Are you ready to invest in yourself but unsure of where to start or who to trust?

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking my journey of spending over $250,000 on mentorships and personal growth, sharing the do’s, the don’ts, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

I’ll dive deep into how to find the right mentors, when to trust your intuition, and the surprising ways a good mentor can accelerate your business and personal growth.

Join me as I pull back the curtain on what it really means to invest in yourself.

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Can you guys believe we are in November? I took my kids to the pumpkin patch this weekend because I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s the last weekend of October. I shouldn’t say we’re in November. We’re almost in November, but I was like, we have to go to the pumpkin patch this weekend because Halloween is this week. I, I, I feel like my weekends have gotten a little crazier with kids activities. I am very much in the season. I think I’ll be here for a while. And I love it, but it feels so busy sometimes with kids sports, kids activities, and now sleepovers with friends, which I am so happy for my kids that they have these amazing friendships and get to have these sleepovers with these. There’s a few families that I’m comfortable with it but every single time they’re so tired the next day. So it’s like this love hate relationship with it. Cause I know saying yes, they’re going to have an amazing time and I want them to have that. And I have amazing memories of sleepovers as a kid with my good friends. And the next day we have lots of fighting, lots of meltdowns and tired kids. So that was my weekend this weekend. It was soccer. It was working out in between for me and kids sleepovers and hosting kids and driving kids around. And I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it does make time go faster.

All right, I am excited for today’s podcast episode. I think that you guys are going to really enjoy this. I was asked this question a few weeks back just around how I find mentors. And I thought it was a really good question, but I’ve also had a few things as it relates to this on my heart that I have wanted to share because I think I think some of these things I’m going to share are not being talked about, and I think it’s a side effect or cause of social media. So we’re going to talk today about mentors and finding mentors, investing in yourself, the do’s, the don’ts, the mistakes I’ve made, and my thoughts on it. So first of all, I have invested a lot in myself. I added it up loosely before this just to kind of see over $250,000 over the years, probably a lot more. Like that was me just like thinking and remembering of different things I’ve invested in, but that was a five minute kind of sit down and and ride it out. It’s probably even more than that. So I’m a big fan of this. I’m a big proponent of investing in yourself, investing in mentors who have wisdom and information and advice and teaching and gifts that you don’t have.

I think that one of the big things that actually does separate successful entrepreneurs from ones who are not successful are the ones who are willing to invest. Now, obviously intentionally invest, not throw all their money out the window or go into a ton of debt to invest, but in those moments where you know that if you get this support, you get this wisdom and you invest in yourself or your business, it will pay off. The entrepreneurs who are willing to make that decision, and even when it’s uncomfortable or scary, typically are more successful because understanding the power in this, I’m going to talk about a few things. First of all, one of the first investments that I ever made and do not take this as this is what you should do. I think that the journey at which you invest and the mentors you choose or the programs you choose or the masterminds or whatever it is, It’s a very personal journey because it depends on what you need support with, where you’re at, and who comes across your path. But for me, the very first investment I ever made was into a high-level mastermind. It cost $25,000. And at that time, I didn’t have a million-dollar business yet. I was maybe at about a six-figure, maybe multi-six-figure business. but Not much, didn’t really have a team. I was maybe two years into my business, just starting to kind of take off, but still very beginning. And I invested in a high level mastermind with someone who will is a big name in the internet, digital marketing industry.

And I made the decision same day. Like once I found out about the mastermind, talked to their team, I did a call on it. And I knew that two things, this mentor would help me tremendously with my business growth. And then number two, being in the room of this mastermind would be huge for my business because it was filled with other seven figure, mostly business owners. And I was like at the bottom of that. I wasn’t at seven figures yet. I knew getting in a room with people who were quote above. I don’t really like saying that because yeah everybody has their journey. I just wasn’t where they were in their journey yet, but above me in business in terms of revenue. I knew that would be extremely powerful for my business. And it was. It led to a lot of high level clients, incredible connections, advice that I never would have come up with otherwise. So that was one of my first investments. And then in that mastermind, I met somebody who became a longtime friend of mine. And they specialized in team. They specialize in growing a team, the operations of your business, the systems. And as soon as I met them, two things, I was like, number one, you are a legit business owner, which I have thoughts about in the digital marketing industry. There’s a lot of not. And when I say legit business owners, like it is very hard to find a seasoned business owner who has built a team, built a operation that can run without them.

And dealt with large a large company, either with their clients or themselves. that’s It’s rare to find that in the coaching space. When I met this person, that was my initial instinct was like, out of everybody teaching this, you have been around the block. And you understand what you’re teaching, what you’re saying, you’ve had it you know a seven, eight figure business, I need your expertise. Because at the time, I was just starting to grow my team. So for me, that was my second big investment. It was also a mastermind at a similar price. So I was in two masterminds, high level and I back to back invested in them. And that was with the intention of team building because I hit a point where I knew I got my business as far as I could on my own. And i knew I had no idea how to build a team. I mean, I was 23, 24 years old. No idea how to build a team. No idea how to be a leader of a team. No idea how to have systems and process and replace me in the business. And so I invested in a mentor to help me with that. From there, my journey has been many more investments. I’ve been in multiple more masterminds. I’ve invested in retreats. I’ve invested in one-on-one coaching. I’ve invested in one-off consulting sessions. I’ve invested in a lot of one-on-one mentors who have done not just business support, but also personal growth. I have a somatic and breathwork facilitator who I work one-on-one with in a very deep way in Austin.

Obviously, I’ve gone to Costa Rica and and done work with practitioners there. So from there, I have invested a lot. And I feel that over the years, the investments and the choices that I’ve made in this support have shifted from only business to myself as a CEO because as I’ve grown my business, a lot of the problems can be solved with my team and with hiring really good leaders to come in and run parts of my company who have more information than me, who have more wisdom, who have more experience.

I’m not saying every problem can be solved with my team. I do seek guidance sometimes, but where I really wanted the support is with my own personal growth, with my own capacity, my own energy, how I show up, how I lead, how I lead myself, how I lead my team, how I lead my life. And that’s become more and more important as my business has grown. So I think that’s an important thing to note is in the beginning, and I do believe a lot of the investments that you make in your business and yourself and mentors will be directly correlated to your business. Things like marketing, team, product development, things that you don’t know how to do yet. And then as you grow and you build a team who’s supporting you, you have to start investing in yourself. And you can do both you know from the beginning. I think I invested in myself through these mentors too from the beginning, but it got more and more deep, the the investment I was making in myself as the years went on.

So that’s kind of a backstory of how I have found mentors. One more thing I’ll say is that I always seek mentors. First of all, very rarely, and this is my journey, I’m not saying this is good or bad or right or wrong, I very rarely seek out mentors. mentors I very rarely like Google, I’ve never done that, or or search and say, I need a mentor to do XYZ. Every time I have invested in support, I met somebody or I came across somebody through a recommendation or a friend, entrepreneur friend who was also you know in a mastermind or working with someone. And I knew very intuitively that I could use that support. If I had that support, it would help me evolve to the next level that I wanted to. and It’s a very intuitive process for me. um I make the decision very fast and it’s like, and if I know, I know. like If I know in my gut that this mentor, this mastermind or container is going to support my growth, I’m in that same day.

Like I don’t sit on it and go back and forth and question it. And I’ve never once regretted an investment in a mentor because it doesn’t matter if it’s exactly what you thought it was going to be. If it’s better than what you thought it was going to be or worse, you still learn. You still get every single time exactly what you needed out of it. And I’ve never felt like I invested in something and I got scammed or gypped. I haven’t in any of the investments I’ve made. Okay, so starting there, I want to talk about some advice on finding mentors. First piece of advice I have is if you don’t currently have a mentor, I think that you always should have some sort of mentorship. Now Some seasons of business in life this might be through a podcast or books but having somebody who’s giving you new perspective new ideas questioning your thinking and Helping you see things through a different lens is very important. So I like to find mentors who are either are for something very specific like marketing, team, operations, systems, sales. Like if I know that one of those is a struggle in my business, I would seek out mentorship in one of those areas. And I would find someone who’s specifically really good at that. Or if I’m looking for a more holistic life and business coach, then I think it’s very important that the person you seek out, you really look at from the perspective of their business, their life, their relationships, all of it, are they living the life that you want to live? So for example, there have been times where I have intentionally chosen and then and a mentor who was not a mom.

And when I made that decision, I knew that there were certain things that they would not be able to support me with because they were not able to understand what it is like to grow a business and be a mom. And I see people get offended with that, like, oh, if I don’t have kids, I can’t. I can’t be a coach for moms. That’s definitely not what I’m saying. However, I do believe, and this is a belief, but i I do believe if you have never been a mom or a parent and ran a business at the same time, there are just things that you are not going to understand. You can’t without being in that situation. So sometimes I see people find mentors who don’t have any kids and are crushing it in business. And then the way that they are mentored is like, work 12-hour days and you know basically live a life that’s impossible if you have kids and you want to be present with them. and so When I look for certain mentorship, if it is in an area that I believe I need to have that kind of whole big picture, I will make sure that the person I’m finding the mentorship from is living a life that is in alignment with how I would want to live my life. So for example, for me, I would want to have mentors who care about their health, who are have kids and are intentional with the time they spend with their kids and the relationships they have and and the more holistic have it all picture. Now I have invested in mentors who don’t have kids. I just last year invested in a female mentor who does not have kids. 

And I knew going into that what it was for. And for me, it was for somebody, a female in business who had really mastered running her business from more feminine energy. And so I knew I wanted to learn that and I wanted to gain wisdom from her. I i also knew that there was pieces to the advice that she wouldn’t be able to provide because of her life and her business. I’ve run into this as well with different types of businesses. For me, if a mentor has never had any experience running a service business, It’s challenging for them to give me advice because I run a pretty large service business, which is very different than a digital product only business. It doesn’t mean I can’t listen to their mentorship. What I’m saying is you need to understand what your mentor, if you are hiring one is going to be able to support you with and what they maybe can’t support you with. Again, when I went into the mentorship with this female entrepreneur last year, I knew what I was trying to get out of that mentorship and what I wasn’t. And the mistake people make is they try to get everything from a single mentor who can’t provide that, and then they’re disappointed. And it doesn’t mean that they’re a bad mentor. You’re just using them in the wrong way.

So that kind of leads me to the next thing, which is I really strongly think it is important to know your mentor strengths and weaknesses because every mentor has weaknesses. We all do. We’re human. Okay. So just having this discussion with a friend who was talking about a program that they were in and they were like, well, I got a lot. It was like a mastermind. I got a lot of big picture vision ideas and inspiration around growing my business. But what was lacking was how to do it. The tactical structured, here’s how you go execute it. And When I look deeper at the the person running this mastermind, I said, well, look at them. The conversations you’ve had with them, and I knew this person, the conversations you’ve had with them, the businesses they’ve run, what are they really great at? They’re really great at the big picture vision, at the big ideas, at thinking differently. They’re not very good at the tactical execution. So if you try to get that from them, you’re not going to get it. And it’s really rare to find mentors who can do both. And that’s just one example. I think knowing your mentor’s strengths and weaknesses is important because then you know what you can leverage. If you leverage somebody’s strength in any way, a team member you hire yourself, a mentor, you’re going to have a lot more power from that exchange.

If you try to push against their weakness and force something to work that will never work because it’s going against the grain of their what their weaknesses are or what their strengths are, that’s a lose-lose situation. Know your mentor’s strengths and weaknesses. Ask them straight up if you need to or observe. Observe their business, observe their the way they show up and and pull out. Like this is what I think they do really, really well and this is where I think they probably fall short. And the area that they do really, really well, do I need that? Is that supportive to me? Is that a weakness of mine? Is that a blind spot of mine? One mistake people make is they sometimes find mentors who are just like them and have the same strengths and the same weaknesses. When really you want to find someone who’s not just like you, who’s going to again challenge your thinking, challenge your perspective, ask the right questions and bring wisdom and experience in a way that you couldn’t. That’s the point of a mentor. We oftentimes put mentors on a pedestal. i so This is what I wanted to talk about as well that I feel is not talked about. And honestly, I’m guilty of this, right? You see someone, they have an incredible business from the outside. It looks like they have an incredible life and family and they’re healthy and all these things and you put them on a pedestal and you think they have a perfect life and a perfect business and no weaknesses. And is that ever true of a human being? No, it is not. 

So instead of putting a mentor on a pedestal and then eventually it might take six, it might take 12 months, eventually you are set up for disappointment you are set up for a lack of expectations being met. Because you put them on a pedestal, you thought that they would be 10 out of 10 on every piece of advice they could ever give you, everything they could do, instead of critically looking at them, I don’t even want to say critically, but looking at them as a human and knowing and getting to understand what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, many, many mentors I’ve had, I compartmentalize what I get from them and what I don’t get from them because I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses. And you don’t have to overthink this. Like, even if you don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked a mentor, what’s your strength and weakness? I’m really good at observing this. But what I do is once I see what their strength is, I learn how to leverage that for myself. And I make sure that that’s something I want to grow. So something that I see online that I wanted to talk about because I’ve just witnessed this recently is people who blindly follow a mentor. And I think this is very dangerous because what happens is if you start blindly following a mentor and trying to replicate everything they did in their business, the way they sold their offer, the way they priced it, the way they structured their business, the way they structured their marketing, and you start blindly going like, well, if they said it, that must be it. I’m just going to do it.

And I’ve watched this unfold with somebody who is in my circle and their followers, blindly follow them and start to do things that I know those people and is not really in alignment. But because this mentor is doing it, they are doing it. And I think that is extremely dangerous and it’s not the mentor’s fault. It’s the people blindly following that have to take that accountability. Because when you blindly follow somebody, you are going to lose the magic and the gift in your own strengths, in your own superpowers, in what makes you you, which is essential for business success. It is how we create initial business success. We leverage our strengths, we leverage our experience, our superpowers, the things that other people can’t do or don’t think that way or don’t know how to do this, like things you naturally are good at. When you blindly follow a mentor, you are putting on blinders to that and it will never work. It will work for them because they are authentically doing that. When I look at this mentor who is promoting things and shifting her message and showing up in a certain different way, it is fully authentic to her.

It is a true expression to her and her beliefs and where she’s at. And what she feels is right. The people blindly following it, it’s not an authentic expression of them. and And it is like, I can see it unfolding and it will massively hinder their business growth and success. The other problem with blindly following is you’re not questioning. And I think it is always important 100% of the time to question things. And this is something that I naturally do. like i I was the kid who questioned authority, who questioned everything. Why do I have to do that? Tell me why it matters. I have to be bought in before I’m going to do it. And one of my first mentors who I talked about is my friend, Alex, Alex Shafin And if you ask him about the beginning of him mentoring me, I pushed back against a lot of what he said. And I didn’t just say, okay, I’ll just take your system and I’ll implement it exactly as you say. I had to be bought in. I had to understand that this was gonna work. So when he told me things like, have, you know, structure your meetings like this, or how many you have, I was like, no, I hate meetings. I’m not gonna do that. Tell me why. Tell me how it works. And so every time I’ve had a mentor, I critically question and think, and I’m not afraid to critically look at them and say, okay, here’s their strengths, here’s their weakness, here’s what I am, intentionally and consciously going to adapt to and take from them and use, here’s what I’m not. Here’s what I’m leaving and kind of rejecting because it’s not the right fit for me.

I think that through all of this, people like to blame mentors and say, well, they didn’t live up to my expectations. They didn’t deliver. They didn’t get me a results. I didn’t grow enough. When in reality, if you take accountability for the experience you have with mentors, boast it both in how you choose them, but also how you show up when you work with them that critical thinking, knowing how to leverage their strengths, leverage their weaknesses, that’s how you get a good result with a mentor. And I think we have to be very careful And again, I am guilty of this. It is easy to blindly follow someone and put them on a pedestal. And I think social media makes this even more easy because you see everybody’s highlight reel. You see only the good things you don’t see behind the curtains. This is why I try to show behind the curtains of my life in business because I hate it. But even with my life on social media, you know, I’m not showing everything because it’s not appropriate. And so just knowing that, knowing I’m not seeing the full picture ever on social media and on the outside. And so I know they’re not perfect and not to put them on this pedestal and have them be so much better than you. And I think that’s just a mistake that people make a lot.

Two more things I want to say on this is I think oftentimes mentors are there for a season and very rarely an entire lifetime. And even if you find someone who is there for an entire lifetime that you want to gain mentorship from, even if that’s from again, content, sometimes it’s going to ebb and flow. You might want more of their mentorship. You might want less. Most of my mentors that I’ve hired have been for a season, a season where I specifically needed what they had to offer and and what their gifts were and what I could learn from them and their wisdom. And then that season came to an end. Doesn’t mean my relationship was cut off with them. I’m still friends with them all. I still have a relationship with them, but I didn’t continue to pay them for mentorship. I think that when you start getting mentored by the same person for years and years and years, you lose the opportunity to get different perspective. So I think it’s important to have, and this would naturally come if you’re intentional with what you’re wanting to get from the mentor. Because what you’ll see is you’ll get that thing and then you’re going to need something else that they probably don’t have.

So mentors are often for a season and very rarely a lifetime. Now I do have some mentors who I’m not maybe actively paying, but I could call up and pay for a session or pay for time or get advice from, but it’s going to ebb and flow. I don’t need them every week, every month, even every quarter. Even my mentor in Austin who I do breath work with and somatic work with will have some months where I see him twice. And then we’ll go three months and I won’t see him. And it just depends what’s happening in my life, what’s happening in my business and what I need. And so it’s going to ebb and flow. And then. The last thing I kind of said this, but I want to weave this in is is making sure that when you do find a mentor, they have already done what you want to do. Like the dreams that you want to have, whether that’s the business, the way they run their life, the way they show up, you should feel inspired by your mentors without putting them on a pedestal.

And make sure that they have the experience and the wisdom of what you want to do to bring to you because that is the power. That is the immense power of mentorship is immediately you get access to somebody who’s already done what you want to do and that saves years of you trying to figure it out because one of the only ways that we learn as humans is through doing, but if we find somebody who has already done and accomplished and is living the future version of us that we want, we can take a massive shortcut by getting that mentorship, but look critically at, have they already done what I want to do? Do they have the dreams I want to have? And I’m not going to put them on a pedestal, but I want to make sure they’re in the alignment with that. Also, I want to say this, I get mentorship out of my friends. I have incredible entrepreneur friends here in Austin and not here in Austin. And when we hang out, like our conversations are mentorship for me. I, I’m able to give mentorship. They’re able to give mentorship. And I have some incredible friendships, you know, that are not paid mentorships that inspire me, challenge me, question me.

Give me different perspectives. So I think that’s also an important point is it it doesn’t always have to be this paid experience. I think that is very powerful, but also look at who you’re hanging out with. Like I only spend time around people who are challenging me to grow, who are having deep conversations with me, who are Shifting my perspective who are inspiring me all my friends anybody that I give my time to in that way We have that deep relationship because otherwise to me it is a waste of my time and energy. I’m not interested in it So think about your friends and the people that you surround yourself with because I think that’s also very important and entrepreneurship can be lonely especially when it’s a hard season and you need people that you can lean on so I think that completes everything I wanna say about mentorship. I hope it was helpful. I have my mastermind and i’m I’m so grateful for the mentorship I’m now able to give other female entrepreneurs. And I’ve witnessed this where one piece of advice, I have one girl in the mastermind and I just questioned her on one thing. It was a refund policy.

And I questioned her on it and she was like, oh my gosh, you’re so right. Shifted her refund policy, ended up paying for the entire mastermind in a month from that one decision, one shift, one shift of perspective that I was able to provide because I’m not in her business as close as she is. And I have experience beyond where she is in terms of business. I questioned one thing. She shifted her her model with it and paid for the entire mastermind in a month. So when people sit with these investment decisions of, Oh my gosh, it’s a lot of money. Of course you want to be able to do it and and feel good about it. It should feel uncomfortable, but you don’t understand the return. You actually can’t because you can’t predict the conversations you’re going to have and the strategy you’re going to get and the things that will come up in that container and really In a single conversation, someone can change your life. It’s happened to me many times. I’ve had a single conversation with a mentor. They’ve said something and I’ve made a change that forever changed the trajectory of my business or life. And you you can’t predict that. There’s like an element of trust and and unknown in it. And so that’s why you do everything I said in this episode of finding mentors who are in alignment and who are an intuitive yes. And then you go all in and you trust that is never steered me wrong. And that $250,000 I’ve invested has made me back millions and millions of dollars. And I’m not afraid to invest it. All right, everybody have a beautiful rest of your day. I’ll talk to you on Thursday.