Unlocking Success: The Power of Mentorship, & actualizing strategy

Ever wondered how a mentor could change the trajectory of your life? Discover the transformative impact of mentorship through personal anecdotes and real-world examples. From young adults trying to embark on their career journey to seasoned professionals; whether you’re seeking formal coaching or casual advice, this episode reveals how mentors offer invaluable knowledge and resources that can significantly propel your journey forward. We chalk out the very many avenues, modalities through which one can offer or receive "mentoring".

In the latter part of the episode, we tackle the often-overlooked importance of simplicity in strategic execution. The KISS rule—Keep It Simple, Stupid—is not just a catchy phrase but a practical approach to achieving your goals. By setting clear, manageable objectives and committing to consistent daily actions, the path to success becomes less daunting. Listen as we break down the steps to streamline your goals into achievable tasks, ensuring you "say what you'll do and you do what you say ".Through this strategic yet straightforward approach, you can enhance your ability to turn plans into results. Tune in to learn how keeping it simple can make all the difference in your personal and professional growth.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Importance of Mentors and Mentoring
• 9:12 Simplicity in Strategic Execution

Transcript

Vai Kumar: 0:00

What about mentors? I really heard you say I think you leaned on someone. Your restaurant manager seemed to have really guided you and showed you the way, so why don't we talk about how significant that could be in someone okay, be it a man, woman, student, whomever that may be yeah yeah. Even being able to realize that, okay, this is my opportunity or this is what I can go after.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 0:31

Yes, I love this question because it hits on two of my biggest passions and one of them is mentoring young people. One of my endeavors is to mentor foster children that are aging out of the foster care system because they have no parents. They grow up sometimes in group homes, sometimes, you know, switching, and there's nobody there to guide them, to mentor them. So I love to mentor young people that are about to hit adulthood, about to go out there and do their thing right. But you mentioned mentors in the work world and that's, you know, one of the biggest resources. When I say to people, lean on your resources, the first thing they think is money. Well, I don't have any money. I'm like well, money is just one of many resources. Right, there's your contacts, your skills, the things that you've learned along the way.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 1:27

Those are all resources, but as far as mentors, I think that's one of the biggest sources of success and people don't lean on them enough. So you know, when I first became a director of business development in the construction industry in Florida, I was still learning my way around. I knew sales, I knew business development, but I didn't know a lot about construction. So I found people in the construction world through National Association of Women in Construction, a lot of really high-powered women that were in the construction industry for years and I leaned on them. I said can I take you out for a cup of coffee and drink? Can I? Can I buy you lunch and ask you some questions? Right, it's the easiest thing just to say may I, may I ask you some questions? May I? When you ask somebody, can you be my mentor? Sometimes that feels like a heavy question. I would say more like can I take you out for coffee and ask you some questions?

Vai Kumar: 2:48

no-transcript in front of our eyes right, and you clearly pointed out earlier, it's almost like you know when it comes to opportunity. Clearly, your case is an example of okay, when one door shuts, another opens, right. So it's just a matter of us trying to identify what those avenues are. And the mentors, as I hear you say, they are like great avenues for I mean, like make it as normal as hey, I want to have a chit chat, like a conversation, just like you and I are having here on this podcast. Sure, just ask some questions and even you know, as we are talking, as much as you are educating the listeners, I'm learning from you here Back in a moment with our guest on Freshly Forever. So how important is it for someone to trust this resource, mitch, and how does that happen?

Mitch Savoie Hill: 4:02

Well, you have to, I believe, try many different things and see what works for you. You might have one mentor tell you to do something one way and that's their way of doing it, and you try it and it doesn't really work for you. But you know it was a good. It was a good trial, right, and there's many different ways to lean on that type of resource. You can hire a coach. When my business saw the pandemic hit, the first thing I did was hire a coach and a lot of people said are you sure? Do you want to spend that money? Is that the right place to put your money right now, when your business is? You know you're not even making money, but I'm a coach. So of course I believe in coaching and it was the best thing I did In a year when other businesses were shutting down. I grew my business. So a formal relationship like a coach can be fantastic, or just a more informal relationship with a mentor, and sometimes it takes you finding an organization. If you're, for example, in construction, maybe you join the National Association of Women in Construction and then you become active and then you meet the other women and you learn from watching them or from doing networking events so many.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 5:19

Every for every business there's some sort of a professional organization. So I'm very big on joining organizations and becoming very active in them. You join a committee, serve. If you serve the organization, the organization will serve you. So I coach my business developers to be very active in their professional organizations and my entrepreneurs. I'm a speaker, so I'm part of the National Speakers Association. I've learned so much from other speakers, from listening to their talks or just watching them or following them on Facebook and LinkedIn and see what, how do they do what they do Right.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 5:55

So there's different ways to to lean on a mentorship and sometimes it doesn't have to be that formal of a mentor Like you're my mentor, we're going to meet once or twice a month for coffee. Like sometimes it's just shooting them an email and saying hey, I'm running into this, what do you advise? They may answer, they may not. You know, sometimes just following them on LinkedIn. I use LinkedIn a lot and I learn a lot from interacting and commenting and joining conversations on LinkedIn. The resources really are unlimited. I had one person say what if I don't have resources? I don't feel like I have any resources and I said dig deeper. They are there.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 6:32

They are there, but sometimes I'll tell you, as a coach, the two areas I probably spend the most time, and you would think it's the planning part, like creating the plan and actualizing the plan. It's not. It's clarifying the vision and then getting them to actually see the resources that they have so that they can lean on them. We spend a lot of time on that.

Vai Kumar: 6:54

So it's like you're saying you know one can be, or we all can be, stronger together, right, yes, so how is it that you know we make this relationship, say between mentor and mentees, work or like organization? Is there like any other recipe that you have, so to speak, you know, for all of us to be like, stronger together?

Mitch Savoie Hill: 7:23

I mean, the recipe is just, it's very simple. It's it's like going out and planting a garden. The care that you put into that garden is what's going to yield the result the lush plants and the flowers growing. So with any mentorship relationship or just with you trying to lean on other people to help you whether it's men, women it boils down to you being willing first to serve you, saying how can I help you, what can I do for you, how can I serve you? Not always being on the taking side. And for somebody who says, well, I don't want to bother that person by asking them to be a mentor, then maybe it'll make you feel a little bit better about reaching out to ask for some mentorship, as long as you know in your mind, hey, this person will help me, and then I'm going to pay it forward later. Does that make?

Vai Kumar: 8:29

sense. Oh well, said Actually, I was going to say even your own example from this conversation itself, like your manager at that restaurant helped you grow and then transition somewhere else by pointing you out to some leadership opportunities. And then you said you started developing people there and they all felt so good when they realized, okay, this is what I can achieve, being my own, you know, being a leader in my own whatever segment or whatever area that they have been assigned with right. So that's just, you know, very important, I feel, and that's interesting. As far as the actualizing a plan Mitch, how important is it for someone to be strategic and purposeful?

Mitch Savoie Hill: 9:20

Oh, it's key. You can have all the vision and all the opportunities and all the resources in the world that if you can't execute a plan, you still might not get there right. So there's a lot of coaching and there's a lot of you know speakers who speak about goals and their smart goals and then how to make a goal, and it can become really complicated sometimes. I don't know, my mind works really well on simplicity and I feel like the more complicated things get, the harder it is to execute anything. So I coach my clients in the direction of what I call the KISS rule. Well, I didn't come up with it. That's an old rule, right? Keep it simple stupid. Keep it simple stupid.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 10:05

So we focus on, first off, what is the main thing, what is the main, most important thing that is going to get you to the next step, and then maybe come up with three things, three things in three months, for example. Well, what are the three things in three months that you're going to accomplish that are going to get you to that next step? Well, now, if you're focusing on one, two, three things and you're strategizing around that, it becomes a lot less overwhelming. So maybe for a salesperson I will say you know well, make sure that you make three calls every day, three sales calls every day, and as long as you just be consistent, right, and so that's easy.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 10:51

Ok, I'm just going to make three calls every day. That's one easy thing to focus on, right? Or, if you're trying to lose weight, then it's well, log your calories and get some exercise. Well, log your calories and get some exercise. 20 minutes, 30 minutes every day, instead of being overwhelmed by should I do paleo, should I do keto? Look, just log what you're eating and get out there moving every day. Oh, that's easy, right.

Vai Kumar: 11:12

Yeah, don't overthink it, but just keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid.

Mitch Savoie Hill: 11:19

And then do it. So somebody asked the other day, when I did a talk like this, what do you mean by actualize, what do you mean by execute? And I said well, what it what it says. Say what you're gonna do and then do what you say you're gonna do that's fantastic, you know, that's so, so important.

Vai Kumar: 11:36

again, that simple you know to hear or listen to, but there's a lot involved. You know like, yeah, say what you do and do what you say, and yeah, that's definitely something useful.