What’s a mentor worth to you?
Do you have a mentor? Do you feel like you need one? Here we share a few short thoughts on the benefits and how we reached out to ours.
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How did we get ours?
On this week’s blog – we’re taking a slight break from the usual valuable blog posts and thoughts on training to say a few things about mentors.
We went down to Florida last weekend to attend a 2-day workshop related to our in-person work with clients. We slept so little that we probably accumulated 10 hours of sleep in 4 days and then came back to a full client & team schedule this week. We are super tired. But super happy & motivated.
A few years ago, my partner gave me the impromptu gift of a paid phone call (I think it’s always important to compensate people for their time, unless it’s friends and family) with a female Strength & Conditioning Coach in Vancouver. I had been following some of her work online, and I told him that I could envision myself in her shoes in 10 years time (she was 10 years older than me).
Her name was Carmen Bott and she primarily worked with wrestlers and combat/contact athletes like football players and MMA fighters – all of which I had no interest in training. Despite this – I could still really see the crossover between her knowledge and my gaps. She was also a professor at Langara College and taught some courses at Simon Fraser University. At the time I was working at both Mount Royal University and University of Calgary & I could see myself in her. She bridged the gap perfectly between the two worlds with her tag like:
“Think like a scientist. Act like a coach.”
That phone call was so valuable that now I phone her whenever I want – and we have a friendship where we share our struggles and ideas in the industry. Just 2 weeks ago I spent 2 hours on the phone with her sorting through some problems I was having. She needed help with some of her problems she was facing, too.
This past weekend, a trip to Florida was a long way to go for 2 days. From Calgary, there are no direct flights so it literally takes a full day of travel and 2 planes each way with layovers to make it down there. And that’s if you don’t have any delays or cancelled flights that are so common these days.
We spent a lot of money to take the David Grey Rehab course – and we weren’t even sure exactly what we wanted to get out of the course, to be honest. We were drawn in by the fact that the gym that was hosting it – Jeffrey Wolf @ Strength Culture – was a friend and mentor of ours that we met on instagram during the pandemic – and Jeffrey was also becoming a friend and “Carmen” to us. We decided to make it happen.
The result of the weekend was better than we expected. We got so little sleep because as soon as we started a post-workshop dinner with Jeffrey or David, we could not stop talking, sharing stories, and working through struggles in our industry (& sharing some UNRELATED stores…. haha).
The last night in Florida we only got 3 hours of sleep – something that if you know me well – is NOT the way I roll.
This brings me to my original point of writing this email. What is the value of a mentor?
Many people ask for free advice via email or instagram to people they look up to in the industry – and sometimes they even get that free advice.
But I like to think of mentorship like an investment.
My initial calls with Carmen were $125. I probably purchased 5 of them over the years.
The Florida course was around $1000 each for Nick and I, the flights were $1500 each, and the food and transport between those things probably totalled us around $6000.
Mentorship from these willing individuals to help with our careers, answer our questions, and continue to support us though, is invaluable. We have been messaging and even Face-Timing with them this week as we work through what we learned. Some would say that’s “priceless.”
So anyways… find yourself a mentor that you can call (even if it costs you money), who is willing to uplift you, provide advice, distill all the information out there with you, and you won’t regret it.
Reach out if you need anything.
