EP 172: The Million Dollar Lesson to Not Be Both Broke and Skeptical

As I drive down to the Detroit Athletic Club (DAC), I couldn't help but reflect on a lesson that almost cost me $1,000,000 in mentorship. Not in cash, but in value. I share with you my personal experience with my previous mentor, and why you can't afford to be broke and skeptical at the same time.

Transcript

Jason Brown [00:00:00]:
Good morning, beautiful people. I am headed to downtown Detroit, headed to the DAC. If you're not familiar with the DAC, it's the Detroit Athletic Club, and you gotta get dressed up to go to the d f the Detroit Athletic Club. Dressed up meaning no jeans. I think no gym shoes, unless you're going through the athletic entrance, and you have to have a collared shirt. And I'm so used to working from home and not wearing a collared shirt. I'm usually in a t shirt or a shirt that says, like, you never go broke, taking a profit on it or something like that. But, today, we're rocking the collared polo, baby.

Jason Brown [00:00:42]:
Is it a good look? Is it a good look? Hang on, Chuck. So I was thinking about something that almost cost me, $1,000,000 in mentorship. So not a $1,000,000 in cash, but a $1,000,000 in mentorship, and I thought we'd wrap about that on Rolls Royce Diaries today as we drive down to the DAC, Detroit Athletic Club. I was in network marketing, and if you're not familiar with network marketing, the multilevel marketing is where you sell products direct to consumers. You try to meet in people's homes and, you know, do the little meetings and then get them to join your downline or sell them something at the end of it, kinda like Mary Kay, Tupperware. I was in 5 points. I was in ACN. I was in a couple of different network marketing companies.

Jason Brown [00:01:36]:
I used to do Primerica at one time. So there's a couple of different network marketing companies. But when it comes to mentorships, they're one of the most important and most valuable things that you can have mentorship, access, proximity to, quote, unquote, successful people or people that are where you wanna be in life or in a specific industry. And there was a few times where my mindset wasn't necessarily ready for mentorship. Let let let me let me let me break it down further and give you a couple of examples. And when people if you were to ask a person who either it's not always about money, but maybe you wanna get mentored or coached by somebody who has a successful marriage. Maybe you wanna get coached by someone who has a successful business. Maybe you wanna get coached by somebody who's a successful investor.

Jason Brown [00:02:31]:
Maybe you play a sport, and you wanna get coached in soccer, basketball by a professional or someone who's had some level of success. The Olympics just passed. You wanna get coached by an Olympian. What's interesting is if you were in whatever field you were in and we were to ask you, what would you pay to, you know, what would it be worth for you to get mentored by a millionaire? What would it be worth for you to get mentored by an Olympic champion? What would it be worth for you to get mentored or coached by a professional athlete? Most people would say that experience would be invaluable. That experience would be priceless. Like, you couldn't put a price tag on it, But if you had to put a price tag on it, my guess is you wouldn't say that Olympic champion should mentor me for free. That professional basketball soccer player should coach me for free. They've already had success.

Jason Brown [00:03:28]:
Why don't they just give back? Warren Buffett or that millionaire investor should just work with me or help me out for free. Chances are you wouldn't say that. Here's what most people default to. Most people default to say, or at least in my experience, I've done this before in my younger days, and I see people do it to me. A lot of times people say, like, hey. Can I take you out to lunch? Can I pick your brain? Well, news flash. I now look back and realize, you know, all the times I wanted to have my brain picked or pick someone's successful brain, and I pay for their dinner. The reality is successful people can buy their own dinner.

Jason Brown [00:04:07]:
They can buy their own meal, so you're not really doing them a favor by offering to buy them food. Oftentimes for successful people, their most important commodity is time. And so it's not about, taking you know, can you buy me a meal? Oh, let's go out to eat. But most successful people are like, I gotta take time away from my family, my business, my team, my friends, doing things I love, maybe the gym, to go sit down with you in Starbucks or go sit down with you in over a steak dinner. Now to you, you might be like, it's a steak dinner. You should be happy, but the reality is they can buy their own steak dinner. They can buy their own Starbucks coffee. So they're not just, super jazzed that you're gonna hook them up with a steak dinner.

Jason Brown [00:05:00]:
And the amount of information that you can get sometimes over dinner, over coffee is gonna pale in comparison to what you can get from joining their soccer program, their professional athlete program, their baseball camp, basketball camp, their Olympic gym program. That's where you're gonna get the most transformation most likely, which is probably why they opened the gym, which is why they have a coaching program, etcetera. And so that's where you're gonna get the most transformation, But most people just wanna go out to eat and wanna pick people's brains. And so I remember my mentor, you know, when he said when I talked to him about, like, coaching me, I remember my in network marketing, he was selling leads. So he was blowing up his network marketing business. He was crushing it, and he was getting these leads. And then he said, well, I'll tell you what. We can sell leads to your team because I got more leads than I can handle.

Jason Brown [00:06:06]:
And some people started to say things like, well, if you're so successful, then with the leads, why would you sell them? And so there was kind of a shift that happened. You went from being excited to talk to the mentor, being mentored by somebody who was made over $1,000,000 and who was crushing it in network marketing, to you went from being excited to talk to them, would do anything, willing to take them out to dinner, to questioning if they're so successful, why are they willing to sell you their leads if they're such good leads? And I think this happens a lot of times in life where we wanna be mentored by successful people. And then the moment that those successful people have a program, a coaching system, or something like that, we question if they're so good, then why do they have a coaching program? And my mentor asked me just one simple question. He said, well, let me ask you this. Like, do you wanna be mentored by somebody that's unsuccessful? He said, just you know, who do you wanna pay? You wanna pay or go to lunch or buy leads from somebody who's unsuccessful at using leads? You wanna go make get and, basically, what he was simply saying is don't have a poor person's mindset because he initially followed up he also followed up with, you can't be broke and skeptical at the same time. And I was like, woah. He just said something right there because I was broke. And he like, look, you can't be broke and skeptical.

Jason Brown [00:07:45]:
Like I'm making money. You see I'm making money. You came to me and want to get mentored. You're asking me how I do it. I'm telling you I'm doing it with these leads. I can I'm paying for my leads. I get way more leads than I can handle. I'm willing to sell you some leads.

Jason Brown [00:08:00]:
If you're not you you can't come to me and be broke and skeptical, number 1. Number 2, who do you wanna get mentored by? Someone who is unsuccessful? You can't come question, if I'm so successful, why would I wanna train you or teach you? Who do you wanna get trained by? Somebody that's unsuccessful? And I really changed my mindset on how I look at and how I view mentors, how I view their time, how I view questioning or being skeptical of how they can support me. And I just hope this helps you think about how you approach people because it can be a very it can it can be an insult to approach people for help, then question why they wanna charge you. And it's like, well, then what you wanna do? Offer a mistake dinner? You wanna offer from Starbucks? You want them to take away from their time, their resources to go sit down with you over a $30 meal. And then who do you want to help you? Somebody that's not successful? Of course, you wanna get trained by successful people, which their time, their knowledge, their experience should command a premium. You should be paying to get a shortcut, to get that information, to get that knowledge, or else you can go waste a ton of time, a ton of money, a ton of resources trying to figure it out on your own. What you're paying for is the literal shortcut. You are paying for the formula, the secret, the fast track, the quick path.

Jason Brown [00:09:46]:
So I just want you to think about that as you think about mentorship, as you go through life, working through trying to get somewhere quicker, faster, and you go through life trying to get support from the people you respect or the people you look up to. Make sure you're doing it with the right right mindset. You're not doing it with a poor or a broke mindset. And that's the type of mindset that questions why do successful people wanna help me, and then why, should I even pay for it? Don't be broke and skeptical at the same time. That's it. That's the message for the day. Let me know in the comments. Have you been one of those people who wanna take somebody out to lunch or Starbucks and pick their brain, or do you respect the fact that they got a program, they got a service, they got family, they got friends, they got other things that they could be doing as well, and the best way to connect with them and get the biggest transformation is by going where they're at.

Jason Brown [00:10:47]:
They are at their gym. They are at the soccer field. They're in their coaching program. So let me know. I'll see you on the next one. Peace.