Lessons

Lesson Info

Mentors

This portfolio is kind of like lego blocks in my mind where I walk in and about all these colors and all these shapes and all these things that I could build. And sometimes I want to pick up that one, put together with that one and see what happens, it's. And so we've got a lot of these coming. The fourteenth element comes from a comment that I got back in nineteen ninety seven. It was october of nineteen, ninety seven, and the story behind this was I had just moved to argentina. I spent three months, nineteen, eighty nine days because that was my visa, and I went and taught and lived and worked in a little school in cordoba, argentina. Now, court of argentina, pretty small town, ojai, california, very small town. So when I came back to ojai that september, the newspaper somehow heard about this story, the ohio valley news, and quickly they had interview mr womack, who left ojai and came back very exciting. And in this story where they mentioned that I was a spanish teacher at the high...

school that I was at. Well, a couple of days after the story ran, I got a phone call at the end of the day, the rank and someone called, and it was this woman named martha this is jason. My name is martha. I read the story about you in the ohio valley news and I'm wondering could I come sit in on your spanish one classes now truth be told, I had totally figured that this was some parent of one of my kids who just wanted to kind of see what I was doing because I was kind of you could probably imagine a little bit untraditional and what I was asking the kids to learn and how fast I was asking them to get things. So the next week monday morning this woman's walking toward the classroom and she's not apparent she's not a mom she's not married she's retired and she comes in introducing yourself to me and she's sitting in my spanish one class now spanish one in high school is usually freshmen, so you could imagine the little fourteen fifteen year olds like and I just moved past the books out I passed the test in three weeks every day comes to class the end of the third week she finally told me what the story was she says, I'm getting ready to go she's going to south america for a trip where I'm doing some work and I just wanted to brush up on my spanish oh glad I could be of service and then she said these magic words that forever changed my life she said, you know jason you're a pretty good teacher but on that but changed everything, she said you're losing time, energy and focus because you can't find what you need when you need it she had observed me over fifteen work days fifty minutes at a time little to my knowledge she was very adept at being able to pick up on where people were losing focus her job was to be an executive coach to people who were building businesses building organization ds and that call meant sent me on a quest from october of nineteen, ninety seven till today is how do I regain that time that energy and that focus and one of the ways that I've been able to craft it for myself that I'd love to share with you today is this idea of finding a mentor so thank you for calling me a mentor I just figure I have a little bit of experience and I'm willing to share it that's really what I'm all about and why what mentors do for me is they provide me feedback now I've already mentioned that I have had mentors teach me things who had never met I learned a ton from albert einstein I dove into his biography one month whoa I've learned so much from alva thomas edison first name was alva didn't know that did you cook story about thomas edison is seven, eight years old and his family can't find him and the uncle said, I bet he's in the barn anyway little alva hey was known is that until it was a teenager he was sitting on a chicken egg to see if he could get it toe hatch this is the do the game was the light bulb and I'm curious curious, curious the feedback I get from mentors I put this quote behind me you can take a look at that on screen I hope they show that to you but it's the fastest way I know of I'll use a ah term from the silicon valley joshua to pivot or to integrate, but when I put myself in a position to gain that feedback from someone toe listen to what their experience, their knowledge, their understanding of the world and how that can make me shift and it's really interesting to see what that does to individuals. I've heard people tell me, jason, I don't want feedback because what it means to them is something that they may have brought from a past experience I've had people that didn't get constructive feedback, so I'm always asking people not when the last time they got feedback wass the last time they got feedback that was useful uh kind of connect a dot here guess who gets some of my gratitude cards people offered me feedback that I could implement immediately and gain that result from ah question that's important for you to understand leaving today walking out into this world especially as you start taking a look at those team members whether they are a far that you may not have a personal connection with yet I would say yet but how do you prefer to receive that feedback? Jodi and I have a a rule between the two of us so we both do public speaking and we have a rule that when we're in each other's audience the first twenty four hours after we finish the presentation no negative feedback on ly positive how good I wass how good the stage worked, how amazing the presentation was twenty four hours later bring it I need it because sometimes I need those really close people to give me the feedback that's the strongest as you take a look at that information that once collected you khun do something about it later on and I shared with you the beginnings of this a little bit earlier who was it that I was on stage with that I was talking about the informal formal subjective objective joshua that was you and I and for those of you who weren't here and this morning, one of the things I talked about was the different kinds of feedback now I'm just going to throw some samples up here in your own mind it might help to think about your own world for for example, just take a look at the top left of the quadrant when you look at the informal and subjective feedback you get tonight after the event, I wish those of you in the internet land were around san francisco, we're getting together for a little conversation and I know over that conversation over a bucket of chips and a beer we're going to have a conversation, it'll be a little less for the informal and then I'm going to hear things like it feels like or it seems like or the way I experienced it, that kind of feedback I'm going to use, I'm going to assess I'm going to let in realizing there's some subjectivity to it on the other side is the informal, more objective and object to me just means I can measure it. But when I answered the phone and there's that thanks that come from the other side when I sit down to a lunch with a friend it's objective it's, it's, it's, I can measure it. How many lunches have I had with a friend this week? How many times have they brought up something that I'm working on? How many times have I asked for advice to that person again? I'm just giving you some samples to think about what you're going to come up with your own in real time when you think about the formal, subjective now anyone who's ever worked in an organization with a management structure with the long lines and the boxes and the triangles and circles and maybe you did have a dotted line I'm actually putting the annual productivity review and the mid year goal achievement review on this subject of side I'm putting them there for my own self because to me they're still in that realm of well we were doing ok as soon as I want to move that toward the objectivity I want measurement behind it I love numbers I love being able to put down some kind of a this many times that happened now what you're probably seeing is that things can slide back and forth if anything when you leave it's kind of like asking yourself that next mentor that next leader that next coach that next adviser what kind of feedback do I want to be receiving from her or him? I'm thinking of a conversation cheryl you and I had just about twenty minutes ago which is letting those people know that wow, they are interested in what I'm interested in how interested are they interested in what I'm interested in is that subjective informal hey let's go out and go for walks in the park let's go meet for a conversation just kind of talk about it or is it? How many times do you anticipate having that done by the end of the year at what level do you want to grow that company? Joshua, you talked about your ideal day. You're so that and it's the first time I'd ever heard you say that comment about giving people jobs, making jobs for people and like wow on so many levels, I congratulate that in to these different areas. So where is it that I get the feedback from? I look for all of these, the most objective feedback I get is measurable. I can measure it. I tend to do the same triathlon year to year so that I have some kind of a measurement. How did I do in malibu? A year one in malibu? Year two in malibu, year three. And how did that go? The book has been a a fascinating exercise in measurement because it's out of my hands it's a publisher measuring everything. How many downloads? How many downloads per what device? Hominy audio's how many audio portions they can even track sometimes some players, they contract how far people made it into the book. For those of you who are involved in creative live, that chapter one of the book acts as a gatekeeper that says, yes, I want maura or nope, I've had enough so that area that I can look at from the sub subjective object of the formal and the informal I write a lot have shared that with you, and I'll just put words down and I'll ask myself, where do I need feedback? Where do I need that information from somebody? Where do I need to show up with everything I've got so that they know what it is that I'm working on? As we start to wrap this fourteenth element together, you're kind of thinking about what tools you can use for effective feedback. We already talked about the personality assessment, those are kind of fun because they give me some objective as it's been studied, but then I could turn in the subject of whether it's important to me, but the best feedback I know it comes from these places. It comes from the results that I've achieved, the measurable results. So here I am on stage a creative life. There is a measurement, there is a result of that effort that we gave the experience, you know, I think tony, when you and I sit down and have a chat, it's just kind of going through, well, here's an experience I v there had or heard of or one that you've been told that that you want to test a little bit the contribution. That back to that lifestyle business that we're talking about, there's a certain aspect of what jodi and I are working on this is how much can we contribute? How much can we give back to that of the overflow that we've got? As far as the measurement, the best feedback I know is measurable not that non measurable feedback isn't good, but I want to go back in there and say, how do we how do we rank on that scale and system service? And earlier yesterday, we talked about the three different things about experience we talked about product, we talked about service and that service part, what is the feedback you're getting from the folks that you're serving, leaving the event where people will come together and they'll have the music and the art in the food? And as they leave, how do we find out what their experience wass of that service, this one will connect the dot from earlier today? My best feedback comes from the habits that I've got. I remember when when jodi and I first started traveling a lot together, there was a period where we didn't travel much and then a couple of shifts around and she would notice that there were things that I did as I was traveling, how I packed my suitcase, how I approached the line and say the first few things I did on the other side of the gate that I hadn't even been aware ofthe when she started calling me out on that we started riding down these tips came about thirty or forty of these things, and ultimately, the u s a today newspaper did a full page article on jason's traveling tips feedback that I didn't even know was there to access. So where do you start collecting feedback and the question about do I practice speaking in front of a mirror? I'm actually more a fan of doing the recording started this as a high school teacher one day a month. There was a tripod in the back of the classroom one day a month, and I recorded myself teaching every lesson they usually talk between three and four lessons a day. At the end of that exercise, no one got to see that video. Nobody gets to see that video. That was me, and what I would do is I would watch me on video and watch my actions. I would watch my interactions with the kids, and I would always find one thing to stop doing. I don't want try and find anything to make better because I didn't know what to make better, but I just started taking things out that weren't contributing that weren't helping. I get a lot of feedback from this daily journaling exercise I was telling you about a ton of feedback from that. I I gotta tell you, when I look back at my journal from two thousand three, two thousand four, two thousand five, and I look at the things that were hard or that was sad or that we're bothering me, I look back, it doesn't go while those were cute problems look what I'm dealing with now and it let me see if I made it through that, which I thought was the biggest thing in the world of the time, and now I'm dealing with this, which I think is the biggest thing that I'm doing with time, we're gonna be okay. Um, this one showed up with a client that I worked with in another client, ohio, canton, ohio, and what we did is she wanted to get a more kinesthetic control of her office. She knew it was out of control, but she was so kinesthetic that making stacks to her were just the way to go. She had this office, I don't have anyone ever seen one of these where she'd walk into the office and in the morning she kind of look at things and put him on the other side of the desk and look at things and put him on their side of the desk in the next day, she'd look at things and put him on their side of the desk and look at things that's was how she rolled, so what we did is I had her back up in the one corner of her office and she took a digital picture of the same area five days in a row. The next week, we started taking a look at which things were there all five days, that she didn't touch which things were there all five days, that we're in a different place every day, and this feedback to her, it was her office, it was nothing that I was trying to tell her to do is nothing that I was trying to say, I think this would work, it was her coming up with wow, let me take a picture of this and match that over time, so let me end with what I think was one of the most powerful mentoring programs that I've ever been a part of. And it all started when I worked out with a mentor of mine, kevin. I've talked about him as my hiking partner through the grand canyon, and what we both decided was that there was things that he knew that I would get value from. And there were things that I knew that he would get value from. So we decided to start an experiment. The experiment was what would happen if we met over a period of six to six to twelve months? We gave ourselves a year limit. We knew we wanted to stretch it out. What would happen if we met seven times over that period for anybody? Want to guess how long? About fifteen minutes. What we did is we decided in the first fifteen minute phone call. And by the way, there are really five mentoring sessions. Let me get tow how this all pans out. The first phone call fifteen minutes we decided the one or two things that we wanted to work on. So I'm the receiving mentee kevin's going to be my mentor with a fifteen or so minute conversation, and we decided I wanted to work on topic ex topic. Why, for the next six months, about every is he could imagine four, five weeks, we put a call in the calendar for about fifteen minutes. Kevin's job was to prompt me with what it is that I said I was going to be working on that I would need his counsel I had anywhere from and we just kind of kept it a small as we could to three minutes to dump on him where I was what I was doing where my challenge wass and the remainder of the phone call was him giving me ideas of what I could process we tried this we had I was the first mentee he was the first mentor we got through I think it took about six and a half seven months we flipped it around we did it one more time and what we realized was it worked what kevin did was every time I talked he wrote down what I talked about at the end of those fifteen minutes he wrote down the ideas that he gave me the seventh phone call you with me on that one first phone call what we're gonna work on five phone calls and in the seventh one the last one was the out brief hey jason here were the two things that you wanted to work on over those six or seven months here were the comments that came up and here was the advice I gave the last line of this slide it says note to feed forward on the feedback it's incumbent upon me after I meet with a mentor one week, two weeks, max, I want to let them know how I'm using the feedback they gave me from that meeting I mentioned earlier this concept where people love to help it's just up to us, to figure out how to ask him in a way that they'll meet us. I found that when I let my mentor no, you gave me some feedback, here's how I used it, they're much more willing to step in again and share a few more things. So this idea of asking for and receiving feedback and setting yourself up the mentor process, it's changing it used to be a very formal structure that organizations would put into place, and they would assign people that may or may not have been that interested. I'm seeing it as a just in time delivery system, here's the one or two things I'm working on, can we have some conversations over time? And can I track my success with some of these formal structures? So what I want to do is I want to run through, and and this is going to be fast, because there's fourteen of these things on a run through this productivity's portfolio that we've been able to build over the last couple of days as you go through these, you're going to probably have the same thought I did, and we'll see how this shows up online with what people say, but as you go through these with me, you're probably gonna have the same thought I did, which is jason there's really not? Fourteen you just expanded some that could have been brought together. You're right, but we wanted to have this rich experience, so we talked yesterday about identifying your more about the significance of owning what that thing is that you want more of, and I hope over the past forty eight or so hours, I've been able to establish that hey, more doesn't need to be traditional. It doesn't need to be that definition that I grew up with if I want more time outside, if I want more connection to my social network, those things count, I threw out there this idea, the concept of the power of the undone I mean unfinished business has the ability to keep me up at night and wake me up in the morning. Along with that, I put that concept of acknowledgement and accomplishment, which I didn't get asked, but if I did, when do I write my gratitude card? It's the last thing I do at night, the last thing I do with that desk, that last thing I do, it worked that last thing I do before I call it a day is I button up the day we talked a lot about these two perspectives this noun orientation in the verb orientation that seemed to spark a little bit of the online community when people looked at wow, I'm not looking at different things, I'm looking at the same thing in different ways and how do we maximize? How do we capitalize on that? Like the learning styles? I will listen to folks that I will listen to their vocabulary, and I can start to assess where their strengths are, where their focus is, where they are now, nor they ever m I t s have talked about those continually your most important things gave you examples of on an organizational level, and then I gave you examples on the personal level. I love some of your comments realizing you need to hone in and really clarify what those committees are, which leads naturally to ideal days. If I'm working towards my most important things, then ideally, philosophically, I should be living days that air joy filled people sometimes enjoy full I say joy filled, purpose, reason the so that exercise and I know a couple of you shared with me and then online I heard from some folks as well as faras sharing that so that with their communities just tow raise that flag that says, hey here's, why we're doing what we're doing we spent a lot of time looking at and a lot of discussion offline I got a couple of e mails from people that I got to respond to about their tools what is the best tool for what kind of come ah conversation communication at my best win if anybody wants a little bit more information about that we do actually have a whole web site for you called at my best when dot com you've watched video you could read an article we could download a cast all about this idea of being able to set myself up to perform then today and this would be kind of a quicker review we look to your routines and your habits what you do automatically looking at are there any places that I can set something up so that it just happens a little bit easier? Can I buy back almost some of those fifteen minute blocks that seemed to really engage the online community as far as thinking about what can I get done in those fifteen minutes? Well, maybe maybe I want to go engage in one of those kinds of conversations I know one participant earlier, joshua you talked about engaging an email for these fifteen minute blocks getting through those transactions, opening yourself up for those other conversations well, how about this audio visual kinesthetic? We all learn in always I had a couple of folks come up and we went through to some ideas about your project of your business so you could engage in that and then building your team. If it's one thing I know, I trust I believe people walk away from this course really studying who is entering their email inbox, what phone calls are they allowing to pass through the answer button? And they're the ones that provide value? They're the ones that when you look back and go, that was worth it. If I could sum the course up in four words, it would actually be built on one acronym and the acronym is idea identify a couple of things that you might want to engage in, define what that would look sound and feel like he experiment five days, two weeks a month and, most importantly, look back and ask yourself, was it worth it? We're going to hear from the online community? Was it worth it? And I know that we're going to hear some things from there, but to the audience in studio to you online, I want to watch my clock and say thank you so much.