My first professional mentor cost $2500 for six weeks, and I didn’t have the money to pay him.
His name is Chris. I had followed his free blog for years. Everything I tried from that blog worked. This guy was the real deal and I needed help. So, I put it on my credit card with a teenager-worthy interest rate and prayed I would learn to make the money back before the interest hit.
Funny thing: The very first lesson he gave me was a story about how he couldn’t afford his first mentor.
Chris was stuck in gym ownership. He was working every hour of the day, missing his kids, and no longer seeing a future in the business.
Lucky for Chris, a CEO in his town was retiring and wanted to leave a legacy by mentoring five local business owners. The CEO told Chris, “The mentorship will cost $500″ (Canadian dollars, which is about $3.50 USD.)
Chris: I don’t have the money.
CEO: I know, that’s why it’s $500.
Chris: ?
CEO: You need to have something to lose if this doesn’t work out.
So, Chris wrote him a check that should have bounced. The CEO got to work, and instead of showing Chris how to get more members and money, he showed him how to keep the ones he had by fixing the holes in his business. Chris didn’t want to hear it but it was the truth, and because he was given the truth, he could stop bailing water out of his boat, and plug the leaks. Today, Chris owns and runs multi-million dollar companies.
Chris already had a star he was chasing. It was personal and professional success through his gym.
The CEO gave Chris a tiger to chase him — A check that’s going to bounce if you don’t abandon ego and do what works.
Then, the CEO told him the truth and gave him his next step.
Star, Tiger, Step.
You can have the path and the destination, but if you don’t have the tiger behind you, will you run your best race?
