Mentoring: The force in writing your Hero's Journey with Benjamin Fincher

EP008

In this episode, I'm speaking with Benjamin Fincher who started Starlight Mentoring and he's based in Utah. The mentoring is an online based service and he also hosts the podcast How To Rewrite Your Stars. His aim is to help people clarify their vision of the future, and to empower them as they make progress towards their professional and personal goals.

We talked about:

*Figuring out our journey
*The impact of different mentors
*Distinction between mentoring and coaching
*The role of the mentor in the Hero's journey
*An intuition based approach
*Finding a suitable mentor
*A gift for our listeners


Connect with Benjamin:

Website: Home | Starlight Mentoring



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Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Everyday Determinator podcast with your host Anne Okafor, founder of The Determinator Collective. We want to help you get off that hamster wheel of life and turn you into an Everyday Determinator by sharing stories from our guests who have overcome varying challenges in life and careers, and by reviewing and signposting you to helpful resources to start you on the journey to achieving your goals. For more information on The Determinator Collective, please visit www.anneokafor.co.uk. Thanks for listening, Determinators.

Anne Okafor (00:39):

Hello Determinators, and welcome to The Everyday Determinator podcast. Today I'm speaking with Benjamin Fincher who started Starlight Mentoring and he's based in Utah. The mentoring is an online based service and he also posts the podcast How To Rewrite Your Stars. His aim is to help people clarify their vision of the future, and to empower them as they make progress towards their professional and personal goals. Hi Benjamin, it's great to have you with us here today. How are you today?

Benjamin Fincher (01:19):

Doing well, how are you, Anne?

Anne Okafor (01:21):

Yeah. Good, thank you. It's nice to be chatting to you again. So I just wanted to start off a little bit, I understand your story into mentoring, I guess, started when you met this mentor that had a big impact on your life. I know before that you said that you didn't really know what you wanted to do. So, can you give us a little bit of a background and explain where you were at when you were stuck, you didn't really know what you wanted to do.

Benjamin Fincher (01:46):

Yeah. So, it was in those growing up years as a youth, I grew up knowing I wanted to help people, I didn't really know what I wanted to do as a career. Whenever that question would come up, I'm like, "Well, I don't know. I want to help people." I don't want to be a doctor, I don't enjoy the blood, a little bit Doc Martin there. And I was also like, "And I don't work in a cubicle based place," it just sounded so boring. Basically just like gears in a box, I'm not a gear in a box, I'm more than that. And that was about what I knew is I didn't want to do those couple of things, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so, that's where this was such a big impact on me to have this mentor show up in my life. I was homeschooled growing up, but then my senior year of high school, or secondary I think as you guys call it, right?

Anne Okafor (02:43):

Yeah.

Benjamin Fincher (02:44):

I took this online class and it was a personal leadership class at a school where they talked about, or they called the teachers mentors instead of teachers, focusing on a more personal relationship where it was, oh yeah, you can actually ask the teachers questions and they can help you, and they're here mentoring you instead of just lecturing you. And this guy in particular, he is a life coach and happened to be working at the school, but he was doing the class from Costa Rica. And I'm just mind blown like, "You can live like this?" I had had no idea before that that was even possible. And I'm very tech savvy from a very, very young age, it was like, "Oh yeah, this and that and the other thing," and all of this computer stuff.

                But the concept of, "Oh yeah, you can live in another country and remotely operate via the internet to earn a living helping people live a better life." That was just completely new to me and it just blew me away. I was like, "Whoa." Partly because it was so new, and partly because I was operating with a lot of bad ideas about careers and dreams and stuff, I basically crushed the hope of being a mentor or a coach. I was just like, "Oh well, he can do it but he probably had to have some college degree to be able to work at this school." So, even though the only place I know you could do this is at this school, you probably have to have some college degree for it so, oh well.

                Until a year later I come across another guy who just up and did it. He barely, barely passed high school, I mean barely. And really struggled for a lot of years, and then he just started to figure some things out, but he really studied himself and the world around him. He was like, "Wait a second, this works, this doesn't work." He starts studying the mind, and then once he figured out enough stuff, he started teaching other people. And by the time I came across him, he had been doing it for 13 years or so. And I think the biggest impact he had on me was, anyone can do this. And since then I've had many other great mentors and not on any type of personal basis, but I've taken some courses by Bob Proctor and I think that he currently is having some of the greatest influence on me.

                Very, very astute and understanding man on the way that the universe works and the way that we operate within that, and how to leverage it to our advantage such that we can live our dreams. And lots of people here and there along the sides as well, plenty to even mention. Although I will give a shout-out to my friend Jason [Kealay 00:05:43], he has his [ICE TM 00:05:44] process which has helped me to further ingrain within myself who I am and strive to be that type of a person. So that's the background, was there part of that that I hadn't answered in the question you had?

Anne Okafor (06:02):

No, that was great. So, you've mentioned you came across these mentors and you've said that the first one really helped you to awaken to that sort of idea of living in this way that you hadn't come across before. And then the second guy, I guess, added another piece of the jigsaw whereby you learned that anyone can do this, so it was something that was available to you. In what other ways did they specifically help you in terms of direction towards this as a career, or in some specific way that actually helped you to realize this was where you wanted to go?

Benjamin Fincher (06:40):

So, the first guy for a very long time, it was only just that he taught that class. Later down the line I did do a couple of sessions with him, paid for, and from there he... And I'm not sure how familiar you are with this, but I draw a distinction between mentors and coaches?

Anne Okafor (07:03):

Yeah.

Benjamin Fincher (07:03):

And I think the biggest distinction besides just the roots of the words is a coach is very, very direct, where a mentor will be a lot more general, because a coach is determined to get you from the specific spot that you're at currently to the specific spot you want to get later, where a mentor will focus more on the general betterment of you with a goal along the way, most likely, but usually a lot less direct. And so, that first guy, he when I sat down and had some sessions with him I was like, "I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that."

                And he's like, "Okay, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this." And I'm just like, "Whoa, that's a lot. I actually have to put in a lot of work here all of a sudden," and so I didn't really. But I've still got those notes and I've actually been thinking recently I should go back and look at them because I worked with another coach recently and I was like, "Okay, I think it's time to pull those notes out and start getting a little bit more down to business." The second guy, I took classes from him for years and the interesting thing there is, Bob Proctor's role is I will listen to this person and do exactly what they say until I learn that either they're lying or they don't know what they're talking about.

                And I haven't quite adopted that for myself, but in a way I have, and I've realized later the more I've been exposed to other very unsuccessful mentors and coaches rather than just successful ones, "I'm like, oh well this guy that I've taken a lot of classes from, while he knows a lot, he doesn't always know how to apply it." And so I learned many, many tools from him and I learned a lot about the mind and the way people work, emotions, all of these things. But he never directly, at least in a way that reached me, never really directly helped with paradigms which I've learned more recently again studying Bob that that's the thing that makes it so you win or lose, these paradigms.

                Which can sound really harsh, "Why would it be something so simple?" It's like, "Well, it's the way we work as humans." And so, I took those few things from them and I did learn many tools from that second guy. And my father, he has done a lot more of the tools on a regular basis, and so he's developed an emotional maturity that I couldn't dream of him having when I was a kid. He was not an angry guy, he wasn't a happy guy either. He was generally, he was way too overcharged with his emotions and such that he, usually he'd be a little bit more of a negative fellow be around. He wanted to be happy, but he didn't know how to be happy.

Anne Okafor (10:13):

I think we've all been there at some point in life I think, to some degree at least.

Benjamin Fincher (10:21):

Yeah, absolutely. And so, I've definitely learned a lot from him, but the more I've learned more I'm like, "Okay, there's more to this," and that's where I'm at now is figuring out, "Okay, what do I not know that I need to know, and what do I know about that I need to study?"

Anne Okafor (10:40):

I think that's part of that as well is that being a mentor is quite an individual thing as well, different mentors operate in different kind of ways and offer something slightly different, because a lot of the thing that goes into mentoring is your personal experience. You said the second guy, it's how he's looked at the world and himself, and how he fits in around that. So it is quite an individualistic thing sometimes. And I think the role of the mentor is good in that way because you can get different mentors with different experiences, different takes on things. So it's good for that, and it's important as well I think when you have a mentor, is to have a mentor that is with you for that part of the journey, and then maybe the next challenge you need maybe someone different again to try and get the best and the benefit of those different experiences and things. Would you agree with that?

Benjamin Fincher (11:35):

Oh absolutely, you see that in movies all the time, it's one of the things they actually get right about how the world operates is, you have that one main figure that gets them started off on their hero's journey as it's known, and along the way there'll be the swords master that, "Oh, this is how you use a weapon." And later there'll be the girl that teaches him how to actually interact with people. It's classic tropes, but it's one of those things that movies have actually gotten right about how things work is there's mentors everywhere. There's people that teach you specific things everywhere. It's not one person going to teach you everything, and that's a mistake I made for the longest time with that second mentor is I was like, "Oh yeah, this guy knows it all." And in a way I closed myself off from much of the rest of the world of personal development, self mastery.

                And I was just like, "Oh yeah, rah, rah, rah, let's go with this guy and what he's saying." And again, I learned many good things, but there were some of those missing elements that really just kept me in limbo honestly for the longest time, because he would talk about, "Oh yeah, you've got to put the work in," but he never said it in such a way that it really struck me as, "Oh yeah, nothing's actually going to get better until I get better." And yet, I did kind of know that, but it never struck me, "Oh yeah, this is actually possible, and it's not as complicated as you're making it out to be."

Anne Okafor (13:04):

Yeah. I think sometimes it takes us a little time just to get the point sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you're in the moment and you're in the middle of it all. And sometimes it takes a little while to make the realization, doesn't it? Obviously you've had mentors, why is it important for us to have mentors at different stages in our lives to help us along the way?

Benjamin Fincher (13:27):

There's many approaches I could take from that, but I'll just keep going with that same example I was using, the example of what movies do. There's plenty of movies out there. I'm trying to think of an example that would be good, but maybe Narnia, I feel like that's well and known enough, or relatable enough. And in that first movie they did, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the lot of them, the kids have no idea what they're doing in that magical world, and then individually they come across a couple of people that help them and then they come across the beavers and they're like, "Hey, that's how you do this." And they're like, "Okay, now you guys have got to go here." And they didn't detail out every step of the way, but they gave them the destination as well as some helpful information, helpful tools.

                Then along the way they get closer and they eventually get there, and they come across a different mentor Aslan as he's like, "Okay, this and this and this, you guys have got to do," and then things change. And then it's like, "Oh yeah, you guys have actually got to step up to the big time right now." So, there's all these examples around us in literature and movies where it's like, "Okay, you learned this thing from this person, and then later you learned this thing from this person." And like we've been talking about a little bit already, it's the exact same in our lives. We have people come around that it's like, "Oh yeah, this is how you do things."

                Right from the get-go it's our parents, or if you happen to be one of those people that didn't know their parents when you were born, it's that guardian you had, or heaven forbid, it's the people that you were on the street with that taught you how to do that. It's the people that we first interact with throughout our growing up years that are our mentors to begin with.

Anne Okafor (15:29):

Yeah, and I think like you said earlier on, mentors are everywhere. It can come from our friendship circles, it can come from our professional circles. And I think the example that you give about the film, or even while you were talking I'm thinking video games is very much like here's one task or one challenge and here's some information that will help you get to the next bit. I think we can translate that really well into our professional careers because when we start out, maybe it's teachers or lecturers that give us that sort of foundation. And then we go into the workplace and you get assigned a line manager or a work buddy or something and they'll give you, "This is what you're supposed to do, and on Fridays you can finish a little bit earlier. And this is what you're supposed to do in the kitchen." You get taught and then as you progress again then maybe you'll have someone a bit more senior that will then give you the next step.

                And you're always building and building and building. So, I think it's really important that there's lessons there and I think people need to where... It doesn't need to necessarily be a mentor externally, there's mentors everywhere and you can take mentorship from people around you as well, and people are quite willing to help. But the mentoring services obviously externally is good as well, a different perspective and sometimes it's really good to have that outside influence, or maybe someone who's not in your profession, or just got a totally different look. So I know you obviously have Starlight Mentoring, which as I mentioned, service which is based online. Do you want to give us a little overview of the services you offer? I know I think you talk about an intuition based approach. So you want to tell us a little bit about what that means and the services that you offer to people online at the moment?

Benjamin Fincher (17:14):

Yeah, absolutely. Would you mind? I actually had a thought I wanted to share in relation to the mentors in our lives. Can I go there first?

Anne Okafor (17:21):

Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.

Benjamin Fincher (17:23):

So, if you take mentor back to the root of where it originated in our language, in its usage, it goes back to I think it was Odyssey and whatever the Greek guy's name was, the captain of the ship. He realizes, "Hey, I'm going to be off fighting this war, going on this journey for years. I've got a son, he's a kid, he's a babe. I'm not going to be around to teach him. That's going to suck for him if that's how he grows up without no father figure."

                And so he calls up his friend, Mentor. He says, "Hey, I'm going to be gone for a long time. Would you teach my child as if you were me?" And I haven't gone deep into the study of that story, but that's the gist of it is this guy says, "Hey, come teach this kid as if you were me, as if he were teaching him all the things that he needed to know to be a man," and that's how the story goes. And so that idea is what's taken through the ages to where we're using it currently to describe people that help us along our life's journey, it makes total sense.

Anne Okafor (18:38):

Absolutely.

Benjamin Fincher (18:39):

And so a mentor in its best sense is, you need to find somebody that knows or is doing, and they know they know how to do, if they're doing it especially, that knows how to do what you want to do. And so that's the qualification that's best to use for how to choose a mentor is, "Do they have what I want?" And if they do, "Okay, let's go," if they don't, maybe check a little bit deeper. Maybe they are the right person even if it's not externally evident, but you've got check with your gut, your intuition there. Then to go into the question you just ask of how do I do it? It's been an interesting journey, I definitely take an intuition based approach with dealing with a client because no system can account for the individual in such a way as intuition can. Intuition is your knowing without knowing, your inner knowing, your higher self knowing, however you will.

                And so, that's something I learned as I learned how to be a mentor is you can have all the systems and structures in the world. Great, you've got to know which one to use otherwise it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you don't know which one to use. You could throw 50 at them and hope one sticks, or you could just say, "Okay, intuition, which one's the right one?" And maybe you get it wrong the first time, maybe, but you get it right the second time. Almost always you're going to get it right the first time because your intuition is that knowing without knowing, it is that spiritual awareness. So that's the approach I've taken which has been helpful because for me I haven't quite achieved all the things that I'm hoping people achieve. So, maybe shoot myself in the foot with that qualifier I just gave. If someone knows how to do what you want to do, but for me it's like, "Okay, I'm working on getting to that point where I have achieved what I'm hoping my clients achieve." And in some ways I feel like it's a catch-22 because of-

Anne Okafor (20:59):

It's okay to be in a progress. I think that's the essence of it, isn't it? You're always... It's the willingness to make that progress as well, the almost stubbornness to keep at it as well, that determination and grit to keep at it, and that's not always an easy thing to do. And I think having a mentor doesn't necessarily need to be someone who's absolutely where you are now. It can be someone who's on the same journey, maybe just a few steps ahead, it doesn't... And they're on that journey as well,  and you're learning and taking people with you, I think that's okay too.

Benjamin Fincher (21:37):

Yeah, and that's a brilliant thing that it might be a little bit of a behind the scenes for some listeners, but as mentors we reaffirm to each other, we're like, "Hey, don't stress if you don't know all the answers, you just need to be one or two steps ahead of the person you're leading. And that way you can make sure that you're going in the right direction." And it is best if you can find someone that's already where you want to be. But sometimes that's not the reality of it. So, that might feel like going back on what I've just said, but I think the best thing I can say to that is just go with your gut on who the right person is because, and by all appearances it might seem like, "Nah, wait," but then that little voice in your heart's telling you, "Nope, I want to go with this person." It ends up being the exact thing you need.

Anne Okafor (22:35):

I think I've had that as well where I've had mentors myself where I felt maybe initially that I wasn't sure, but then actually deep within I've known that there was some sort of reason why I needed to speak to that person. And maybe it wasn't because they were exactly in the place I wanted to be, but there was maybe a specific skill or a specific technique that they had that I was looking to upscale with. So it wasn't necessarily I want that job role, or I want to be exactly in that position, but they're really good at networking or they're really good at public speaking, and that's the mentor skill that I need from that person. So I think it's like we're saying earlier on it's specific mentors, and I think you used the term the hero journey and getting someone to start you off on the journey, and then the swordsman, and then someone about how you interact with people.

                And I think we do that ourselves. If you're looking to upscale mentoring, then you go to someone who's good at that. If you're looking at someone, maybe a career thing, then maybe you do want someone who's in a senior position of the job role that you're looking to get, or even just a few steps above you in the initial stages when you're in early career. So maybe you want someone who's mid-management level or mid-level. And then when you're a manager, you want someone who's in a senior directorship or whatever, to help you make those little steps along the way. And it's about, like you were saying, going from one step to the next step, like a video game where you do level one and then you're shown what you need to do. You're giving the specific tools to get through that level and then you-

Benjamin Fincher (24:09):

And then we're babysitting.

Anne Okafor (24:12):

Yeah. You make enough points and then you're on the next step. And then you've got a new mentor, somebody, maybe you've got your promotion now and you're looking to the next stage, and maybe you're looking at another course or something like that. Just getting those inputs along the way from different individuals as well. It doesn't necessarily need to be one person beside you for the whole journey, and quite often it won't be, quite often there will be lots and lots of different people. I know that's true in my case. And sometimes actually the mentors that I've had have come from an unexpected or a place where I've not even really been looking for a mentor, but someone's just shown up and-

Benjamin Fincher (24:51):

Absolutely.

Anne Okafor (24:53):

... been really useful and been really kind and generous, and I think that's the other thing that we should recognize with mentors is there's a lot of generosity in them giving their time and their expertise and that. And I've been really lucky where I've had quite a lot of those unexpected mentors, and I really value them as well because I haven't necessarily been looking for it, but I think that's probably part of the intuition thing, whereas it's just felt right and there's been a bit of a connection. We've struck up some conversations where we've both had a mutual interest, and then they've almost accidentally mentored me through a certain thing that I didn't even realize I needed, or I wasn't looking for.

                So, in what you are doing, do you have an example of a client success that you could share with us? Someone who's come along, maybe been looking for some input and then achieved that, or realized maybe they would do something different, or does just an example of something that you've seen within your work of success with the role of the mentor?

Benjamin Fincher (25:53):

Yeah. So, to share a little bit of some client stories without getting too specific, to respect confidentiality. One person I worked with, they realized, "Oh, I am literally indispensable in my business which means there's no way I could ever sell this. And if I go down for, if I get sick. You're going to just want to leave, you're going on vacation or whatever, I feel like I can't because I know too many... Well, I am the only one who knows too many processes." And so I helped him to be able to develop a standard operating procedure for his business and keep him accountable to it. Because even though he had a good idea of what he needed to do, he wasn't doing it, which honestly that alone can be worth it for hiring a mentor or coach. If the only thing they know how to do is keep you accountable and you have a good enough idea of what you want to do, they might be the right one just because they can keep you accountable.

Anne Okafor (27:06):

Absolutely.

Benjamin Fincher (27:07):

I've had that a couple times where it's like, "Okay, I know what I need to do, but I just need someone to be accountable to."

Anne Okafor (27:13):

I think that's a really good point actually because it is a key point. I think a lot of us sometimes do know exactly what we need to do, but we just keep getting in our own way. And I've certainly been at that end of the situation as well and had someone kept me accountable, and it's just helped me remove that almost mental mind block that's just keeping on stopping me from making progress towards something that I know is the way I need to go. I know that's the direction to travel, but just something keeps stopping me from moving towards it and you can't always explain it. But having that person just kick your butt a little bit and just say... Wave the pointy stick at you every now and then, it really does help.

Benjamin Fincher (28:04):

Yeah. And that's the beauty of how many mentors there are. So some might just be like, "Oh, it's [inaudible 00:28:11]." No, the right person is there for the right person. When the student is ready, the teacher arrives.

Anne Okafor (28:20):

Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Fincher (28:20):

And it's so true, so true. I can't tell you how many times it's happened in my life. Partly because I don't know all the times when I changed enough to have someone show up, I've recognized a lot, but I'm sure there's more to that if I just took the time to sit down and be like, "Okay, did this situation apply here?" I'm like, "Oh yeah, it totally did." Whether or not I could pinpoint what I changed or not, that's a different story, but as I'm saying that I'm like, "Oh yeah, it probably happened this time. It probably happened this time."

Anne Okafor (28:47):

Well, at the same point when people have an impact, but we don't actually really recognize it at that moment that maybe down the line, three months, six months, a year later, if something clicks and you're like, "Well, that's what they were talking about."

Benjamin Fincher (29:02):

And you're just like, "Oh, okay."

Anne Okafor (29:06):

And it just takes that little time to land, and they've had that impact and now they're on about their own business, and then you're like, "Oh yeah, that's what I was." And it's really helpful in the moment that you realize that even though at the time you didn't realize that it had any impact.

Benjamin Fincher (29:23):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can certainly have those moments where it's like, "Oh, I learned something here," but you don't realize it until down the line. Sometimes as well the people that you end up working with, they don't know how to describe the greatest things that they know how to do, and sometimes I feel like that's me. It can be really hard to describe to someone how removing sarcasm from their life could really help them. It is so prevalent in today's world, and that I could help them with that. That's one thing I have not... I have to leave sarcasm. You'll still slip up every now and then, but in a very real way I've unlearned sarcasm. So, sometimes people use it and I'll be confused and they'll be like, "I'm just joking." I'm like, "Oh, right."

Anne Okafor (30:17):

I think you made a good point because we aren't always necessarily good at explaining what we are good at and articulating that. I think we all do that, and so then it can be difficult sometimes, but I think that's where we go back to the intuition. And if it feels right, you probably... They're maybe not explicit in that I could help you with this, but you know from watching them and from hearing them and being around them, that they're the right person to help you because you know that that's what they do even though it's [crosstalk 00:30:47].

Benjamin Fincher (30:46):

It's what your gut's telling you.

Anne Okafor (30:48):

Absolutely, yeah. And they maybe don't necessarily need to say that because you've got that awareness and that intuition about it, and it just feels right that that's exactly what you're looking for. And sometimes I think we're not always explicit because we are in a place of development as well. We're not always really sure what exactly it is we're looking for, and to articulate that like, "I'm looking for help with such and such." Generally we know, "Yeah, I want to progress in my career," but how do you want to progress, what are you looking to do? What is it? And sometimes that little bit of direction, but again, you know that that type of person is the right person for you because of what they do and how they behave and the steps that they're making to progress in their careers and things like that. Don't you think?

Benjamin Fincher (31:34):

Yeah. And that reminds me of a point that I was trying to remember. You kind of touched on this when you were talking about... When you rehashed when I was saying about the hero's story or journey. We don't go to every mentor for the same thing, and that's especially where you'll hear mentors are choosing a niche. And once they actually get into one then it's like, "Oh yeah, this is what I do." It's like, "Oh, great. Cool." And it's like some of them will help you focus on, "Okay, this is how you emotionally manage yourself." Others will focus on, "Okay, this is how you do it." Others will you focus on, "Okay, this is the mindset that you need to be in to actually achieve goals." And the list goes on, if you can think of anything that you can do in life, there's almost certainly a mentor that, if they're not on that exact thing, they're only one or two steps above it in that breaking down the categories for it.

                As the world continues to realize all mentors are essential, you'll find eventually probably within the next 50 years, there's going to be a mentor for literally anything you can do or think, or want to achieve, or anything. And so, maybe that mentor that you're working with that is helping you manage your emotions isn't a millionaire like your other mentor is that is helping you become a millionaire, okay? Well, are they where you want to be? Doesn't have to be the whole picture. It has to be the area they're helping you with. And again, sometimes your intuition will tell you, "Hey, no, it's not obvious that they're where you want to be, but they're the right person right now." I remember I worked with this one mentor, they were a very odd cookie. Or do you have a phrase over there it's odd biscuit or anything?

Anne Okafor (33:18):

Well, we would probably say odd cookie as well to be fair in that scenario, yeah.

Benjamin Fincher (33:28):

In that particular instance. I like to be culturally aware and just relatable on that. But they were very, very odd doing it in a lot of woo-woo things as they're often termed. And a lot of them I was very, "Oh yeah, whatever. This is just the way this thing works." But they also were in a lot of other things that are just like, "[inaudible 00:33:51] with you, it's weird." And I started working with them for a little bit, I think it was about six months I was working with them, and I'd mentioned to my parents at one point, "Yeah, I think it'd be cool for this person to come by the house." They wanted to do something to help me with this one thing. And they look at their website and they like, "Nope."

                My parents have been involved in mentoring, personal development for years at this point, technically longer than me, and yet maybe technically not, depending on how you parse it, but roughly the same time. And they look at this person, they're like, "Nope, that's way too weird. Don't want anything to do with it." I'm just like, "Okay. I'm just going to keep working with them. They don't come over." And it gets to the point where I leave and go do something in different State and we lost communication at that point just before the six months were up. But I look back to that sometimes and it's interesting because that person actually really offset my wife from the personal development world because she thought, "Oh yeah, it's a mentor, it's like this person and that's weird. Super, super weird." And so, part of me has regretted even working with them ever because now it's set my wife back in a couple of ways as far as accepting mentoring, I'm just like, "Why?" But she started to come back around.

Anne Okafor (35:17):

But I think that's what people like, it speaks to the part of finding somebody appropriate because I'm sure that person, while maybe not appropriate for your situation, or your wife, will be probably appropriate for someone else maybe on their journey, depending on what they want to do. So, it's finding someone that is looking to do the things, or has some techniques that you are looking to do. And I think sometimes actually as much as maybe it's a negative experience for you, at least you know that that's something you don't want to pursue or don't want to get back in the realms with, if that makes sense?

Benjamin Fincher (35:54):

Right.

Anne Okafor (35:55):

Yeah. What we don't want is a good lesson also.

Benjamin Fincher (35:59):

Yeah, and I had a handful of bull from that particular mentor where it's like, "Oh, I don't want to do things like this," but it was also like, "Oh, now I know more about these other things that I did want to know about too." And so that one was more of a mixed bag than others I've experienced. But that was one that I followed my intuition on, they were not... They were struggling to pay the rent in the office they were in. If it hadn't been for me paying them, they would've been out basically. But my intuition was telling me, "No, it's okay. Work with this person for a little bit." I'm just like, "It's weird, but whatever."

Anne Okafor (36:37):

You both came away with some lessons regardless.

Benjamin Fincher (36:41):

Exactly. As much as it had some of those negative impacts, it's not permanent. My parents have never mentioned them again, and like I said, my wife is finally realizing like, "Oh, there are mentors that aren't freakishly like that person." For me, I'm like, "Okay, yeah. Whatever, they're just into this particular area and they just deal with a couple of weird things." But for someone like my wife she's like, "Holy cow."

Anne Okafor (37:12):

We said earlier on, it's a very individualistic thing because we mentor from a place of our individual experience. And then the mentee is also coming from a place of personal experience. So what's a bit out there to one person, to the next person is perfectly normal and is perfectly fine. So, it's absolutely about the relationship of finding that right person for you and for the situation that you're trying to look for development in.

Benjamin Fincher (37:44):

And it also illustrates the point of your family might not understand why in the world you're working with this person. They would just be like, "What is wrong with you? Person is so weird." And honestly, that could just be like the most down to Earth basic mentor in the world and your family's just in a really bad place when it comes to it. I've been there with extended family where they're just completely, not necessarily opposed, but just well, opposed out of an ignorance place. Not opposed because they think it's bad, they just don't know and so they just reject it because it's unknown. And going back to that point to finding someone that helps you with what you're working on, in my own hero's journey, and this is to go back to answer that question you asked me earlier about what I do.

                I've tried many different things to prioritize as being my niche or my thing that I help people with. I started out as a mentor, "I'm a mentor, start telling people." And then I'm like, "Oh, I need to be more specific." And I'm like, "Oh, oh." And I don't remember the exact order, but I've gone through intuitive mentor, a love mentor, that was around Valentine's day that I had that, so it makes sense. Lasted a couple months. Life mentor, just to throw some cognitive dissonance at people and be like, "Wait, life coach?" "No, life mentor." "What?"

                And then most recently it's felt like, "Okay, I want to be a Live Your Dream coach and help people to remove the obstacles in their path keeping them from their dream, and help them move towards their dream and actually achieve it," because a lot of people just talk and talk and talk, but don't know the right steps. And I feel like recently with people that I've been working with that it's been, "Okay, yeah." For as much as I might have not have reached exactly where I want to be yet, I now know the steps to take to reach it and I can teach someone else that.

                And sometimes that's all it takes. I might come across as a student, but yet with mentors I've had, not every one of them has been where I want to be even for the reason I'm talking with them. And you can even take an example of maybe there's that super cranky old person in your neighborhood, but man, can they tell you about how to live a happy life. And maybe it's because they can tell you all the things to not do.

Anne Okafor (40:27):

Yeah. No, absolutely.

Benjamin Fincher (40:29):

And that's something that I've got, a handful of things and be like, "Don't do this."

Anne Okafor (40:35):

There's definitely a lesson from everybody, and like you say, it might be that counterintuitive, like you said, the grumpy person but telling you how to do, or how not to do things and then you can be happy. And I think there's definitely something in that. I know you also have your podcast, How To Rewrite The Stars, and it's conversations about mindset and habits and how to almost get out of your own way and rewrite your stars. Because I think a lot of people maybe don't necessarily know how to start, like you said. So, do you want to tell us a little bit more about the podcast and just what sort of things you're talking about on there?

Benjamin Fincher (41:17):

Yeah. So, the podcast itself was a journey. It started out with me not knowing what I want to do besides just help people, and so that's what the first season is. The second season I started with an idea that I had, and then as I was trying to figure out how to get back into getting to a regular upload point, because I never actually reached that of regularly uploading. And then this idea came to me, this spark of inspiration. And I'm just like, "That's brilliant." And I've been releasing weekly episodes since that first episode I recorded after that intuition or inspiration. And what the podcast is, is helping people understand how to take the tools that you may have learned and apply them to your life, to actually live the life you want to live. And taking people, you know those episodes that I've done in this second season have been with guests?

Anne Okafor (42:16):

Yeah.

Benjamin Fincher (42:17):

And I bring them on and say, "Hey, what did you do? How did you rewrite your stars? What tools do you have? What early ability do you have for the listener, how can you tell them how to be better?" And a little secret of mine, if you want free mentoring, start a podcast based on personal development and get guests on it and ask them what to do because people want to be on podcasts to be able to reach a broader crowd and find more clients and help more people. And almost everyone I've come across has been willing to share a lot. There's a handful of reasons for that, some of them without someone coaching you or mentoring you through exactly how to use it, it won't be as effective, but they still give you things that work because, hey, maybe that's where they started.

Anne Okafor (43:13):

Absolutely. [crosstalk 00:43:15].

Benjamin Fincher (43:15):

[inaudible 00:43:15] free things, figuring it out along the way, and finally they buckled down and got their own mentor coach. Because almost every successful person, if not every successful person... Actually no, every successful person has had a mentor or coach, almost every successful person has paid for that, and sometimes, not always, arguably not commonly, but sometimes that payment is not in money. It's in other things that the particular person deems as an appropriate trade. It's, "Hey, actually put in the work." You go to the Star Wars, the first one that was released, The New Hope. Obi Wan wasn't like, "Hey, you've got to pay me now, I'll teach you how to do this." He's like, "No, you've got to save the galaxy. I'll teach you, but you got to do the save the galaxy part. That's not me anymore."

Anne Okafor (44:14):

Yeah. Well I think that's a great point as well because sometimes we work with mentors and I think maybe in the workplace that's applicable where you're not necessarily getting... You're not paying as such for that, the role, but if you're maybe getting this mentorship from a senior, then maybe you're expected to work a little bit, or demonstrate what you're learning as you go and develop as you go.

Benjamin Fincher (44:14):

And apply it.

Anne Okafor (44:40):

And absolutely apply it, and become better at your job, and that's your responsibility as the mentee then. It's not all about a financial arrangement, it could be time, it could be effort, it could be application of the lessons. So again, definitely there's something to be said there. So just to round up, we've had a really good conversation about the role of the mentor and some different examples and things. So, what would you say would be your top three tips for someone who's looking to find a mentor to work with?

Benjamin Fincher (45:11):

That's a good question, and almost in a catch-22 way, but not quite. I would say for the first one, find someone you know that has had a mentor and ask them what they did to find them. And that may end up just being a Google search, or listening to more episodes of Anne's podcast here The Everyday Determinator. If it means coming over to my podcast and listening to that and saying, "Okay, how did you guys find mentors?" But in order to do anything like that you have to study it. So to find the mentor, it's not necessarily the most harder things to do, and yet it can be because you want to find a person's right for you. And in our digital age, the world isn't bigger, it's smaller. So it's easier and yet people can get paralyzed by all the options, which can make it harder.

                So, if you can find someone that has had a mentor, ask them how they found them, so that would be number one. And number two on how to find a mentor is develop your intuition. If you feel that you should not walk down that street, walk on the other side of the street or stop for two seconds, or whatever your intuition's telling you, make this decision instead of that decision. Start developing that by actually acknowledging and listening, and acting on what your intuition's telling you. It's not always an everyday thing, but when it does happen be like, "Oh, what's it telling me?" It's that gut feeling, it's that knowing without knowing where you're just like, "Oh, I need to do this this way. How did I... I didn't know that. What?"

                And you do it that way and boom, it's excellent. So, develop your intuition because that will help you with the third is, just check with your intuition. We talked about find someone that's where you want to be, and that's a very, very good metric. The big thing is, not everyone where you want to be is the person that's right to teach you. And we could talk about learning styles for an hour or five, but I'll just put that out there as a general thing that can cause a lot of differences. Admittedly, some are really good at teaching audiovisual, some are really good at teaching kinesthetic. Others are really crappy teaching all but one.

                And so, even if they're a multimillionaire, do they actually know how to teach? So, ask someone that's done it, develop your intuition and then use your intuition. And the thing is, sometimes using your intuition will look like join that Facebook group, go talk to that person, sign up to this new class, go take that freebie that somebody's offering. Maybe it's a martial arts class night for free, you end up there and you end up talking to that one person, and then they point in the direction of the person you need to go to. Or maybe you go to that networking event and you think, "Oh, the person's that's bringing this together, you need to work with them," and then it ends up being [inaudible 00:48:30], it's like, "Oh, it's this other person.

                And maybe it's that person pointing you towards even somebody else. And so, if you just follow your intuition and maybe just give it a little nudge and say, "Hey, I'm going to find someone to help me get this goal," bingo. It might take a while, depending on how much you've developed your intuition and it might be instantaneous and it'll be done within an hour.

Anne Okafor (48:55):

Yeah. I can really relate to that. There's been a few times when I've been thinking, "Should I go to this networking event?" Or, "I'm not going to go," and then I think, "No, just go because you were going to go." And then I meet someone amazing that really catapults something else, or points me in the direction of someone else that helps me. And you think, "Oh, I'm glad I went, I'm really glad I went to that because I was in what we say, in two minds about whether to go or not." And when you do really follow that, just follow what you originally felt, then you're glad that you made that decision. I always think as well with networking, you never know who's going to be in the room.

                And if you are talking to people and telling them what sort of things you're looking to develop, then people will be around. Like I said before, it comes from unexpected and surprising places sometimes. Sometimes when you're not even really looking for some direction, and then suddenly it's just there. So I think the intuition's a really, really good point. How can our listeners connect with you online if they want to know more about Starlight Mentoring or Rewrite Your Stars podcast?

Benjamin Fincher (50:03):

So, if you wanted to find out more about where I'm at, you can head over to my website, starlightmentoring.com, and there you can find links to the podcast or just search How To Rewrite Your Stars on any major podcast platform. And I've got my email on the website, benjamin@starlightmentoring.com. And you can send me an email there and say, "Hey, what's up? I heard you on the Everyday Determinator, I want to work with you." And that actually reminds me, would I be able to offer a gift your listeners?

Anne Okafor (50:36):

Absolutely.

Benjamin Fincher (50:38):

So like I said, right now I'm focusing on a Be and Live Your Dream coach and working with people on that. And so with that, I want to offer some Live Your Dream sessions for 30 minutes. And at the end of this, you'll end up knowing what your dream is, understanding what challenges are stopping you, and feeling renewed, re-energized and recommitted to actually achieving your dream. And I've only got seven guaranteed spots, so be sure to reach out quick, or you might not make it on the calendar.

Anne Okafor (51:13):

Well, that's really awesome and really generous of you, Benjamin. Thank you so much.

Benjamin Fincher (51:18):

Absolutely.

Anne Okafor (51:18):

I'm sure someone will benefit from those sessions greatly. So thank you so much for that. We will, of course include the links that you mentioned in the show notes for the episode, and you'll be able to get them just below on the podcast player, wherever you're listening to this. So, thank you so much Benjamin, I had a really good time chatting about mentoring and all things mentoring. That was really a great conversation, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to myself and my listeners about that, you're remarkable.

                So whether you're bouncing back from a challenge or storming forward to the next one, The Determinator Collective is here for you. Stay remarkable, Determinator.

Speaker 1 (51:59):

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss when new episodes are posted. We will continue to deliver real-life insights on overcoming challenges, practical tips and advice on becoming unstuck with a collective of people just like you are Everyday Determinators. Until next time, take care of yourselves and your friends. Thanks for listening, Determinators.