Don’t Be a Lone Wolf

For years, Michelle believed doing everything herself was proof that she was capable. In reality, the lone-wolf mindset was keeping her isolated, overwhelmed, and unsupported.

In this episode of This Is Nothing New™, she shares the five roles that make up a strong personal advisory board: the mentor, connector, accountability buddy, coach, and contrarian. She breaks down what each person brings to your life, why one person cannot be everything for you, and how to identify the role you need most right now.

You were never meant to do this alone. The real question is: who’s missing from your board?

Connect with Michelle:

Website: michellegruening.com
Instagram: @michellegruening
LinkedIn: Michelle Gruening

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey y'all, and welcome to This Is Nothing New, the podcast where we drop the trends, get back to the basics, and uncover those lessons hiding in everyday life. I'm your host, Michelle Groening, and today we are going to be talking about how we were never meant to do this alone. I created a presentation about a year ago all about this idea that we just truly were not meant to do all of these things alone. And this presentation came out of my experience of feeling like I had to have a lone wolf mindset. For years, I felt like if I didn't do everything on my own, then somehow I wasn't capable of doing it at all. And I felt this way before I became an entrepreneur and I was working for other people, especially in my last job at the software company. I very much adopted a lone wolf mindset there. I felt like it was up to me and only me to keep my team protected, to fend for them, to advocate for them, to be the person who was going to be a good representative of what our users needed and what my team needed. And I got into that lone mindset, that lone wolf mindset, because I had been burned by people that I thought were on my team. I thought I had a really good supportive relationship with my boss at that time. And when I went to him in a moment of vulnerability and struggle, he ended up turning it against me. And in that moment, through that experience, I really sunk deeper into this decision to just go at it by myself because I didn't know who to trust. And I felt like if I showed up in a moment of struggle, that it was just going to be thrown back in my face later. And so I sat in that mindset for a while of just do it alone. Until I got a couple of years into my business and started making more connections and being reminded often that I didn't have to do it alone. And it really did take me a while to fully believe that there are people who want to help and who can hold space for you when you're struggling, but also celebrate you when you're succeeding. And so going through that experience and really identifying the types of people that have helped me was the beginning of putting together this presentation that I gave for the 10th time today, actually. And I wanted to share it with you all because I've gotten a lot of really fantastic feedback that this content is impactful and eye-opening. And I think more people deserve to hear it. So I want to share with you all how I came up with this concept of crafting your personal advisory board. And if you're not an entrepreneur and you're listening to this, you may think, how does this apply to me? This is for whether you have a business, work in a business, are retired, don't work, whatever. This is all applicable, no matter your stage of life, and whether whatever your definition of work is at this period. So I I would love to share with y'all five roles that I have identified are key to have on your personal advisory board. And the reminder before we get into this is these are meant to be different people. A lot of times we can feel like one person has to be everything for us. And that's a big expectation to place upon somebody. So we can sometimes expect our partners, our spouses to be our coach, our cheerleader, our question asker, our support, our guidance, our friend, you know, all of those things. And maybe you're you have a partner that fulfills all of those things for you, or you have a good friend that does all of those things for you, but that's a lot of pressure to put on one person. And then that can become one perspective and one opinion that you're receiving when you're looking for guidance. And so let's expand a bit. Let's identify some other people that can help you continue to grow and expand and evolve. And so the first role on this personal advisory board is your mentor. And a mentor is somebody that has been where you're going. You know, a mentor has walked the path that you're on, and most likely they've achieved what it is you're working towards. Mentors are such a fantastic part of your personal advisory board because they can serve as a living blueprint for what success looks like in the direction you've chosen. These mentors can be sources of inspiration and encouragement. And they can also help alert you to maybe some common pitfalls that happen in that path because they've already experienced them. Mentors are people who have had a lot of experience and they have a lot of knowledge. And those practical insights can offer so much more than just theory. You know, when you can talk to somebody who has been where you want to go, instead of just reading a book on it, you are going to be able to relate and dive in and apply their knowledge quicker and more efficiently. Mentors are people who have a desire and a willingness to impart their knowledge on people. And when you find a really great mentor, it can truly be life-changing. Now, maybe it's a mentor in business, or maybe you're someone out there who has young kids and you have decided that you want to homeschool. Maybe your mentor is someone who has already homeschooled their children. They've walked the path, they know the struggles, and they can be a source of encouragement for you. Or maybe you're a first-time entrepreneur and you find a mentor who's been in the game for 20 years and they can do the same thing. Mentors are really unique, though, because it doesn't always have to be somebody you know personally or even meet with regularly. A couple of my mentors are people that, yes, I have had the opportunity and pleasure to meet very briefly a couple of times, but two of my mentors are Brendan Burchard and John Maxwell. And these are people that I learn from and that I aspire to have an impact even remotely on the same level as them. I can absorb their content and listen to their podcasts and emulate my processes and my perspectives based off of the experience they've had. And they are mentors to me, even though I don't interact with them regularly. So that that first role that I encourage you to think about is the mentor. Now the second role is called the connector. And connectors are somebody who have a really big network of people, and they are interested in making connections between the people in their network. Connectors are people who act as a bridge to opportunities and relationships that you may have never even known about. Or maybe they're just a few degrees of separation outside of your reach. But because you have a powerful connector in your personal advisory board, they are going to multiply your efforts through their established relationships. Really great connectors are in tune with opportunities and open doors throughout their network. And they are intentionally looking for people to invite into those open doors. These connectors are such good advocates too, especially when they have big networks and they are in rooms that you aren't in yet or maybe don't even know exist, they can advocate for you in those rooms. No, for me, when I think about connectors, I think about this uh women's community that I'm a part of. It's a connection company. It's called Polka Dot Powerhouse. And for me, when I joined, I was joining to find friendship and find a community. I had felt alone for a while, especially in terms of friendships. And it was time for me to take responsibility for finding those friendships. And that's when I joined the dots. And what I found is that the more I got to know people, and the more they got to know me, I had all of these connection opportunities available because the people that I met would then meet new people. And something they said would remind them of me, and they would say, Hey, you should actually connect with Michelle. She has some similar interests. Connectors go beyond business, it can go to your personal life too. Now, not everybody has a network that you care about. So make sure you're a little strategic with it. Um, not everybody's network is valuable to everybody. So get strategic with it. What rooms are you looking to enter? How can you get a connector to help you with that? The third role that I want to share with y'all is called the accountability buddy. Now, the accountability buddy is or can be a trusted friend, maybe a mastermind group member or colleague that's on a similar journey. You know, these are people who provide mutual support and they celebrate your wins and they offer genuine encouragement. An accountability buddy, though, goes both ways. We can't expect someone to be our accountability buddy without returning that favor. And the really beautiful thing about this role is that a really good accountability buddy is able to sit with you when you're going through the trenches, when you're struggling, when you get vulnerable and you just need that space to process, they can sit with you in that. Simultaneously, they can celebrate you when you're succeeding and when you're on top. And the best accountability buddies are never threatened by your success because they know your success does not take away from theirs. That's a really key piece. Now, accountability buddies can be in all sorts of areas of your life. You know, maybe it's business related, but maybe it's personal. Maybe you have told yourself, I'm gonna, I'm going to walk more. I want to walk every day. And you tell your accountability buddy about that so that they know to check in with you. And you have somebody that you know you're being held accountable to. And then it never fails. We get to Thursday. It's always Thursday. Doesn't matter what we have planned, but we don't want it. So we I have some room to grow there to hold ourselves accountable to the plans we make earlier in the week. And that's just a silly example, but it just shows you that accountability buddies can be in any area of life, personal or professional. Now, the fourth role is my favorite role, and that's the coach. And it's probably my favorite role because that's what I do. I offer coaching to people who are ready to get to their next level. Now, the word coach has become very diluted over the past few years. And I say that because there are so many different definitions of what a coach is these days. Just about everyone, myself included, calls themselves a coach. And so it gets really hard for people to know what type of coach to work with because everybody's calling themselves a coach. A coach is paid to push you. A coach is not paid to placate you. If you take anything else away about this role of a coach, I hope it's that. You don't hire a coach to agree with you and tell you you're right and allow you to spin in that victim mindset. No, you pay a coach to push you out of your comfort zone, to help you grow, expand your capacity, and go after what you say you want. So when I think about the coaching that I offer, it is always from a place of openness, of curiosity, and of encouragement. Some people have said it's a bit of tough love. But I say that because my coaching doesn't come with a lack of compassion, it is a belief in your potential to go farther than you have. When it comes to really good coaches, they see potential that you might be blind to. And they're not going to let you stand in your own way. That's one of the things that I love to do when I work with people and they come to me with procrastination or excuses. And listen, I get it. Things happen in life, and we can struggle and we can go through some really dark seasons. But there is always a level of personal responsibility that you have to claim if you want to change. And me as a coach, it's my job to push you to claim that. As a coach, it's my job to ask the right questions that help you uncover the answer for yourself. Because when you can uncover that answer for yourself, you own it. You own the solution because you're the one who determined it. It wasn't something I told you you needed to do. It wasn't another order. It's something you discovered. And that's a real key piece of really excellent coaches. Now, coaches are people who are focused forward. Coaches are not there to heal your past. That's where counselors and mental health therapists come in. They are incredibly important and very valuable. I've seen a handful of therapists over the past decade or so, and they've all helped me with different things, healing from different things. But a coach is not a counselor. A coach is forward-focused. A coach is there to help you expand and be a catalyst for your growth. Now, you're gonna have different coaches for different things. You know, when I first started my whole coaching business, I hired a coach who had built a very successful business, focus on mastermind groups, and I hired him to help me do the same thing. He helped me with my mindset, he helped me with my focus, my priorities, my structure. Shout out to Mark. And then when I had evolved to the point that I was ready for the next level, we concluded that coaching relationship. And I found a different coach to help me with high performance, to help me with perspective, to help me with that forward motion and helping keep other people in forward motion. And so coaches should always be elevating you to your next level and encouraging you to continue to go deeper on what you say matters. That's the coach. Now, the final role, which is one of my favorites, but is typically everyone's least favorite because nobody likes to be second-guessed. The final role is the contrarian, also known as the devil's advocate. Now, I personally don't use the term devil's advocate when I'm sharing this content because a devil's advocate tends to be viewed through the lens of negativity, of being a Debbie Downer, of sharing a bad option, or saying your option is bad, and just trying to stir the pot. A contrarian is someone who can balance the reality check and honesty to stress test your plans with the actual desire for you to succeed. That's where a contrarian comes in, specifically in these roles that I'm talking about. So if you're like, oh, well, I know people who are a contrarian who they just want to rain on my parade all the time. That's not a true contrarian. That's someone who just wants to spread their misery. They are going to help you identify potential obstacles or red flags before they become a major problem. Contrarians strengthen your ideas through constructive criticism and keep you focused on what you said was the goal while also supporting your ambition. And one of my greatest contrarians is my husband. Because he is so good at giving me the reality checks that I need sometimes because I get excited. I want to do lots of different things and take on different projects. And I sometimes forget that I have set a priority. And he helps me remember that priority by giving me reality checks of okay, yeah, you can definitely do that project. But where does it line up in terms of all the other priorities you've said are important? And sometimes that's all the reality check I need to just bring me back to focus of what I said matters. And sometimes the new project is what matters, and I just have to slot it in. But sometimes it's not, and I just need that reality check. So when I when I talk about the contrarian, I always like to add a little bit of nuance here because there's a contrarian, which, as I said, is a strategic adversary. They balance enthusiasm for your success with a reality check that helps you stress test your plans. Now, above and below the contrarian are two different types of roles. The person below a contrarian, then They're just the careless critic. They are there to criticize, to make fun of, and to literally rein on your parade. They don't really care whether you succeed or not. They just want to make their voice heard that they don't think it's a good idea. On the top of that contrarian is the blind cheerleader. The people who will just cheer you on, will push you forward because they never want to hurt your feelings. These are those cheerleaders who can see that you're about to walk off a cliff, but they don't want to hurt your feelings. So they just keep cheering you on until you go right off. And we all have people who fall in those categories of cheering us on no matter what because they don't want to hurt our feelings, or criticizing us at every turn, not caring whether we succeed or not. So the real challenge is find the person who can be both, who can blend the reality check with the desire for you to succeed. Thinking about these roles can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. So I would love to just remind you all that you don't have to find all of those people right away. And remember, all of these roles that we're talking about, none of these are brand new roles. None of these are new ideas or new concepts. It's just taking pieces of information that we know exist and packaging them for you in hopefully a way that's more relatable and digestible and applicable. So when we think about the mentor, the connector, the accountability buddy, the coach and the contrarian, with the exception of the coach, because that requires a financial investment, those other four roles don't have to exchange money. Those can be people that you know now. Maybe they're in your work circle or in your church or in your parent group or in your networking community. Those are people that you can start looking for to help you continue to grow on your journey. And maybe you are the mentor that somebody else needs right now. Maybe somebody's been coming to you for some questions recently because they've seen what you're capable of and what you've been able to accomplish, and you're an inspiration to them. Maybe you're a mentor on somebody else's personal advisory board. And so if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by all of these options, I want to just leave you with a few simple reminders. The first one is make it yours. Please do not compare what you are doing to other people. Stop getting distracted by what everybody else is doing or claiming they're doing on social media. Just because your friend went and bought a $10,000 coaching package does not mean that you have to. So it's important to create and curate a personal advisory board that supports your definition of success, where you are going, what you have deemed is important. You set your goals for a reason. So I encourage you when you're looking through these roles, stay focused on your goals. Get the support that you need that is going to continue moving you forward. The second reminder is if you are one of those people who's feeling a little overwhelmed right now, start small. Start small. Pick one role that I talked about that is going to make the biggest impact for you right now. Whenever we think about building out a personal advisory board, it requires us to get outside of our comfort zone. Because we have to ask for help. Y'all, we do not have to do this on our own. And finally, the last reminder know when to evolve your board. Because this personal advisory board, it's an ongoing living process. You can outgrow your current relationship with a coach or a mentor because you're ready for a new perspective. Or maybe you're ready to be challenged more. You might need to evolve your board because your goals or your direction has changed significantly. You know, maybe your original goal was to have a very successful, all-natural candle company. And you did that for a while before realizing no, you want to be a speaker. You're probably going to require a different mentor then. Because if you change direction rapidly and drastically like that, you're going to need a different support system in place. And it's okay to find that new support system. Maybe you're in a new area of focus for your business and you really want to get honed in on marketing. Maybe you need an accountability buddy that's going to hold you accountable to posting when you say you will. Maybe you need a coach or even a consultant, which we didn't really talk about today, but that could be a different role. Maybe you need someone to help you specifically with how to grow your grow your marketing campaign. Or just when you're ready to level up, you've done what you needed with the people that are supporting you, and you're ready for the next level. That requires evolving and growing your board. But remember, when you do evolve your board, it's always a sign of growth. So keep growing, keep evolving it. Now, y'all know I love to leave you with a challenge. And so your challenge is tying back to starting small. Practical steps are begin with one role that would create the biggest positive impact right now. Start with who you know, where you are, and evolve from there. The key is to get intentional with who we have in our closest support circle, whose influence we allow to shape our decisions and our directions, and make those connections. So that's the challenge. Identify the one role that's going to make the biggest impact for you right now in your life. And remember, this is nothing new. We are just reminding ourselves that we do not have to do this alone. And if the next role that you're looking to bring onto your advisory board as a coach, I would love to have the opportunity to chat with you. My whole focus is to help people rebuild trust in themselves, in their decisions, in their actions, and in the path that they are walking. We can talk about confidence, accountability, mindset, and everything in between. So if you're looking for a coach, the way to get in contact with me will be in the show notes. Otherwise, y'all don't be afraid to ask for help. Find those people out there that are ready to support you. Intentionally craft those relationships with them and watch yourself continue to grow. Thank y'all so much for listening. And until next time, I'll catch y'all later.