Vision Pros Live Podcast
Original podcast
Being a mentor with Deborah Heiser and Jackson Calame.
9,522 words · 2 speakers
Okay, I have such a hard time pronouncing that state. Uh, this is one of those states where I'm like, oh, man, I always forget. How do we say it? Um, all right. What's your favorite thing about Iowa?
Uh, my family's there.
Oh, that's, that's a very good answer. That is the answer to have. Um, my family's not there. So other than that, unless y'all are inviting me for Thanksgiving, what's another thing about Iowa that like you love?
I think that the people from Iowa are the, some of the best people on the planet. I really, um, you know, I haven't lived in Iowa for a long time, but I always still consider it, um, you know, a, a part of my home, a part of my upbringing. Everyone there is friendly. They really want to help others. Um, people there are just kind, generous, really good people. So I would say that the heart of Iowa's goodness is its people.
I love that. I gotta, I gotta try now. And, and now you're like a walking representation of that because you're all about mentorship and getting people into mentorship. And so a huge shout out to your state for incubating and cultivating that with you. That's, that's super cool. So today we're going to be talking about being a mentor. You got the mentor project. You're working with amazing people like Eric Solomon. I'm not even going to try to go into all the accolades of what he's been able to accomplish in life. I'm just super happy that, that we got connected and they came a show and, and all the good that it gave. So I'm excited to get to know you today as well. And before we dive into all that is mentorship and inspiring the world to seek mentorships and provide mentorships.
Um, what are, what are three resources that have helped you along the way in your own leadership, Deborah?
Well, the first thing that has helped me along my way is mentors, not just one, but I mean, I can't tell you how many mentors I have and I've had, and that is one of the biggest resources.
I'm so happy you're championing that. Keep going, keep going.
Yeah, so it's it's people. Everything goes back to people. So the first resources, I'd say every person out there who's been a mentor to me. Another has been my educational institutions. I really, I'm a first gen college student. And so for me, I really, when I went to college, it was life changing for me. And then to graduate school. So those were big resources. I still maintain contact with former professors. So that's another resource that's a big deal. And I like to be that resource for students that I teach. So
Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tangent on this for a minute.
Okay, good.
Something huge. And if you look at my Podfest profile right now, those of you who are going to Podfest, it says Jackson went to Brigham Young University and it says 0.33 GPA. Oh, right. I'm a big fan of owning just how good I was at doing bad and the university. And so people think I'm outspoken against universities. That is not true at all. I am very outspoken in terms of doing education right. I am very outspoken in terms of, man, I watched Jordan Angelos come back from his mission. I came back from mine. I looked at his resume on LinkedIn. And, you know, mine was pitiful. I had nothing on mine. And he was, he had already interned at Goldman Sachs.
He had already become part of a venture capital group as a senior strategist. By the time we had graduated, like, right after we graduated, he had done all these things. And I thought back on our, or reflected on our university experience, he was just as fun, if not more fun than I was. Yet he did school right. He knew how to really unlock the resources that exist within the university universe, so to speak. And I, I think it's so important that, you know, just life is harder if you don't get your degree. There are certain aspects of life that are much harder. And, you know, you can, anybody can ask me about that. So sorry, I'm not going to champion for all of you four hour work week people that don't go get your degree and don't go do, but we have to do education the right way.
So I'm really happy to hear, Deborah, that you're able to maximize your university and institute opportunities. And I'd love to give you the mic again. What, how did you do it? Because I screwed it up.
You know, here's what I'll say, you know, and I'm not saying, hey, go out and be. For me, it grounded me. It gave me a path to follow. I didn't have a path. And so, you know, I was paying my way through college and then finding my way through graduate school. Was it when one of my professors said to me, you know, she said, you're not doing so great in school. And I wasn't feeling like I was doing so great in life either. I was kind of teetering and I didn't quite know like how much you're supposed to put into it, or what am I supposed to get out of it? I didn't know anything. And when she said that, I was like, well, and I got a little defensive and I was like, well, what do you mean? Um, I'm passing all my classes and I'm doing stuff. And she's like, you're not doing it well.
And so why don't you just quit if you don't want to do it well? And she knew me well enough. I stayed in touch with her for a long time after that. She needed to give me a kick in the pants, so to speak, to say, what is it that you want? Do you really want this? If you don't, go, go be the four hour a week worker and do great. Like do whatever you want to do, but put your all into it. And at that moment, I was like, you know what? I'm going to put my all into it. And I switched it around. I got really great grades. And I pivoted away from some of the things where sort of sucking time that didn't need to be. And from that moment, I really enjoyed school and it made me think about it a little bit differently.
That's, that was really my kick in the pants from a mentor that got me moving.
So cool. That's amazing. Resource three. This is already heavy and juicy. I love this.
Resource three is friends. I can't tell you how often I have been in a bind and a friend has come there to, you know, sort of bail me out or um, that I've been there for somebody else. Friends make me feel like I have purpose and value and, you know, relevance. And so that's another resource. So these are all like free resources that are out there for us that if I didn't have any one of these or only two out of the three of them. It would just be crushing for me because I really do rely on all three as resources for myself. If I need to have an answer, I go to a friend, I go to a mentor, I, you know,
maybe call somebody that was from my university. That's really what I go to.
That is such a neat way of looking at it, too. The, what you said right there, you said, if I didn't have one of these three resources, right? When we can look at that,
perhaps even walk and meditate on it, if not journal that reality, right? What if, what if we didn't have friends? What if we didn't have the institutions? You know, what if we didn't have mentors in our life? What a great way to get ourself grounded on the principle of gratitude and really coming to understand the abundance that we have available to us. I hadn't done that before and now you, you got me moving towards a meditation exercise. That's going to be a lot of fun. The education institutes, you did say they're all, you know, there's, there's all those are available freely to us. Yes, LinkedIn Learning does not cost money to get into it. Udemy has courses. Harvard has free courses
on it. My challenge to all of you is to also think in terms of the professors, right? The people who wrote the materials, they are the, they are the well of water, not just a glass of water. Mentors love to mentor. They love to help and teach. So, great opportunity to dive in and to strengthen your knowledge. And if you're looking for a program to set you up with excellent mentors and the mentor projects is right in front of you with Deborah. So we'll come back, we'll talk about that with Deborah. What is she doing? Why is she building it? What's the vision behind it? And we'll see you guys on the other side. All right. Welcome into Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey what's up everybody, welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business. And I'm super excited to have Deborah Heiser on. We're going to be talking about the Mentor Project, what she's doing to connect all of us with people who can help us move our lives forward and maximize our opportunities here on the earth. I'm a big fan of the quote, "A bundle of sticks is stronger than one." And the analogy of that, right? Being able to have multiple people around us and helping us, it strengthens us. It gives us more purpose sometimes. Sure, you can get lost in the numbers, but that's also the benefit of isolating down to the types of people who are really meant to help you maximize this life. I highly recommend building a stronger circle of friendships.
Gary Vaynerchuk always talks about this as well, shout out to him. Before I dive in and bring Deborah back on, I also want to give you some resource access points. So number one, open the eyes that are open to Latinos, that's opportunities. This is our homegrown program. My Latino community is just taking off with this. And we are looking for digital ambassadors out there, virtual assistants. We're training people who have never heard of LinkedIn, Upwork, Fiverr, Canva, etc. There's a whole world of opportunity ahead of them. And how do we do that? Well, we get awesome Latino leaders. If you're that person listening, like I'm a Latino, come be on our podcast. This podcast, but also our Spanish speaking podcast and inspire the world. Because when you share your story about where you came from and what you've overcome,
your immigration stories, or your stories of staying and fighting the good fight wherever you live, or just living in prosperity on the beaches of Mexico, there's so many opportunities there. And when you share that story, it gives people the opportunity to say, you know what? Maybe that's possible for me. Maybe that story, maybe it's your story that's going to inspire some of our Latinos to say, you know what, I can do this, I want in. And we do all of that free of charge. We want to help people dive into that. We're doing that in India, we're doing that in Pakistan, we're doing that in the Philippines as well. All those programs are now public and moving forward. And the, you know, at the end of the day, my friends, we've got 8 billion people to help in this world. So one of the ways we go about doing that is bridging the Economic gap to North America, South America and rest of world. One of our partners in doing that is also named Zach Olman.
Zach Olman of Learn and Grow Rich.net. I love this guy. He is now our official chief financial officer. As of a few weeks ago, we spent the last six months really looking at each other's things and go, what? Wait, what? How do you have all the same things I have? But we both focus on completely different angles. And the abundance was so clear. Zach is not only working with me as a CFO. The reason why that was so important is because of our, how much we're scaling and how many companies we're going to be working with. I needed to find somebody who had the infrastructure and systems to be able to scale that. He's got a program of around 800 people who are, are in his tribe, if you will, in his course and, and group environment. He runs that super well. He's got a heart of gold. Two weeks ago, no, maybe it was three weeks ago now.
They did an event down in Columbia where he lives and 1,500 children came out to this event. And it was an event to help the children get access to food, get access to water, get access to materials and training and stuff. I, I don't know the whole lot about the details, but you can certainly go see exactly what he's up to. And Zach and I are working on some big plans in terms of helping out in the world. So if you're looking again for mentor or resource, somebody to help you on the financial side of things, then I highly recommend checking out what he's up to. It's so important that we are wise stewards of our venture as we build. And that's exactly why I brought him into my doors and my home. The water project, the water project is not ours.
Years ago, when I was considering different charities, different causes to contribute to, this came across my radar and I couldn't relate to it. I have never been thirsty in my life. And at the same time, it gave me an opportunity to meditate. What would it be like if my kids or I didn't have water? And the water project set this up just like Kickstarter or crowdfunding projects, where you actually get to look at which community you might be helping. You get to see what project they're working on, how many people are going to be helped by it. And when you contribute, they will actually give you updated reports of what's happening with the bore hole well that they're building or the sand dam. And that inspired me so much that I've talked about it ever since then. And this picture, I try to internalize every time.
My kids don't even celebrate Christmas as fanatically as these children celebrate great clean water. The impact that you can drive by giving to this. The impact you can drive, even if you do not have the financial means to give back to this, by simply sharing it with a friend or family member who comes to mind, who might actually end up contributing, never underestimate the value of just sharing and spreading the word, my friends. I hope you do that with me. And without further ado, we're going to get back to Deborah Heiser, talking about mentorship, how to maximize our lives as visionaries. Deborah, thanks so much for joining me on Vision Pros Life.
I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. So when the Mentor Project comes up, I have a feeling some people are like, you're overeager student like me. And I'm like, oh, I know what that is. I can tell you everything about it already without even hearing it. I'm not going to do that to you today. So tell me about the Mentor Project. What is it to you? Who are you helping? How can we benefit the most from it?
So the Mentor Project, it's evolved and shifted over time in terms of what it's meant to me. But really, right now, it feels like part of a mission that's much bigger to make a movement so that people understand that we, you just mentioned, there are 8 billion people, but we are the most precious natural resource in the world. And if we access each other and connect with each other, we can create unimaginably amazing things. And I've learned that through the mentors, who are astronauts, to astrophysicists, to artists,
who go out and they make enormous change in their careers. And then when they work with a mentee, we've seen mentees do things like patent a whole bunch of times in a year, or they do things like present at conferences, they do research, they do all kinds of things that they wouldn't have had access to before. And that connection, seeing that happen, it just makes me realize that we all, as one person, can make a big difference in the world, especially when we do it all together.
Oh, it's so huge. Who would you say outside of family and friends? Who would you say your first mentor was? And what was that like?
So my first mentor was my grandfather, but you don't want family. So I'll say the first
I'll say that one of my first mentors was that I really knew was a mentor was my college professor. And she went beyond being an advisor. She would invite me into her home. I got to meet her baby that she had. And so outside of school, she was, I was getting together with her and meeting with her. And she, she was the first person that I think said, this person can do it. I don't know if she will or not, but she can do it. And she was my first, the first person that really believed in me. And that I had the ability to do something other than, you know, just sort of float through life.
That's amazing. Mine was probably my, my middle school band director. You know, I may have had somebody before that, but he took things to an entirely new level. One, I remember the very first interview and he was, I wanted to be a drummer. I couldn't coordinate my hands and legs to save my life. You know, and I was so disappointed to get it. But then he selected me to be part of the trumpet players and he was a trumpet player. And so he, I mean, he really took me under his wing, became the, the seventh grade outstanding band student. We made second in state, you know, and this guy, if you watch the movie Whiplash, if any of y'all ever seen that, it's about this drummer who just gets hammered by his college professor.
And it lovingly reminds me of my middle school band director. You know, even though it's like the most intense, like you never want to teach her, no, I freaking loved Richard Gonzalez. And we still stay in touch to this day. So it's, it's amazing what happens. Like, and I, we both mentioned people who, they had their profession, right? They had their salary and what they were kind of supposed to do. And yet they ran the extra miles, right? They saw the opportunities to help us in greater capacities. So in the, in the mentor project, how does it work? You know, getting, do you sign up and get assigned a mentor? Do you talk to them directly first? What's the system set up like?
So it's pretty easy. Um, we, you just click a button on our website that says become a mentee, and then you fill out a form. And from there, um, you do meet with a person. And so you'll meet with Samantha or someone else who will then, you know, you'll, you'll put in a form who you think you might want to meet with. And then she's going to put it together so that you're connected with the mentor. We're now getting a platform that will do that, a lot of that for us. But a lot of people don't realize that, you know, a lot of us, myself included, have always thought, well, I know what I want, or this person looks appealing. This is what I want. Some of our biggest impactful mentoring has happened from people
that they said, I, I don't know if that's for me, or I don't know that that person is for me. And then we see something, we say, just try it. So we usually try to get people connected with about five people so that they can find that, you know, maybe they want to meet with five. That can be helpful. It's usually not just one person that's the guide. And a person will see lots of different mentors. So they get to see them one-on-one. We also do big group meetings where, um, people can see five different mentors. So we have one, we have TMP Kenya. And so we'll have mentors every month. You know, a panel of about two to five people speak to students in Kenya.
And then they'll say, oh, I didn't even know that that exists. I want to meet with that person. You know, so it gives them a taste of who's out there. Because if they're like me, I didn't know anything existed out there. I needed to see something in order to know that I would even want to be mentored in that. So we try to offer that to students all over the world.
That's huge. I can see a massive alignment opportunity between what we're building with opportunities and the mentor project as well. You know, these communities and getting people connected. So I'll be diving in after the show onto that specific button and taking a look myself. I'll also be asking my team members to dive into that and say, hey, guys, what do you guys think? What do you see happening with this? Where do you see it going? That would be a lot of fun.
It is free, just so you know. It's all the mentorship is free. So any student around the world who wants mentorship does not have to pay for it. It is 100% free from the top 1% in their fields who are offering it.
I think that's a, I think that's a key to mentorship as well. And I'm not, I'm not opposed to paid coaching. I'm not opposed to paying to work with people at all. I just think for me, there's a, there's like a philanthropical value. I don't know if that's a word, but I'll use it to mentorship where it's like, okay,
this particular engagement that's happening is kind of above and beyond or disconnected from any transaction that may also exist. And so I love that you guys stand for that and represent that. I'm curious for other visionary leaders out there who they want to go about doing good. You know, they have the intention of building something, but they also have a need to sustain, right? To be able to eat for a living. They gotta eat, they gotta, they gotta have food and water and, and do the things they want to do. How, how do you sustain that? What is it? What is the key? Or what are the ways you diversify revenues and income so that you guys can create a program like this?
So I, I'll tell you that. And then I want to give sort of the definition of where the mentorship comes from so that it explains why we did this. So when we were first forming it, we were like, do we want this to be a for-profit or a nonprofit? Like, what do we want from this? And as a developmental psychologist, I have always studied the aging, right? And in that, in the middle of it is a developmental milestone called generativity. So when you said philanthropic, it feels like that. There are three ways we engage in that. And that's philanthropy, volunteering and mentoring. And they're all things that we give to someone else without expecting anything in return.
So, building on that principle, I, I said, we really can't be a for-profit and operate really well, because that's an extrinsic motivator. You know, we can't pay our mentors, because you're not paid. If you're being paid, you're not a mentor. So that example of the university professor, this was at her house. This was not during advising hours. We were already, you know, um, you know, I was meeting with her outside of school. And so, we, we need to, we've figured we needed to go about this in a way that we were being true to the actual form of mentorship with regard to generativity, to see if it actually works.
No one had ever gone about something, looking at it from the mentor's perspective. Everyone said to me, no mentor at that level is gonna wanna ever give their time for free. Are you kidding? They're too busy, they're too important, they're too whatever.
What, everyone's told you that?
Everyone, everyone was telling me that. And then, we went from ten to sixty to eighty to a hundred within a year of mentors at really high levels, saying, can I mentor? So, we operate on donations, and everybody who's working, except for, you know, a few core people that have to get paid, are volunteers. And that is all falling within the generativity framework. And it works. We're five years in, and just in 2024, we gave out three million dollars of mentoring hours. And so, this is, we really wanted to understand, is this true and real? Because if you go into the workplace, people are paid to be mentors, they're not mentors.
So I asked you a question about that. Um, so, one, I loved everything that you said, the math brain and, and, uh, quality assurance guy, and he says, wait a second. If mentorship is free... Which is the way we both kind of agreed at, how is it possible to quantify the value of the number of hours provided for mentorship? If we don't technically assign a valued number to mentorship being given, how do you guys go about that?
We took the lowest amount that a person gets for doing what they do. And we calculated it that way, a per hour.
Did you guys fact check the, because a lot of people claim they, you know, I mean, at the MRT, I have no reason to doubt that he makes $3,000 an hour.
We did not calculate it based on that at all.
I know, I'm just saying, but.
The lowest.
Just curious about how you guys went about it, and it's not a matter of challenging them, the number doesn't matter. Not to me, not to you, not to really anybody.
We asked around and said, what do you get for mentoring? Or not for mentoring, for your work or for what you do out, out, you know, what do you charge? And we can see what people charge and what they get, we can, we know what they get for speaking engagements. And some make $50,000 an hour, we did not put it at that. We put it at 500 because that's a very standard and not very high rate. If you go into corporate and you're doing things, people are, if you're an astronaut and you're getting things, you're getting higher than that. If you're an astrophysicist and you're on television, like you're getting more than that. If you are, the, this was not a high rate that we put for the top 1% that are our mentors. So we decided to go for the lowest possible rate. If, if our mentors who were doing this.
You decided on something, and that's actually what I'm getting at for the visionary leaders who are out there. Is that they overthink it, analysis paralysis kills great projects. But also not quantifying the value of what we do can quickly, can also scare people and put people in a position of like fear. So I don't ask about it for the mentorship sake as much as for the other visionary leaders who are trying to position their own value in the world. So I love that.
I would caution not on overestimating, you know, you really want to get, that's why I felt like we should go for a pretty low.
An hour.
We could have gone for fifty dollars an hour, but honestly, none of our mentors, that that isn't what they would be getting. I wanted it to be something that was accurate and reasonable because you know what? People should know around the world that, you know, if you're a kid in a in the middle of the United States and you would not have access to somebody in Silicon Valley, you want to know, wow, I'm getting that much value? I deserve that. I'm worthy of that. I I wanted that to be out there because I think people need to know that when you are giving of yourself, though it's not a monetary thing,
that person should know at some level that they're getting something super valuable.
Oh, I love that. The it's a it's a very big piece of inspiration that sometimes we overlook. And I was almost overlooking and I was like, I'm so glad you said that because, you know, the there's this movie called The Experimenter, I believe. And it's about Stanley Milgram. I'm so glad I thought of his name. The guy who did all the social experiments on people that was he wasn't controversial, in my opinion. The news turned it into a giant controversy to to spin it. Yet he came to uncover that we are such sheeple. Like, we will just kind of follow what other people do. And like, you could literally take a tank of water to Africa, downplay it so much, right?
And it really doesn't have it. Convince people it's not valuable. And if you if you're strong enough and you get a large enough tribe to tell people it doesn't matter, like, people will believe that it doesn't matter. It's amazing what we are willing to believe. And so we can use that power for bad. We can also use that power for good. And that's what I love about what you're doing with the Mentor Project. You're using this for a lot of good. So is there?
I'd love to know more about the stories behind, you know, like what, what are, and not even necessarily stories. What types of experiences are coming out of these mentorship opportunities?
Oh, we just had one that ended on Sunday. So we have an artist, his name is Justin Thompson. And he, I have a few that I can share that are really exciting that just happened. So Justin is an artist and he was like, you know, I really love working with kids. I can't wait to mentor. And I love in person and you know, we really got going during COVID. There was no in person anything. But as soon as COVID sort of lifted and people were able to fly around, a school contacted us in Shiradi, Tanzania and said, we would love to get a mentor to come here and we have a house that somebody can stay in. And Justin, who's from California was like, I'll go. And we were like, okay.
So we made it happen. So there's this community of 500 kids from a school. They had not been exposed to, you know, Western art in the form of cartooning at all. So we sent supplies over, we fundraised, we sent supplies over, sent Justin over. It was like a ridiculously long trip and he said it was world changing for himself. You know, here he is, a guy that lives in California, you know, he's never been thirsty or hungry or anything and he's there. And it was so exciting because they decided to do a mural and he's, he works for Schultz Creative Studios. So he's the guy that gets to draw Snoopy places.
So he's there and he's drawing this enormous, beautiful, gorgeous mural on the wall of the school. Now there's nothing on the walls. It's brown. The whole thing is brown. And then there's this magnificent mural. All the townspeople came out, including like moms holding babies and the men. And they were all like helping and doing stuff and getting involved in it. It was so exciting. So he's there, then he's working with the kids in the classroom. And then he said, okay, well, we won't end with this. I'm, I'll meet with the students once a month on Zoom. And he woke up at four thirty in the morning to meet with the students on Zoom, fifteen students that were selected for a scholarship.
And they met with him that way for a whole month and then got to learn how to do cartooning with emotion over the course of a year. So he did that, came back and was like, amazing. They, they were like, this was amazing. And then he went back the next year. Another amazing experience. The kids from the previous year came over and they were like, hey, how are you? And it was great to reconnect. Then just this January, he went to Brooklyn, New York, did the same thing with kids in an after school program in Flatbush. And then, you know, the idea is maybe we can get these kids bridged between Tanzania and Brooklyn and get art going that way. That's amazing.
So one man, this, this is so exciting to me, is one man didn't just change one life, he changed the community. Now he's in a new community and it's going to be world changing in a way because you, we're probably going to be able to bridge. So that's one guy, one guy. And then two of the women who are on, Jennifer Wisdom and Cynthia Morrow worked with three, three people. One is somebody who works with us. Her name is Samantha Stone and she said, I want to get mentorship in research. So she joined the group along with two high school students, one from Mexico City and one from Virginia in New York.
And they learned how to do systematic review, which I did not learn in graduate school. I have a PhD and I did not learn how to do that. These high school students who are 16 and 15 learned how to do this and did it. Because two articles came out, peer reviewed journal article, just this year. And in 2024, they presented their work in a very large mentoring conference that was in New Mexico. So that was huge, that those students were able to do that. And it was so moving that the young woman in Mexico City said she wants to start a mentoring program in Mexico. And so these are just a couple of them.
There are more examples that we have on our website. But one, that bridged kids from other countries. And now is making mentorship being seen in other parts of the world. So I could go on and on.
Huge, huge, huge. I'm a huge fan of the movie and the concept of pay it forward. Right? And, and doing simple things like that create ripple effects that are universal. Like that, that, man, that is so awesome. You said something that you said an interesting word choice. You said it ended on Sunday. What ended on Sunday? Did the relationship for mentorship end or did the project?
Justin got on his plane. He just left Brooklyn on Sunday to go back to California. So it literally was something that just happened and just ended. I got all the pictures yesterday with, so it was beyond.
The relationship still exists and he has the ability to maintain those and, and do what he wants with it. But the, the project itself wrapped up on Sunday.
That one week ended. He was able to go there for one week. And so that week ended. And it was funny because Justin called me on the first day and I remembered him saying this when he was in Tanzania too. Now he's working with middle schoolers. And if you can put yourself back into band in middle school, we're all looking to fit in and we're not looking to.
Oh, yeah.
For ourselves out there, we are not. Looking to be like me, me, me, you know, that is
Arm pit of life, no way.
So he goes to Tanzania and I remember getting texts from him on WhatsApp and he's like, I don't know if they like me. And then here he is in Brooklyn, he's like, I don't know if they like me on the first day. By the end in both, it was, you know, absolutely overwhelmingly positive. And so it's really cool to get to see somebody break through to middle schoolers in such an enormous way in just one week. Like that was just, you know, five days that he was with them. So shout out to all those kids that opened up and showed their vulnerability.
Absolutely. If, if you haven't ever had the opportunity to do something like that as a visionary leader, then you, you gotta find ways. You gotta create. There's so many opportunities. I lived in Uruguay for two years. Um, and I got to do that for two dedicated years and we painted murals in schools and we had all sorts of stuff like that. And it was, it was life changing to be able to go through that again for yourself. In addition to the ripple effect that you then get to see as every, I'm getting older now, decade, um, starts to pass. You, you start to see like, whoa, like that, I got to be involved in that, you know, what, what a, what a great, fortunate experience. So, let's shift into a deep darker subject for a minute.
Deborah, what's the worst leadership experience that you've ever had?
You know, I'd say that my, my worst leadership experience, I mean, I would have to say, is it from my perspective or somebody else's?
You know, what's going to benefit the visionary leaders the most? And it, it could be either one.
My, my worst leadership moment ever, I think, um, has always been when I have hesitated with something and doubted myself. When a door is open and I didn't walk through it every single time. And so an example for that would be, you know, I was presented with an idea to do some bigger mentoring.
During COVID, like in 2020, and I was so paralyzed by fear of doing it. You know, it was when we were first starting, we first started to grow, we were at like sixty from ten. And I I'm a psychologist, I didn't come out as a leader in this way, you know. Psychologists tend to lead themselves, like we're like, you know. So here I am, I I was so overcome with fear of stepping through that door that I didn't. And I think that that was a bad leadership moment on my part. Because that shows that I don't feel secure in what I'm doing.
Hmm.
You know, it showed that I felt weakness within myself. Now, how I could have fixed that, what I was, that I could have gone to one of my three resources and said, "Help me through this." Instead, I just let the door close. And did it affect the organization? From, I don't know, could have, but I don't know.
We learned from.
Yeah, I would say that's my worst leadership experience.
I was on a bus in Uruguay, and I remember being, I was probably a little upset. And I was tired, and I kept getting this prompting, "Go talk to this guy, this young man." And I just ignored it. Um, and I ignored it, I was defiant to this, and I I got off that bus and I regretted it. Like, I felt so bad about it. And then about a week and a half later, um, somebody comes by our event, and we're having like a kind of a sacred reverend experience, and they're pushing one of these megaphones to blast, you know, advertisements around the the blocks, because that's legal in Uruguay, at least it was. Um, and so I run outside to like, "Please turn it off, like, like, please go another direction." Like, and I, and I, I sent this person on their way.
Um, and it dawned on me after about five minutes, I was the same kid. Oh, I felt so awful, Deborah, like, it was like crushing to my soul, I was like. Oh my gosh.
Um, you know, and I believe full heartedly that the reason why I went through both of those experiences was a giant reminder to not forget to, to engage, to, to, to not leave people in a situation. When you feel that prompting, that calling to act and to do something valuable for somebody else, just do it. Um, so we, we all end up having those moments and I haven't thought about that in a, in a while, full heartedly. What's the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
I'd say the best is the mentor project. It's something I never thought I would do. It wasn't something I signed up for. I was like, I'll be the bus driver of this thing of 10 people. And it's turned out to be the best leadership experience ever for me because I have connected with people I care about deeply. And it's really about, you know, in, in my opinion, the feeling of how can I amplify the, the legacies of everybody that I'm working with. And that's to me, the best leadership experience ever. How, how I got gifted with that? It feels like such an important thing to me to be able to get a person's legacy out there.
So this has been my best leadership experience ever.
I will not be doubling down or one upping you in relation to that. That is a phenomenal leadership experience and it's going to continue to be one that thrives. I absolutely love what you're doing. You, you deserve your flowers on what you've built out and how you continue to, to build it. My, my favorite question to ask, if this was the last experience you ever end up having to speak, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Everything you need is just a matter of looking to your left and looking to your right. You have all the resources and everything you could ever need. Because the people that you're surrounded by are going to be there for you when you need them. And we often forget that, but the most powerful lesson I can say is that you need to do nothing more than look to your left and look to your right.
I love that. People are our greatest resource. Um, I'm a big fan of saying,
Google, Google things first, right? Use Google. That's a great resource. And then, yes, all the people around you can also help bridge those gaps too. But the efficient answer is Google, the better answer, the bigger opportunity is to include others. One plus one often equals 11. Um, you know, and sometimes people overlook the compound effect of working with others. So thank you for that.
Let me drop that little quote there in the comments for anybody that we guys can remember. Hang on to it and meditate on that factor. We've got about three, four minutes left, Deborah. There's, there's so many directions I could take this. We could go to more stories. We could go to particular programs. Um, I'd rather know from you, what are the overlooked questions, the overlooked topics? That sometimes you want to be asking these environments and the host doesn't make the room for? What, what would you like to dive into?
I think that's one thing that I would really like to be able to do is to give the definition of mentorship. And I don't often get that because there's an assumption of what mentorship is.
Yeah. I made that assumption.
So the mentorship is, is like a recipe of five ingredients that are really important. It's not a transaction. And you hit on that earlier when you said that it feels philanthropic. It has, it stems from generativity. That's the first ingredient. We as mentors have to be caring for someone else without expecting anything in return. That we are giving that and we don't care if they do anything for us ever. We don't care if no one ever knows what we've done. And the mentee involved in this, because it is two people who are involved in it, has to want to receive what it is that the mentor is giving.
So I might be saying, I want to give this to you, Jackson, and you say, but I don't want it. That means we're not really in a legit mentoring relationship because you have to want what I'm giving. The second thing is it has to be intrinsically motivated. So you, you can't be motivated by an award, or reward, or certificate, or money. And the example I always give is if I asked you if you'd like to go volunteer your time in a soup kitchen, most of my students say, yes, I would. And they say, because I'd feel so good about it. And then I said, well, instead of doing that, go volunteer your time at Starbucks.
And they also all say, no, there's no way I'd want to do that. I'd feel sort of taken advantage of. And that's because that extrinsic motivator makes that same action of giving food and beverage to hungry thirsty people feel very different. So if you're getting paid to be a mentor, you're not a mentor.
The next thing is a meaningful connection. You have to like the person that you're mentoring. So, so often we have people who are assigned a mentor or mentee, and they go through the motions, even though they don't really feel like they're connected with them, but they're, they feel like it would be a failure if they said, I'd like another mentor. And there's no failure in mentorship. You just have to go get a different one. And that's, you know, something to be really aware of. And the, one of the biggest is trust. So, you know, I have so many examples of where trust came into play and how that was something that was so critical in mentorship. But if you don't trust your boss, if you're at work,
you think that boss is gonna judge you and say, hey,
I'm not gonna promote them, or I'm not gonna give them a good performance eval if they find out I have a weakness. That's, you have to trust that person. That's not gonna be a good mentor. Likewise, the mentor has to trust that that mentee isn't going to go steal their idea and run away with it, or that they're going to throw them under the bus somehow. There has to be trust on both parts. And finally, there has to be a goal. If you're just chit chatting, you're not mentoring. And that goal can shift and change over time. It can be that I need a mentor for one thing right now, and that's it. And that goal is stated, and you get that, and that was a mentoring interaction. Or it could be one that shifts and changes over a
lifetime of mentorship. So that's really, you know, the same as baking brownies. If you leave the sugar out.
That was amazing, Deborah. Keep going. But I just have to say it, too. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that was awesome.
So, you know, if you make brownies and you leave the sugar out, it looks like it, but it doesn't taste like it. And that's what mentorship is right now. We've got a whole lot of brownies without sugar in them that's being, that are being told, you know, that it's mentorship. And that's why a lot of people feel-
I'll come back to that. On the positive side, my friends, April Fool's Day is coming up. Make sure to put those salt in those brownies. Okay, go ahead. Keep going. Yes, in the world, unfortunately, of mentorship coaching, etc., there is a lot of that going on with missing ingredients.
I agree. And I believe in coaching. I believe in advising. I believe in sponsorship, and I believe in mentorship. It does not devalue one if you say it's coaching, not mentoring. It doesn't devalue anything. Coaches are important. They're great. But-
Great coaches are great. Great coaches are-
True. You're right.
It's very rare, you know, we look at the sports world, I'm a tangent on a little bit, but the sports world, there's very few coaches who win championships, right? And you look at the business world, there's fewer coaches who win championships. The likelihood that you are currently being coached by somebody who is championship level caliber is slim to none, and worth reassessing. That doesn't make us hopeless. That means that if we want to have a sense of optimism and hope, we've got to do things to really attract the right people, and to make sure we're filtering, understand how to do that. And Deborah, you talked about this earlier, and I wrote down the word blind spots, because you're right. And thank you, Dr. Tracy Gappin, who came on the show yesterday, and we talked thoroughly about blind spots.
The reality is, if I can't see certain things about my life, which I cannot see a lot of things about my life, then if I'm assessing how to solve problems I can't see, I'm the wrong person assessing what I need. But if I just like, if I only focus on what I want and what I can see, then I'm probably not going to get help with all of the neat things that I need that would help me enjoy my wants more. So, do you mind talking about that a little bit, the blind spots aspect and finding the right, the right person?
We all, you're exactly right. We all have blind spots all the time, you know, and that's why mentors are so important for us because they can see things in us that we can't see for ourselves.
So how do we go about selecting that mentor?
I say, select a lot of mentors. Like, you don't want to just have one friend.
Thank you. You just, I was, I was diving into limiting belief mindset and you opened it right up and I, I'm grateful for that. So how do we select those mentors?
It's, you know, we want to pick the person that we trust and that we feel meaningfully connected with and that we want something they're giving.
Let me practice what you taught me. Let me do that. Ready? So if I want to, and all of you visionary leaders want, you gotta write notes like this, right? If I want to find the right mentorship, I gotta be willing to want to receive it. And I gotta find somebody who wants to give it, number one. Two, it's gotta be intrinsically motivated by them. They've gotta be willing to do this, not because of a bias or because they want to make a bunch of money from me or because they want to date my sister or something else, right? There's gotta be, um, you know, an altruistic opportunity there and that, that can be formed. Uh, the three, I've gotta like that person that's assigned to me. It can't be forced. You know, they might be doing something really cool or really aligned with where I want to go, but if I don't feel that power of like, then that should be a big red, big red flag for me to watch out.
I should, I've got to be willing to trust, even though they're imperfect, even though they are not going to be the perfect solution and they're just as human as me, to human as air, they're gonna make mistakes. I've still got to be willing to exercise the virtue of trust. And finally, I have to have a healthy relationships with goals and have certain goals that I then need to be able to articulate clearly and share with them. And if I do those things, and they also align on their side, then we should have a pretty awesome mentorship opportunity. Did I get that right?
You got it right. Yeah.
All of us can do that, my friends. I did not pre-script this. I did not know this recipe beforehand, but the amount of value, Deborah, that you gave today was absolutely amazing. Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share before we wrap up today?
The only final thoughts I have are that I really truly believe that each one of us can engage in mentorship and make a difference in the world. And when you change one life, which could be yours, you're never just changing one, you're changing everybody around you who's connected to you. So I do hope everyone will engage in mentoring.
I love that. Those of you listening in, we love you. We appreciate you. We really do hope you engage in this process. We need more mentors in this world. We've got a billion people to help. We go about celebrating and doing good like this, and we have a fantastic opportunity to create an even even more abundant world for all of us. Below this episode, you will see action steps that you can take to get involved in the mentor project and other projects that Deborah is on. You'll also be able to connect with her on social media. Below that, we'll have the resources listed out. Her first resource was mentors. We did write a guide a few weeks ago on how to hire and qualify the right types of mentors. We also wrote one for coaches. And I
would say rewind. Her guide on the mentorship recipe, those five steps to defining mentorship, is far superior to the guides that we put together. Use those in tandem to build depth for yourself so that you can maximize this life. And we look forward to seeing all of you on the next episode. But before I tune out, top right corner, don't forget, it says be our guest. If you are scared to share your vision or timid to share it, consider just meeting with our team and seeing if, you know, if it makes sense and could be something of value. You never know how Many people you'll be able to inspire by taking the stage for the first time. And if you're a seasoned veteran like Deborah, and you got a vision that's larger than life, that's already got great traction with excellent people. Of course,
we love to see you guys too. And again, we'll see you all in the next episode of Vision Pros Life. Take care, everybody. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro user.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
