A LOT with Audra

Ep05
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Hi, happy February. Well, admittedly, I'm recording this still in January, but I can tell you that on the first Monday of February, I'm going to be so pleased that it is February and likely no matter where you are in the country, you are too, because from the consensus I am getting online and in real life, January was a thousand days.

So happy February. Today, we're going to talk about a fun topic. This month, I get to participate in Mentoring Monday. And that is a national event [00:01:00] held by the Business Journals and it's happening on February 25th. So if you're interested in attending in your town, check it out.

There's likely one near you. This is my third year participating in this event and I really, really love it. Typically, this draws in a lot of women from different corporations and small businesses, some entrepreneurs, but mostly we're talking to women who are employed by other people. And so today I wanted to talk about how mentorship has been so helpful for me in my entrepreneurial journey and why I think it's a piece that every entrepreneur has to have.

And here's the thing. When I first started the thread in 2020. I would go on a walk with this girlfriend. We would drop our babies off at their preschool and we would go on a walk and I'd be talking about all the things I wanted to do. My business would come up often. I don't even know [00:02:00] if I had officially filed for my LLC at that time, I was so excited about what I had planned for the thread that I talk about it a lot. So her husband happened to be a serial entrepreneur who had achieved a lot of success and just a really wonderful human. And she suggested that I go meet with him and tell him about what I was doing. And I was so intimidated, you know, for so many reasons, including, you know, looking at his success, including the fact that, you know, he's not a mom and an entrepreneur like me, would he like where I was coming from, including this funny.

thing that had happened a few years earlier where she had told me the same thing. She had said, you really need to talk to my husband. You and he would have a lot in common. He could share some lessons with you along your journey. And back then I was like, it's okay. I've got plenty of entrepreneurial mentors in my life, thank you

But this time I thought, okay, something has to be different [00:03:00] and that something is me. And so I said, yes, I would love to meet with your husband. It turns out that was just the meeting I needed. My friend likely didn't even know it at the time. I mean, no one knew it, but that person has continued to mentor me throughout my business journey over the past four years, but what he did for me that day was really, really pivotal.

So I go into his office, we have this scheduled meeting. I'm excited to connect. I don't know that I'd ever really spent much time with him until then. And he's asking me about my business and I'm sharing with him and I can see, he's getting energy from our conversation. I'm excited, obviously.

And the thing that he did in that meeting was he helped me believe in what I was doing. He also encouraged me to think bigger. You see, when I first started my business, I really thought it was going to be kind of like a 20, 000 a year side hustle. I had [00:04:00] planned to move back to my hometown. And yes, I had this idea for the business already planted, but it was so much smaller in my brain than when I walked out of that room.

His office that day, I had thought I'll move back to my hometown. I'll raise my sweet babies. My husband will work. I will have, you know, this side business that I love and that will fulfill my passion when I'm not focusing on my family and, you know, give me the time autonomy I want so that I can be the mom that I want.

And it'll provide some financial value to our family. Right. I walked in that room with that idea, with that thought, and he really just helped me blow it up and encouraged me to think way, way bigger. Obviously, if you've been following since episode one, you know that my business is much bigger than that and has, has evolved.

And I'm so grateful for that, but it all came down to that mentoring session. Okay. So here's why I think entrepreneurs in particular [00:05:00] need other entrepreneurs to mentor them because so often, number one, this is a game of survival. Like we are out here most likely on our own, starting from scratch, doing everything, wearing all of the hats because that's what we can afford.

Our business maybe isn't generating revenue right away. 70 percent of mentored small businesses survive past five years compared to only 50 percent of those that do when they don't have a mentor. So if you have a mentor, And you're a small business. You are 20 percent more likely to survive the first five years of business to those entrepreneurs that don't have a mentor.

We'll be hitting five years this summer and hope that we're still around and plan obviously to still be around. But it's just so important because we work in a silo often, especially in the beginning, especially in the first little bit. [00:06:00] But even thinking about how businesses, how entrepreneurs and our businesses won't survive potentially, like there's a 50, 50 chance it will survive if we don't have a mentor.

So that's the first reason I think mentoring matters so much for entrepreneurs, just pure survival. Second reason, it matters a lot because it helps us make better decisions and solve problems quicker. We are facing our challenges in isolation. And there was a study showing that 88 percent of entrepreneurs with mentors feel more confident in making business decisions because it's like when you're an entrepreneur, you're doing everything for the first time, especially if this is your first business.

There are so many people who have been there, done that, and they can help us make better decisions. Another reason why mentoring is important is really to kind of like get yourself around someone who you can see yourself in. For me, I desperately need and want and crave mothers [00:07:00] and entrepreneurs to be, in my mentor group.

Yes, I get so much value from many different kind of mentors, but I love seeing women who also have children who are also building business. I love seeing their success and I want them to mentor me. When I see that, I feel so much more equipped to handle the whole, craziness that it is to juggle a business and a life and a family and trying to take care of yourself.

When I see other women doing it, other women that are moms specifically, that is helpful for me. So as an entrepreneur, whether you're a mother or not, it's just important to see someone who you can see yourself in, I think. And also, there's a social support that comes with that, right? When you have mentorship, you begin to develop different ties and you just feel more resilient.

Okay. So I think mentoring is hugely important. [00:08:00] I think mentoring is even more important if you're an entrepreneur. You don't have to do it alone. The research and the statistics are there. I pulled some of my data from the SCORE website. If you're interested in looking at that, I pulled more of my data from Motherly, which is a website for moms.

Mentorship is important, especially in entrepreneurship and mothership. I want to tell you about five different types of mentors that I have in my life, just in case you're kind of thinking, okay, mentorship is like one size fits all, or it has to be formal or just in case you have any misconceived ideas about what mentorship is.

I do feel like we use it like really formally and it's used a lot in small business and in corporate. Here's what I think when I think of mentorship. So five different mentors I have in my life. Someone who is way ahead of me. I have several people who fall into this category.

Most of these people are really informal mentors. But they are [00:09:00] people in my life, in my market, or people that I have met in another market that I have their contact information. These are people I actually know who are ahead of me on their journey. One of my nearest and dearest mentors is my dad. And this year he's actually going to be formally mentoring me in real estate investing, which is something that my husband and I are getting into, but he has been my informal mentor for a long, long time, especially on this entrepreneurial journey.

One thing I love about having a mentor that's way ahead of me is that they can share their lessons with me. I get to learn from his mistakes. I don't believe I have to make every mistake in order to gain the lessons on my own. I want to bypass that. And I believe that hearing some of his mistakes, learning some of his lessons through him, like I can just get that knowledge without actually having to go through it.

That's not [00:10:00] always the case, but that's often the case in my experience. Another thing that a mentor who's way, way ahead of me can do is pull back the curtain on opportunities. So my dad is so good about connecting me and making opportunities happen for me. And so are many, many of the other mentors in my life who are way ahead of me.

I'm so grateful for them. They could not be replaced. Like, I'm just, I'm so grateful to have their eyes, their guidance on my career, my business, my work. And they often pull back the curtain of opportunity and make the introduction or suggest to someone they connect with me. They mentioned my name in rooms of opportunities.

But another thing that they do for me, is pull back the curtains on my eyes. So often I am looking at things just so black and white, right? Especially when you're in that building stage of business. And it's like, you've said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. To all the things. And now you're at a point where your business is gaining traction and now you have to be strategic.[00:11:00]

There are often times like my eyes are blinded to like the really good, beautiful, fruitful opportunities in front of me that maybe aren't so black and white. So I think having a mentor that's way ahead of you is so important. Another mentor that I have in my life and I think is so important on this entrepreneurial journey is having mentors who are just ahead of you.

I am thinking of three girlfriends. Two that I knew before I moved back to my hometown and started my business. One that I met through that work who are just less than a handful of years ahead of me in business. Now our businesses are all different. Our revenues are likely different, but they are maybe just two, three, four years ahead of me in business. And what I love about having mentors that are that close to me is that they remember, they remember what it's like to be in my shoes. They remember this season [00:12:00] of business, this particular challenge, they remember hitting five years and what their business looked like and what challenges they faced.

So I feel like when you have a mentor, who's way ahead of you, you get this huge overview and wisdom and ability to bypass mistakes. But when you have mentors who are just ahead of you, like you have someone kind of who's pulled themselves out of the trenches, right? And who can give you some instructions on how to do so too, or at least commiserate with you of, oh yes, I was there.

I was there. And it's funny because I think back to some of these conversations a few years ago that I had with these mentors who are just ahead of me. And I realized, oh my gosh, I am today where they were when they gave me that advice. Okay. So that's the second type of mentor. The third type of mentor is kind of cheating.

Most would consider this a peer, but I have several peers who opened businesses at the same time as me, several women, several [00:13:00] moms, and yes, they are totally my peers. And I love that, but I consider these women mentors to me too, because I learned so much. Our challenges are different. Our opportunities are different, but here's what I really love to learn from my peers.

I love learning the way that they're thinking about things because the way that I think about things, I got to go through a entrepreneurial accelerator a couple of years ago and got really close and am really close to one, an amazing mother entrepreneur, just total badass. And we got to go to Alberta, Canada for one of our modules.

And we were just having this really beautiful conversation about, you know, what do we want? What do we want in business? And she had a rock solid answer at that time. And she had mentors. She shared with me that helped pull her to that vision. Her and I were talking and she was trying to help me get there too, asking me what I really wanted because that matters so much, right?

In entrepreneurship. [00:14:00] I feel like there's this pressure to go, go, go, climb, climb, climb, scale, scale, scale, get as big as you can get. And there's nothing wrong with that, but you really have to like check in to who you are and what you want and the pace that you're willing to go because everything, there's a price for everything.

Right? And so she and I were just having this beautiful conversation about like how she made that decision of like what she wanted for her business. And two years ago, you know, I was definitely still in just that tug of war of like, gosh, I could see this, but I could also see this. I could see humongous, but I could also see tiny, you know?

Small, simple. So she being that peer right next to me just helped me think through some things and also gave me energy, right? Like just gave me energy and having that conversation and making me feel not alone. Yes, she was slightly ahead of me on that journey, but I was maybe slightly [00:15:00] ahead of her on motherhood and we could just share, you know, we didn't have to be exactly side by side on exactly where we were, but we were peers, our peers, you know, in this game.

Okay. The fourth type of mentor that I think of is also probably a little bit of a cheat, but it's someone that you mentor. So last year I got the opportunity to mentor a woman who was leaving a therapy practice and launching her own business. And it was so much fun. And I think what I got from her was that spark, that hunger that we all have at the very beginning where we don't know if something's going to really work out or not.

Right. I got to learn lessons beside her. I shared my knowledge, which felt so good to say, oh my gosh, I'm going to encourage you and give you the tips and make introductions for you. I'm going to help you. In any way I can, as a mentor, get your business off the ground and keep yourself sane. But then I [00:16:00] got to learn from her learnings too, and just walk alongside her in that.

So I definitely feel like another really solid type of mentor when you're an entrepreneur is someone who is a few years shy of where you are on your journey

And then the last type of mentor is one that you have probably heard of. This is one that you don't know, and this could be an author, a podcaster, a speaker someone on social media who you find credible, man, I have so many mentors and have had for years. It's a people that I don't know that I study their stuff.

I love to follow, follow them on social media and listen to their content because this can help spark ideas in me, right? So it's just so valuable to have someone accessible to you at all times. But you just get to absorb, you know, the content and the wisdom that they're putting out into the world free of charge.

And I feel like this can get a little dicey, right? Because there's so much noise out on social. [00:17:00] And, and that honestly took me a long time to get over before starting this podcast thinking, gosh, do I want to be one more voice in the world where there's so many voices?

So I would just caution you to be really mindful when you are finding mentors on social media. Books, podcasts, you know, mine included, of course, things I'm going to say work for me. They're truth for me, but if they don't work for you, leave them. So those are the five mentors that I would share with you.

I'm going to say one more time, because I feel like there was a lot of talking in there. So number one, someone way ahead of you. Number two, someone who's just like a few years ahead of you, five or less. Number three, someone who is walking alongside you. Number four, someone who is a year or two, three behind you.

And number five, someone you don't know. Okay. So some of the best lessons that I have learned from my mentors, I want to share with y'all. My dad is really, really [00:18:00] big on exposure. And I mentioned, he's one of my greatest mentors. I feel so, so just thankful to have him. One of his biggest things is exposure.

He loves being able to expose his kids and people in his life to people who might think bigger. And it took me a long time to really wrap my head around this. But another way to say it is, you know, I never want to be the smartest person in the room. I always want to be in rooms where I start to feel that little like gut check in my belly.

And I'm like, Oh, yep, yep. There's that imposter syndrome. And as uncomfortable that is, that's when I know I'm in the right room. If I did not have that lesson continually pressed into me from my mentor, I don't know that I would walk in the same type of rooms. I would be too scared. I mean, truthfully. [00:19:00] So that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned from a mentor in my life, my dad.

Expose yourself. When you feel that imposter syndrome, lean into that. You're in the right room. You're around people who think so much bigger than you that it's uncomfortable. That's the room you need to be in. I think mentors for me have also called out the truth in me. And sometimes that's really when I needed a lift up when I was feeling down, having self doubt, and I needed someone to tell me what I was doing was on the right track.

And it's also been the opposite. Someone who told me when I needed to do better, you know, there are so many times when you've got so much going on and you're kind of just getting by. And you make decisions that are just not good enough and you do the best you can at the time, but you need those people in your life who tell you, you can do better than [00:20:00] this.

I know your plate is full, but you can do better than this. Lessons that mentors have helped me learn also include asking me the right questions. I've had so many just really good breakthroughs and conversations, casual conversations with people. Who are ahead of me or in a different space than me who are just asking me the right questions.

And then of course, letting me see that it can be done. Letting me see that we can have life look the way we want it to, you know, having someone as an example of that, but also someone who will let you in on the hard parts and the challenges and the decisions they had to make to get their business there, get their life there.

You know, maybe like you think you want to grow your business to the seven figure level. I know that's a goal of mine. What that looks like is different than what it looks like to have a business at the six figure level. And just getting to see like the honest behind the [00:21:00] curtain of those things and of what it takes and the energy it takes and the no's you have to say.

That has been, those are, those have been gifts I have learned from mentors. You know, most of my mentors are not formal. There are times, especially when I've been in programs where I have a formalized mentor and that has been good, but I feel like I have so many mentors in my life. I had a conflict one time where I needed to be two places in once, and I just didn't know how to make this decision.

And I thought, there's a woman who I consider to be a mentor and a friend who is doing all the things, and 100 percent I am sure she has been in this position where she needs to be in two places at once. And so, you know, I text her, asked for 15 minutes of her time. She gave it to me, asked me the right question.

And I was able to show up in a way I was proud of. Mentors have been so helpful to me on my entrepreneurial journey and on my journey as a mother. [00:22:00] So I want to challenge you to look for a mentor in your life. It could be one of those five that I mentioned, who fits your vibe, who fits your energy, who you just have that chemistry with, but also who could potentially challenge you and expand your thinking.

Look in your life to think about where you can find that mentor. Maybe reflect on how mentorship has shaped your journey or how you can at this point in your life, be a mentor to someone else. So speaking of being a mentor or looking for a mentor, one tip that I have learned through the thread, and we are.

Every cohort, we're on cohort eight. We take 30 women at a time. And one of the things that we do is we match them with a mentor for their entire time in the cohort. And it's a six month cohort. So we have done this now eight times, if not more with the other markets and the other programs that we run.

But what I have learned as a mentee [00:23:00] is that you need to take initiative. You're not being annoying, be proactive, go out and find that mentor. Make that ask, get in their life, you know, ask what type of cadence they're open to. If you're looking for a formal mentorship, update them.

When you have a win or a challenge, even if you don't have a formal mentorship set up, like update them. I love when I hear from women that I've had the chance to mentor in other markets. I love when they want to connect and give me an update. Like I just feel so happy to have been a part of their journey along the way and that they think enough of me to keep me in the loop.

So be proactive. Bonus is as a mentor, mentee, if you can find a way to connect to them, to mention their name in a room of opportunities, then the relationship, which is already so win win just becomes even more. It's just, such a good feeling to be able to give back to someone who's giving so much to you.

Okay. So [00:24:00] my challenge for you, reflect on how mentorship has shaped your journey in entrepreneurship and motherhood and how you can be a mentor to someone else. All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you to my team at The Thread and Bryan at Forge Podcast Co for making this episode possible. I couldn't do any of the things I'm doing without them, and I'm so grateful.

I'm your host, Audra Dinell. Thanks for listening to A Lot With Audra. P. S. If you liked this episode, please make sure you're hitting that subscribe button, review the podcast, let us know what you think, and please, please share it with someone you think would help.