5 Incredible Life Lessons I Learned from Michael Hyatt I want to share with you five lessons that I’ve learned from a mentor, friend, and business partner of mine, Michael Hyatt. For several years, I was business partners with Michael. He’s an amazing man, from whom I learned a tremendous amount. Although I learned far more from Michael than I could ever fit into a blog post, I’d like to share with you the top five lessons that I learned from working with him. Lesson number one: be consistent. One of the things I remember asking Michael in the beginning was how he built his (substantial) following. What he shared with me was that the moment he became really consistent in the way he creates content, things completely took off. Because consistency creates trust and it created trust with his audience when he committed to blogging every day and podcasting every week. That consistency transferred into all areas of his life. It transferred into the actions he would take. It transferred into his character. That was a huge lesson for me. Be consistent. It creates trust for your audience, it creates trust for the people that are around you, it creates trust for your team, it creates trust for your loved ones. Lesson number two: be authentic. Now, we hear that all the time. What does it really mean? For Michael, it meant being authentic with his personality. It meant being authentic with his values, beliefs, and philosophies. It meant being authentic in what he stands for. So authenticity is like consistency. It’s getting clear on who you are and what you stand for, and then staying consistent to that in all of your actions, and not compromising who you are just to suit a situation. I saw Michael doing that over, and over, and over again. And not just in public, but in private. He didn’t put on one face in front of the camera and another behind the scenes. He was totally consistent in his character, regardless of the situation. Lesson number three: be intentional. Michael uses this word a lot. In fact, for many years, it was in his actual company name. What I came to learn about Michael’s version of intentionality, was that it was very similar to what others would call being ‘strategic’. As in, instead of just leaving things to chance, be intentional about them. If you want to develop a better relationship with your spouse, don’t just say you want a better relationship with your spouse, do something about it. Be intentional. Set date nights on the calendar, map out times when you will be together. Be intentional about your business. Your goals won’t accomplish themselves. You have to be intentional about taking active steps toward those goals. You have to be intentional about your decision making. Here’s a perfect example: Going into this new year, there are tons of opportunities for my team and I. It’s amazing. I’m super grateful for it. However, even though there’s a ton of great opportunities coming our way, they don’t all line up with our vision. Frankly, we don’t have time to say yes to EVERYTHING. It’s forcing us to be intentional about the way that we decide whether to say yes or no to these opportunities. You can’t just drift to your final destination. You can’t just drift to your ideal business or life. You’ve got to be intentional about it. Lesson number four: be open. This is where I believe a lot of successful leaders get into trouble. They’re not open to new ideas, and they get stuck in thinking that the way they do things is the only way to do things. But you and I know that times change. One of the traits I loved about Michael was that he was always open. He was always open to new ideas and learning. He would go to conferences so that he could learn new ideas and bring them back into his business and his life. He would intentionally hire people that he wanted to learn from. He was open to ideas from the team, to different approaches and different experiments. It was amazing to watch. I’ve seen a lot of people who achieve a certain level of success and they stop being open to new ideas. And I don’t know whether it’s ego, or fear of change, or fear that they could lose something, but it’s like they put an iron gate around themselves. They stop being open to the fact that the marketplace is changing, and what worked 10 years ago might not work now. By staying open, Michael always stays on the cutting edge of what’s happening in his marketplace. Lesson number five: be approachable. One of the reasons we all love Michael is that he’s very approachable. He is actively engaged with his audience, whether it be in blog comments, on Facebook or different platforms, he’s engaged with his audience. He genuinely wants to interact, he genuinely wants to learn, he genuinely wants to share, and respond, and answer questions. Very few people have that same approach. People – the more successful they become – they almost become standoffish. Michael’s the opposite. He leans in. And sure, as your audience grows, you can’t always respond to everybody. But when you make a serious effort to engage and be approachable, your audience recognizes that. Additionally, as a business partner, Michael was very easy to approach with new ideas, new strategies, new concepts, new projects. His team is never afraid to bring ideas to him and it creates a free flow of communication, and that free flow of communication is what creates the magic. It’s amazing to me,I see a lot of people gain some success and put themselves up on a pedestal. And their team doesn’t want to approach them with new ideas because they’re afraid that they’re just going to be shut down. With Michael, you could come to him with an idea and even if he didn’t like it, you still felt safe and like your input was valued. I think about this in how I work with my team, and even with my family. I think about how this relates to my kids, so as they grow older, if they have challenges they will always feel comfortable talking to me about them. These character traits and lessons that I learned from Michael are so valuable to me in my professional and my personal life. They can be applied to everything. I’m extremely grateful for the chance to work with Michael and for our relationship. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him. To summarize, the five things I learned from Michael Hyatt: Be consistent. Be authentic. Be intentional. Be open. Be approachable.
“How do you find a mentor?” One of you recently approached me with a question that I think is relevant to all of us as entrepreneurs, especially those of you who are in the early phases of your journey. You asked: “How do you find a mentor?” If you’re in a position where you are looking for a mentor, there are 3 STEPS you can follow. If you are in a position to be a mentor to others, you can use these steps to consider how you might take others under your wing. The first step is identifying WHO you want as a mentor! Obvious right? But it’s actually not as easy as you’d think. Choosing who you want to be your mentor is a big decision that you should take seriously, and there are a few things you can think about to help you make the right decision. First, think of who is where you want to be in your career, and who is doing the types of things that you want to do? Often times somebody may appear to be a good mentor but, behind the scenes, they aren’t doing the things that you really want to be doing. For example, early in my career I thought I wanted to go into sports marketing, so I worked for a sports marketing company one summer and quickly found out that was NOT something I wanted to do. Sports and marketing are two of my favourite things, so a combination of the two seemed like the perfect fit. On the surface it looked like a lot of fun, but when I actually got into it I realized that it wasn’t right for me. Because the work itself – the actual tasks involved in the daily life of a sports marketer – were not what I was expecting. The same thing can happen when picking a mentor. A person may seem like they are exactly where you want to be in your career, but until you look further to understand the things that person is actually DOING on a daily basis, you won’t know if they are a person who you truly want to learn from. Next, the most IMPORTANT part of choosing a mentor is identifying a person whose VALUES align with yours. There are a lot of great people who are doing incredible things, but it’s very difficult to learn from somebody if their values don’t align with your values. That is my #1 tip for identifying who you want to be your mentor. The second step in finding a mentor is finding out HOW you can be of service to this person. People often think that you’ve got to have a relationship with somebody before you can approach them to be a mentor. …that’s NOT true. The number one thing that successful people DO NOT have is TIME. If you realize that, you can be of value. Early in my career, I worked for a number of people who I wanted to mentor under. …and I worked for FREE. I was young. I had an abundance of time! Being able to exchange your time for an opportunity to learn is a HUGE advantage you have if you’re looking for a mentor. Think, “What is stressing this person out? How can I add a tonne of value?” and, most importantly, “How can I save this person a tonne of TIME?” Be SPECIFIC in how you can help. I have a lot of people who approach me who want to learn from me, and they say, “If you ever need any help, just let me know.” It doesn’t work like that! The easiest and most effective way to get the attention of a mentor is to give them something very specific that you are willing to do for free in exchange for the opportunity to learn. Another tip is to start SMALL. Don’t make huge promises or proposals that might be too much for your potential mentor to even think about at the time of you approaching them. The third and final step if you want to find a mentor is to OVER-DELIVER on your promises. If you find something specific and small to help with like we talked about in the last step, that door of opportunity has been opened for you. You can capitalize on this opportunity by OVER-DELIVERING on whatever it is you offered to do. Then you can seek other things to help with. The more ways you can think of to save your mentor time, and the more you can over deliver on your promises, the more you will earn their TRUST, and they will send even more work your way. To recap those steps: 1) Figure out WHO you want to be your mentor. Make sure they are actively doing the things you want to be doing. Make sure their values align with yours. 2) Figure out HOW you can help them. Approach them and offer to help with small, specific tasks than can save them time. 3) OVER DELIVER on your promises. Whatever you offered to do, do a great job at it and then look for even more opportunities to help. Okay, your turn. Do you currently have or have you previously had a mentor? How did you get connected with them? Are you a mentor to somebody else? What advice would you give to somebody looking to find a mentor? Looking forward to reading your comments below.
