I'm Eric's mentor. because I think part of it is to know that the relationship was done in this way where it was a super mentor relationship, but it's not as if that like we ever had this handshake saying, okay, Hey. I'm going to be your mentor and Eric's gonna be my men. It doesn't, it doesn't work that way. So what I will tell you is I think that like this is going on. I would say every person that I'm meeting that is hyper successful. When I tell these stories and I talk to hyper successful people, they're like, Oh yeah, that's what happened to me. Like this thing happened. They don't always use the word mentor, mentee, or super mentor, protege, whatever the words are, but the process is. Tirely going on. It's a modern approach to contextual networking. What's happening here is to remember that really what goes on with mentorship is an exchange of assets, right? And it's a free exchange is the neat part behind it. Mentoring is usually not a paid relationship. There's coaching and there's sponsorship, but mentoring is a free relationship. And so when I studied all these successful people, there always was this time where someone said, you know, well, It was cool to work together on this thing. You're awesome. I'm going to help you with something else. So I've accessed my network. I've accessed my reputation. I've accessed my contacts, whatever it is. And so that's, what's cool about mentoring is it's not a paid relationship. It's a free relationship, but it usually comes through this lens. So to answer the question in a shorter way, Everyone who's successful doesn't get there on their own. And I think that most of us just don't realize that people who are succeeding and succeeding fast, like Rahul, they're not getting lucky. They're just playing the process that has been set up for years, right? Like this is the process that people have been doing for decades and decades, whether they're Oprah Winfrey or whether they're Bradley Cooper or whether they're. You know, pick whoever. It's just that I don't think we realized it was going on. Until we we miss out on those sort of, you know, it's, it's obvious and it's non obvious all at the same time.

Cody: 24:40

so in some ways, modern mentorship is just a retake or reframe on kind of having a more, a larger friend group, but being able to strategically look at those friends that you have within your network and see, are there any ways that you can benefit them so that they can also benefit you? Is that kind of another perspective of this?

Eric: 25:04

I would say that like to understand that humans are social creatures. We have a network. I'm gonna take a little bit of a turn on what you said there. I don't think it's about having a better friend group. I think like part of what it is, is it's actually about having A more valuable network. I wouldn't call these people my friends per se, like we have relationships, but it's not always a friend. The better way to understand is I think that many of us over the last, you know, decades have talked about this network. I've got this network that I've built on Instagram and on LinkedIn and on TikTok, whatever it may be. Um, and I think the reality is, is that we have a lot more casual and, I would say very, very nascent. Network relationships. The truth of the matter is, is if you want to basically be able to open doors, the more important thing is remembering that like, okay, I've got this network of X number of people on LinkedIn. It's not about how many people I have on LinkedIn. It's about how many people actually know me well enough, believe that I'm exceptional enough that they would be willing to open the doors that they have. They would be able to create the opportunities for it. think it's, it's, not enough to say you have a better friend group. It's actually better to sort of say that you've created enough good karma in terms of your goodness, your thoughtfulness, your excellence, your outcomes that you do, that people are willing to basically Open their network and open their opportunity set for you. So that's the way to think about is that you've built up a bank of awesomeness that people can see they believe they can sort of understand and go on that one. And I think the way to understand that a little bit is to think going back to the story of Rahul Rana is that, you know, basically, Josh Wolf wanted to make sure that, like, all right, is this kid awesome enough that I want him talking to potential companies that I want him going out? And so part of it is like today, it's really hard to prove that you're awesome. It really, really is. And so going to an elite school that doesn't prove that we're awesome anymore. You know, having a bunch of followers and prove her awesome, like it's really hard to do it. And so When you really want to get down to it, looking at people on the Forbes list or whoever it is, what is this demonstrated social proof that you can show that you're awesome? And that's why I think this idea of having signature content matters a lot. Whatever that something is that people can go in and basically evaluate you on, not by who has associated with you. It's not like what schools you went to or companies you worked at, but it's that they can judge you as an individual. And that's, I think, the gap. A lot of people have, you know, they tweet a lot or they share a lot of things behind it. But do you have something signature that you can demonstrate to the world that you're awesome?

Cody: 27:36

And how can we find the perfect mentor that's going to help us with the

Eric: 27:41

That's the wrong question. You cannot find the perfect mentor. There is no such thing as the perfect mentor, nor do you need the perfect mentor. That is the problem. So what you said right there is the biggest fallacy that's in the world of mentoring. You are talking about finding Dumbledore or finding Yoda or whoever it is. They don't exist. It's fallacy. It's fiction. So stop trying to do it. This is why there's this gap. 80 percent of people 79 percent of people believe that mentoring is important. And yet only a third of people have one. Why? Because they're looking for the perfect mentor doesn't exist. So stop trying to find them. Instead, try to find a bunch of people that you can build relationships with. And one of them will reveal themselves to solve a tactical problem. So it wasn't that like, Again, it wasn't that Rahul was, Josh was the perfect mentor. It was that he was a super mentor because he had the right access, the right knowledge and the right awareness of Rahul to unlock this opportunity. one of my super mentors is a guy named Steve Blank, who is the kind of Godfather of the Lean Startup Movement. People like, Oh, you've got this amazing mentor. I've actually only had Two private conversations with Steve one time when I went to his ranch for a 30 minute walk that I showed up late to and we had to cut short and one phone conversation. We've casually worked on other things together. But like, it's not that he's the perfect mentor. He was the perfect person to create the opportunity for me behind it. But it wasn't like in this way of that. He shepherded me, guided me, did these things in some ways. The also important thing to know here is that The perfect mentor doesn't exist. The mentee is the one that makes their mentors, not the other way around. And so it wasn't that Steve suddenly like made me awesome. It was that Steve figured out through our relationship, I was awesome and was willing to kind of open some doors and connections behind it. And that's the difference. Mentors are not the drivers of success. The mentee is who activates super mentors to create opportunities.

Cody: 29:33

And so we should, in some ways, worry more about the process and having the key things that are going to attract the right people to create the right opportunities.

Eric: 29:44

Yeah, entirely. That's what I would say to anyone who's listening to this one is, yeah, we know that mentors matter. We know that mentoring matters. It does. It really will do those things. But don't try to hunt and find the perfect mentor. Instead, Have a project that allows you to build relationships that are contextual and powerful so that you have something even if none of the mentors show up, right? Like, I'll go back to the story of Rahul. Even if Rahul had not gotten job at Lux through this process, he already had built this rapport, built this knowledge, and he had a book. So he still did something awesome that will pay off long along the way. So if you start with a project that you care about, You make it collaborative where you bring people in and then along the way, awesome stuff will happen, whether it's during the process of development of it or after you win. I think it's just a way to understand to make your activities you're doing much more relevant to the place that you want it to take you.

Cody: 30:41

What if we don't have that awesome card that we can just pull out and say, look what I did. What kind of recommendations do you think that people should try in order to create that opportunity for themselves?

Eric: 30:52

You need to be building your awesome card. So if you don't have it, no one needs to have it today, but you need to be thinking about what that is. And in the book, we talk about nine different projects that we saw commonly across the spectrum, these signature content pieces and what we found across them. And again, I've already used some examples but some people will go on put on a conference or an event series other people might publish some research, other people might do an article series people might do a podcast, a video series. They might do a book. There's a bunch of them that are out there, but all of them have a few things in common. Number one, these projects are all collaborative. They're the types of things that you attract people into. So your podcast is a good example of this one. It's something that like we develop a relationship because. You need me to have guests right in that way. So it's collaborative. That's the first one. The second one is it's not something that's done primarily for money. So it's not like, Hey, you're asking me to invest in your company. We're saying, Hey, this is something that's kind of elevating the business, but it's not primarily done for money behind it. number three, it ties into some of your passions, the things that you care about, the things you want to share and learn. And the last thing is most of these projects, they require your. A substantial investment, but not enough for an ongoing investment forever. So most of these projects will take people between six and 12 months. So there's substantial enough behind it. And so what I would say is you want to be thoughtful about, do you have something signature that you're working on? And so if you want to think about like, how you can succeed in the modern world today. We know if you want someone to look at the people who are good examples, the Forbes 30, they all, for the most part, have this signature project. And that way is they don't have an awesome card. They're creating their awesome card by picking a project, attracting people to it. Finishing that project and sharing it with other people. It doesn't have to be something that is massive, but it does need to be something that has substance that shows this was something that Eric or Rahul or whoever were willing to invest six months in. And that gives us that heft and substance to show that. Yeah, you do have an awesome card. You're finishing something rad.

Cody: 32:57

Are you familiar with Adam Grant's give and take?

Eric: 33:00

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Adam Grant and the number of ways and funny enough, Adam was actually the first person I reached out to when I started this project and I said, hey, What do you know about mentorship? And he said, turns out there's not a ton of things out there, that I knew of. Here's some things to find, but, that was my first person. And again, I would say just his fact that he responded and the fact that he said this, the things that's a casual mentoring relationship in that way. But give and take is actually a really powerful one. We talk a little bit about that in the book too, about the power of sort of generosity and how people's, you know, contribute behind it. and that's why I think it really is important to understand that one of the biggest challenges of this formal mentoring world is that many of the people that could make great casual mentors will not want to be your mentor because it feels like such a heavy lift, right? Like if you reached out to me and said, will you be my mentor? It's like, gosh, like he wants me to be every week. He doesn't know his problem is like, it's really, really hard for me to want to commit to of mentoring someone I've just met and don't know it. So that's why this contextual mentor is so different. If you reach out to me and said, would you be in the podcast? It's an hour, right? I'm happy to basically build this relationship. We build this rapport. You put the episode out. It gets a bunch of pieces of it in that way. So the way that I oftentimes tell people to think about building this. Cadre of amazing casual mentors is make it something that is easy for them, but valuable for you. And usually I would say, if you can kind of create something that people can do in one hour or less, even better if it's 15 minutes or less, that is the chance to get people who are exceptional to say, yeah, I'd be happy to talk to you. Rahul didn't ask Josh Wolf to be his mentor or to hire him. He said, would you spend 10 or 15 minutes talking about your philosophy on moonshot companies Sure, it did take like eight sort of times to basically get the meeting booked. But the reality was is that Josh was willing to invest 15 minutes in this person who had demonstrated some level of alignment and context. And so Josh was actually interested in seeing what he did because it was valuable to Josh. I want to see what the results of your work are. So I'm willing to invest 15 minutes to get the benefit from you doing this work.

Cody: 35:09

Yeah. And in some ways, asking somebody if they would be your mentor is kind of equivalent to receiving a message. I get at least one every two weeks of somebody saying that I'd love to buy you coffee. And I'm like, I don't really want to go to some coffee shop so you can buy some coffee and then pitch to me because that's probably what's going to happen. Because what's, we're all still, we're social creatures that still put ourselves first. And so in some ways we should consider appealing to that. What are you going to give me? In order for me to give to you. And I think there's a component to that that's, it's very helpful when you're trying to build a network of people. It's not, not that everything has to be transactional. but when you have a mindset of, of knowing that that other person, they have a, that either have a family, they have work, they have things going on, they don't want to add things on top of that. But if you can share, if you can make a little request. But then say that, you know what, I'm gonna, here's this thing I did for you. I know it was Noah Kagan and a lot of other people on the internet marketing world talk, talk about this, where they, they send a resume where they do something really helpful and they just give that and that, that really shines them, makes them separate from everybody else.

Eric: 36:23

and I think to your point on that one, what's interesting about these projects is it's not just like grabbing a coffee and then for what, right? What's the end point? So when I know if you're reaching out to me to say, Hey, be on my podcast, I'd love to interview you on my, you know, YouTube channel. I'd love to get you for. You know, to speak at this conference, I know that there's some kind of a, an outcome that I can be a part of that, right? Like, I want to be a part of your show. I want to be a part of your book. I want to be a part of it. And so it's easy for me. And I know that like, if I'm going to be doing it. There's this interesting benefit. I've collaborated on something that's powerful and interesting. So it's, it's all about like, again, reframing context. I think it's not transactional if you do it in those ways. Right. If you turn it into something where it's relational, I'm going to interview for this book, and then I'm going to share with you what. I learn and then we can talk more about it. And that's these ideas here of giving contextual ways to build a relationship is what super mentoring is. it's just about being very thoughtful about it. I think many times we're very, we are very transactional and you use the example of like buy you a coffee, right? Like I can buy my own coffee. I don't need your help on that one. But I think the other one that plays out a lot is the informational interview. Would you just do an informational interview? Thank you. I know what you want. You just want an interview, right? Like you wanted me to interview and recommend it. So like, no, I don't want to, right? Because then I'm going to be in this uncomfortable position. So my answer is just no on that one. Instead, if you can build a rapport and relationship through a project, then I understand that it's not for money, right? That's why one of these things about the projects, you're not primarily doing them for money. you're doing it because, there's something bigger behind it. Right. That's why one of the things that's not one of the nine things, right, these nine signature products is not a business. So a project is not a business, because there's this money thing. So then it's like, well, like you want me to be an advisor in your company, like, and spend time there, but you're making money from it. So it has to be something usually that there's not that direct sort of business aim of it. It can be tangentially business related, but it can't be the primary focus. Like I'm not. I'm not writing my next book in order to basically make money from it. so getting someone involved in it kind of sort of is this, there's the authenticity in that part, it's different.

Cody: 38:34

Yeah. So it's a difference between if you're building a company. And you want some experts to give them some advice on how to, to structure your company. It's, you're going to have a much better response if you write a book about how to build a company and ask these experts for feedback on support, to add themselves to that book, because who doesn't want more exposure. So they're going to give you an answer. And therefore you're also getting that mentorship effectively through this neutral. thing, with lack of a better term.

Eric: 39:09

the project, right? This, this collaboration, right? So I've seen some examples where people, um, a good friend of mine, they started a company together and the way that they built a lot of their early customers and the way that they built a lot of their early, uh, investors was by, live. You know, blogging and, being building in public. You've probably heard of this in the startup world, build in public. Well, part of the thing you're doing is you're actually like delivering education, right? You're putting out a series of educational content on video or on written word. And so that's what it is. It's like, I'm telling these things behind it and therefore you can learn from it. And then, it creates that affinity. So it's about being thoughtful about remembering, like what is that signature thing that you're doing that people can be a part of with you?

Cody: 39:53

And speaking of companies and books, I know that you have a company that's manuscripts. com. I'm wondering if you can talk about that, why you decided to start this, when you started it, and what's the story behind

Eric: 40:05

It's funny, actually enough, like part of it actually is it is the perfect example of modern mentorship or super mentorship in action. And so what was interesting for me, the origin of it was I was, you know, I was teaching this class at Georgetown and entrepreneurship. So I got hired at Georgetown to teach a class about entrepreneurship and I got hired not because I was smart enough to get into Georgetown or that I had a PhD. I got hired because I wrote two books on the subjects and through some work I did with Steve Blank on teaching these things. When I met someone, they're like, Oh my gosh, like you should teach here. And so that was the origin of it. and then the way that this became kind of a real thing is I was really, really wrestling, trying to get more people to start companies. This class was really interesting. I was teaching these things, but very few of my students started companies. when I was in my twenties, I wrote and published two books. And I realized like how powerful they were. They were these entrepreneurial endeavors. So I decided I was going to make all my students write a book one semester. And so no one knew that this was coming, but I basically took my syllabus of how to start a company and I pushed control F and I replaced every instance of the word startup with book, and there we go. And what was interesting about it was I think that everyone was nervous. Like, is this thing going to work? I don't, I don't like to write enough stuff like that. But it was really their project. And so these students got this project, they would interview people, they would meet folks, they would have all this stuff in their book project. And a year later, when we published their books, their lives changed. Like suddenly these students were getting jobs at like, professional sports leagues. They were getting jobs that, startups and venture capital firms and all these things started happening. And the reason it was happening is because they had this signature project. The signature project for them was a book. And so after that class kind of exploded in my in front of my face, all these people who are not students of mine asked if they could sit in on it. We decided about five years ago to create an author community called Manuscripts. And Manuscripts is the only, one of the only B corporations, a public benefit corp that is really about helping, you know, this community driven writing process. So we've helped 2000 authors now publish books, 250 plus national book order winners. And is at the core of it is really that same idea that, these projects are ones that. You don't do alone, right? You need that community. So you want to go and, you know, have support and editors and coaches and mentors and guidance and people you interview. and so in a lot of ways, it's funny, like manuscripts is an exact manifestation, like a process that executes on super mentorship. And it's, it's fascinating to watch, like, my authors that go through this program. Their lives are changed, right? They have a book, but ultimately the relationships they build, the networks they create, and the demonstrated excellence they're able to do is just that. So that's become my passion. I've, I have this quest now to, help create 10, 000 authors. you know, we're 20 percent of the way there. So that's great. But I think a lot of it is really like, it is an example of modern mentorship in this organization. And I'll tell you, I did not know that when I started the process, it was part of it as I was writing super mentorship, like, you know what, I actually built a system to execute on super mentorship that has become a company. And, it's been a while we've, you know, been. We've been twice named the fastest growing private education company by Inc. 5000 and so all kinds of really cool things from it. So very, very fortunate to do it. But certainly has been a journey. And yeah, if anyone here is, listening to this one is like, Hey, I've always want to write a book and I want to have this thing like definitely reach out to chat and I'd be happy to talk about. How to do it and how to think about it. And I think again, you need a project for many people, like 81 percent of people have write a book on their bucket list. There's no better project. If you're looking to do something meaningful for career or business, or, just something that they want to have as meaningful behind it. And so it's wild. I'm actually doing a new book this fall. So there you go. I'm addicted as well.

Cody: 43:53

Do you have any details on that book?

Eric: 43:56

Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's called the top, the new. Book title, the working title. So I'm early. So just so you know, you're going to get a I'm going to share this with you, but it's your audience only getting this early the working thesis is called design to finish design to finish. And so what's interesting is, you know, there's a lot of advice out there of it says just start just get started. And the problem with that is, is that people who say this have succeeded, like, Okay. People who are successful entrepreneurs or successful business owners or successful authors or whatever it is, they say, just start. And the reason is, is because they just started and they finished. And so for them, they just say, well, you just have to start. And what I've learned here is that it's actually less about starting. It's about designing something that you will finish designing that, you know, project you'll finish that X experience you'll finish and then starting. And I'll give you this example. There's a guy named Jesse Iser out there who is, he's the, you know. Founder. you may see him on Instagram, but he's also known as, Sarah Blakely's husband, but he, uh, he ran his first ultra marathon when he was, I think in his forties or fifties. And an ultra marathon is like 100 mile run. I mean, it's this. Insane thing. And so, you know, a lot of people when they train for these things, they fail at the first time doing it. And so he went out and the reason that he found that people fail is because people go out and they try to model their behavior on how the top performers win, like the people who win these races. So they train like they do. But the reality was, is that you don't, especially for the first time, you don't want to win, nor should you try to win. You just want to not lose. And so you want to finish. And so what Jesse found is it was not about training, like the people who are trying to win. Instead, he found how you would not fail. And so he found this technique. That was a run walk technique. So you run for five minutes and you walk for five minutes and you run for five minutes to walk for five minutes. And so you're not going to win that way, but the success rate that you will finish is almost perfect as long as something bad doesn't happen. So that's an example of that one in that case. And I think that's what we need in all these things. If you want to. Start a company. Well, you should design to finish something so you can have a company that, exits or whatever. It has these things or a book or whatever it is. So that's the premise on success today is not starting more things. It's on designing experience that you will finish because so much of our joy, our benefit, our happiness and the signal that we get from it is not just starting it, but it's finishing it. So how do you make sure that one? And I'll give you one example for your audience. I tell people like, it's about like, Hey, should I, do a podcast or a video, whatever it is, should I start a podcast or should I start a YouTube channel? And my advice is you should never do either of those things. Instead, you should always design something that you're going to finish. So say I am going to launch a season of my podcast, eight episodes season. Why? Because there's a way to finish it, right? Like starting a channel of something or starting a podcast, you never finish it. Right? Like, and so you don't know if you succeed. So I finished season one and then I could decide to do season two, but now you have something that you've finished. So everything you do should be designed to finish it. Because you get the joy of finishing it, you wind up having a way that's much more accomplishable. So you know what success looks like. And quite frankly, so much of success in life today is people seeing you as someone who finishes things, not just someone who starts things and doesn't know what the outcome was.

Cody: 47:15

That reminded me about how the only only the startups that are successful in the entrepreneurs who are successful end up writing books on how to run a company. But that reminds me of what's called a survivorship bias. Because in World War Two, there were, there were airplanes that would come back and they had all these bullet holes and, and initially the designers tried to patch those areas, but it didn't resolve the amount of planes coming back. And then they realized they need to look at the areas that don't have bullet holes, because those are the areas that they actually need to protect in order to increase the amount of pilots and planes coming back.

Eric: 47:51

Great one. I'm going to use that in the book, but that's, it's a perfect point, right? I mean, I think, so that's what the fun project for me is, is like. To this point is everything is survivorship bias, right? We have these things of like, you look at these people who are successful versus like really understanding like, okay, how can you make sure that you finish it, whether you're a success or not, depending what the metrics are. But, I tell the simplest thing to sort of anyone who's starting something new, picking a new project is the best thing you can do for yourself is put a number in front of it. So I'm going to do an eight episode podcast. I'm going to do a four part article series. I'm going to do a one day or a four event series. I'm going to do a 200 page book. And why? Because then there's a finishing point behind it. Not I'm going to do a best selling book or I'm going to do a conference that have a number in front of it. And that makes it finishable. And then you can always decide to do it again and get better at it. But finishing is the table stakes today because that gives us so much value, right? When you finish something. People see you as a finisher, not someone who's just starting and not finishing these things.

Cody: 48:53

Yeah. Finish that project, don't start a new one. Eric, I know we're short on time, so if you love what Eric has to say, go check out his book, Super Mentors, and if you're interested in writing, go to his book, Manuscripts. com. Eric, thank you for joining us today.

Eric: 49:09

Thank you for having me. Appreciate you and, keep hacking the minds, my friend.

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#054 Eric Koester: From Mentor to Super Mentor

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