Shawn Stevenson on Finding Your Mentor: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! Brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the ideal destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we're pulling a classic EO Fire episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to find your mentor. To drop these value bombs, I brought Sean Stevenson into EO Fire Studios. Sean is the author of Sleep Smarter and the creator of The Model Health Show, featured as a top health podcast and Apple Podcasts, and he recently published a book called Eat Smarter. Today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about finding someone you genuinely admire.

0:40Dial in and spend more time with that person. It will help your brain create healthy and deep pathways of information that you learn from that person. You need to permit yourself to have mentors for different areas of your life, and you may also learn from their peaks and valleys and their lives and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sean and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more.

1:17A must-listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Belay is passionate about helping your business succeed with their simple, flexible staffing solutions. Download Belay's Bulletproof Budget Template for free, which is the exact budget template they use to grow from a small startup to one of Inc. 5000's fastest growing companies for nine straight years today. Just text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123. So Sean, welcome my friend. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And man, I'm just excited every time I get to hang out with you, who by the way, you were a personal mentor of mine.

2:00You flew out to San Diego to spend three days with me and literally changed my entire just life essentially as far as blackout shades and a new shower and a new like water and you took me shopping and it was just amazing. And that mentorship that I had from you six to seven years ago now, like has stayed with me. Like when I came to Puerto Rico, I implemented all those things in my new bedroom here and my new household here. And like, that's just, when you invest Fire Nation in a mentor, the right mentor, like one time, like I had with Sean for three months as a one-on-one mentor, it stays with you for life.

2:38So you went from being a trainer to a nutritionist at a local gym to spending over 10 ,000 hours becoming a master in nutrition, which of course led to this amazing book, which you need to get Fire Nation, Eat Smarter. What prompted this whole transition, brother? This is so good. Thank you, John. It was one of the most incredible experiences hanging out with you, hanging out with Kate and her family. We all had dinner together. That was such a great time. Quick side note, by the way, when that happened, I said, Sean, there's this app called Instagram. You have to get on it. And he's like, really?

3:11Do I have to? I'm like, trust me. And you have since crushed it. I mean, you're actually one of my favorite Instagram stories to follow because you have such an amazing, fun family life. So just a quick side note. Keep going. Thank you, man. And this is about this again. I think I'm a great case study for mentorship because I definitely had what I refer to as lone wolf syndrome big time. You know, I'll figure it out. I'll do it on my own. I'll save the world. But that kind of like modus operandi will literally kill you. Kill you. Trying to save the world by yourself. You know, it's going to be with and through other people.

3:46and I have this resistance towards doing other things. I really feel good about doing the things that I'm good at. Even when you mentioned Instagram, it took me two years to actually do it. I think I might have even started my account when you told me to. You did. But to actually circle around and get into it, because I'm just kind of, and this probably will speak to a lot of people, I have this resistance or apprehension towards stepping outside of my comfort zone. And it's in subtle ways because ironically, I'm also a very growth-driven person. Every single day I get up and I can't go to sleep and sleep well at night, sleep happily, unless I know that I grew.

4:30But generally it's the things that I'm obsessed with that I want to grow in. And so because of my apprehension, I proactively put myself in tough situations now. I proactively do things outside of my comfort zone. And going back to how all of this happened and how I garnered all of this experience in nutrition, this was for many people who are operating at a really high level in this space, it's often out of great suffering that they find their gift. And so for me, really quickly, this is a short version of the story, but when I was 20 years old, I was diagnosed with this incurable spinal condition, so-called incurable spinal condition, degenerative bone disease and degenerative disc disease.

5:12And my physician at the time told me I had the spine of an 80-year-old man when I was just a 20-year-old kid. And I was an absolute superstar athlete. When I was 15, I ran a 4-5 40-yard dash. That's NFL combine times, you know, three touchdowns, a game for the first, you know, three to four games I got to play. And then my body just started breaking down. Literally, I have game films where I'm getting injured, running by myself. I do a 39 sweep and I've passed the defensive back five yards away from them. And I just start breaking down. I'll snap my hamstring or I'll get a knee injury or my hip.

5:51Again, I broke my hip, but that was that track practice. So my body was breaking down from the inside and my physician told me there was nothing I can do about it. This is incurable. And of course he meant well and our wonderful physicians, you know, everybody's getting into the field for the most part to help people. However, there's a fundamental flaw in our system of health because every single organ is made from food. And this is one thing that is almost totally negated in our field of health and wellness. And now today I know the top cardiologists, I know the top pediatric cardiologists, I know the top endocrinologists, the top gastroenterologists, I know the best in the world.

6:32And they'll tell me they might go to school for 15 years and then they'll get two weeks of training on food. They might even treat the organ like the gastroenterologist, my friend, I'm thinking about right now. He deals with the organs that are responsible for the assimilation, elimination, and digestion of food. And he only learned about food for two weeks. It makes no sense. It literally makes the organ. The heart is made from the food that we eat. I know the top neuroscientists and neurologists. These are all my friends. I love these guys so much, your brain, the axon terminals, the dendrites, the neurons, the white matter, gray matter, it's all made from food.

7:08So this is what literally allows us to have thoughts, feelings, and emotion. It's all based on food. And so once I really, like something clicked after a couple of years of like a lot of pain and suffering, and I asked the fundamental question, what can I do to get better? Whereas before, and we talked about this before, and this is also in Eat Smarter, we talk about some of these things with our neurology, I'm sorry, with our psychology, Psychology and food go together big time as well. But there's something called instinctive elaboration. And what it is really, and I want everybody to think about this, we all tend to have a habitual question that we're asking ourselves.

7:44It's probably going to be a little bit unconscious or subconscious. But for me, for those two years of pain and suffering, I was constantly asking, why me? Why is this happening to me? And why won't somebody help me? You know, for other folks, it might be, how can I get people to like me? Or how can I get out of pain? You know, how can I get my spouse to be more supportive? You know, like, we'll have these habitual questions. And because it's instinctive elaboration, our brains work a lot like, you know, producers know this, media, folks in media, it's called an open loop. We have to find the answer to questions.

8:23Our brains are driven to find out what happens next on this episode. And so I shifted my question. I asked, how can I get better? How can I be healthy? And also, what are my bones made of? If they're degenerating, what are they actually made of? And that sent me down a path of discovery and finding so much about how food creates our tissues. And I completely reversed the condition and I shifted all my coursework in school. I was still in college at the time to neuroscience. I'm sorry, to nutritional science, to, and I just taught a neuroscience class at NYU this past semester, guest lecture. Sweat?

9:01How? Anyways. So nutritional science, biology, kinesiology, all that good stuff. And started my clinical practice that led to that one-on-one thing. Eventually I'm like, I need to record this or write this down. So I started writing books. That's when the Model Health Show, my podcast began. And it's been a quantum leap in impact ever since. Well, Sean, like I mentioned earlier, you were my mentor when it came to health and nutrition and just kind of overall like a healthy lifestyle. I mean, your book, Sleep Smarter, has been a huge inspiration for me and really improved my sleep, which is a huge focus in my life.

9:39and you have been mentored by a lot of amazing people in your life which is exactly why I knew that you were the person to be featured in my chapter chapter 5 finding your mentor in the common path to uncommon success so first and foremost thank you for your contribution the chapter came out fantastic your featured part is so so amazing and what I'd like to share with Fire Nation real quick is is a little story with a guy named Ken, because you were good at what you were good at, but you knew there was gaps in your life. There were voids that needed to be filled. There was knowledge that needed to be gained.

10:17And Ken actually fit that role for you. So can you tell that story to Fire Nation? Absolutely. So Ken, when he came into my office, he was actually coming along with his wife, Susan, who's just this prolific writer. And she's a superstar in her own right, which was funny how that all came together as well. She gave me some good advice early on. But Susan came in because she was dealing with a health issue and she got referred to me by a physician. And Ken just came along. He was sitting back all stoic. I think he was about 78 at the time, maybe 77. And I'm just like, what's with this guy? He's sitting in the office.

10:56He's got this neutral Switzerland vibe to him. And so it wasn't like he was just like, ah, this is malarkey. But he was actually calculating in his mind different aspects of what I was saying that he wanted to apply for his life. So I worked with Susan for maybe like a month or two. But then I ended up working with Kenny, Ken Balk, for the next four years, you know, and really became one of my best friends. And here I am, you know, I'm like probably, you know, I don't know, in my mid 30s. And I got like this 80 year old guy is like my best friend. We spent all holidays together and all this stuff.

11:33But I was providing my insight and my experience in nutrition and in fitness. He was one of the very few people that I would still work with as a strength and conditioning coach too. I was mostly working in my clinical practice, but I would meet with him a few times a week because when he came in, he couldn't even lift his arm above his shoulder from an injury. And he got all full range of motion. He was in there doing pushups and all this cool stuff as an 80-year-old guy getting himself healthier. And in that timeframe, Ken started to drop these nuggets on me that were sporadic at first, but then it became like I was his student.

12:13I was his student now. And right now, one of the things that I'm thinking about that he shared with me, I didn't share this previously, but he told me how he had a hundred year plan. He had a hundred years. He planned it out him living a hundred years and what that looks like, what it looked like monetarily, what it looked like relationship wise, what it looked like with his health. That's why him being in my office that day, he knew that I was the investment for him to make sure that he makes it to his hundred year goal. How often do we think in those terms? We don't even have next week go. Right.

12:46What's today's date? I have no idea. And so that thinking, like if you're just open to it, it can literally like change the wiring of your brain and you start to get like a new perspective. And life is really about being able to tap into multiple perspectives. It's a big part of life, from my opinion. And so that was one big thing. But probably the biggest gap that him being my mentor really helped me to traverse. When I first met Kenny, I was getting by. Things were okay. It wasn't too tight, but it was not like I could just go do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I couldn't just necessarily take a family trip without a lot of moving the numbers around.

13:36You weren't JLD Puerto Rican balling. That's what you're saying. I was not at all Puerto Rican balling. Not at all. JLD status, it looked like Mars and Jupiter, that whole thing, whatever's happening to Jupiter right now, so far away. But Kent, he actually started his own company when he was, and he built all of, he's an architect, but he was an entrepreneur. And I remember him sharing stories of when he went to other folks to try to work for them and they, you know, wouldn't give him the time of day. And so he's like, I'm going to start my own thing. And it was tough going in the beginning, you know, and being like the son of immigrants, you know, Jewish immigrants, and just like really struggling, you know, for him to be able to go to school and, but him taking on the responsibility of not number one, I'm going to take a bet.

14:28I'm betting on myself, but it's very calculated bet because he knew what he could do. And he was very good at planning things out. But he built his company to a multi, multi-million dollar entity. And he built like malls in St. Louis and all of this cool stuff. Like I would shop at his stores and like I never knew. I didn't know this guy was behind it. And he taught me about financial wellness and what that looked like. You know, there were terms, you know, IRAs and all these different things he would tell me about. And different things like scholarship funds for my kids that some money would get put into my account, like matched by different entities and all this stuff.

15:09And I just had no idea about it. So he impressed upon me mentorship in taking my knowledge and not just trying to live off of my knowledge base and nutrition, but allowing myself to be financially intelligent so that I can allow my money to make money for me. you know, a big part of it. And also being able to invest properly as far as, you know, having a bigger, I wasn't thinking in terms of a hundred year plan, but like, what, what about 50 years from now? You know, what does that look like? And so that was just some, some of the inklings of the impact that he's had on me as a mentor. And Fire Nation, that's really what I want to impress upon you here is that you look at the story that I shared with Sean, like I had massive gaps in my life.

15:54I didn't understand sleep and the value of it and how to maximize and how to optimize it. I didn't understand the nutrition side of things and didn't understand the value of the natural products that Sean brought into my life and all these other things that were huge gaps. You know, I was crushing it on the business side of things and that's all fine and well, but I was doing the opposite of crushing it, you know, on the things that I just mentioned that Sean brought into my life, you know, over the course of, by the way, a three month period, Like three months to transition, you know, me six, seven years ago now that, you know, now I'm standing in front of you at 41 years old, clearly healthier than I was when Sean found me, you know, at 34, 35 years old.

16:36So, I mean, this is the stuff that a mentor can do. Sean, you know, had certain things dialed in in his life and he was crushing it in certain areas, but there were huge gaps and huge things that he wasn't taking advantage of. And I love your example about like the matching contributions for like a 529 for your kids education and things like, you know, a Roth IRA to start saving money tax-free for your retirement, and all these different areas. And this is all stuff that's like, oh, I'll learn it someday, but someday it's opportunity costs. Because if Sean had waited 10, 15 years or 30 years, like all of this financial windfall that he's now going to have because he implemented it back in his 20s and 30s, it's going to be exponential.

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19:49Belay has helped thousands of business owners make the leap to scale their businesses with their simple, flexible staffing solutions. Belay's exceptional virtual assistants and accounting professionals can partner with you to help you grow your business and take control of your time. They have the nation's largest pool of US-based talent ready to work with you from anywhere and scale with you as you grow. And And Belay is passionate about helping your business succeed. So they're offering Fire Nation a free download of their Bulletproof Budget Template. This is the exact budget template that Belay used to grow from a small startup to one of Inc.

20:195000's fastest growing companies for nine straight years. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to download the Bulletproof Budget Template and streamline your business with Belay today. To bring this home, brother. And again, thank you for your time today. and thank you for your contribution to the book and to everything you're doing. And another shout out, I know we had you on the show recently, actually back in, well, it was actually in December now to talk about Eat Smarter. So Fire Nation, definitely go listen to that show because he dropped value bombs and you want to make sure that you're consuming that type of content in your life.

20:54I have a quote from your contribution in The Common Path to Uncommon Success. So I'm going to read it and then I'm going to hand it over to you to bring us home. your quote is, I believe in the Goldilocks approach to mentorship. Not too few, not too many, just the right amounts. Don't be tied to just one guru and have mentors for different areas in your life. Anyone you admire can become your virtual mentor. And when the time is right, your next mentor will appear. So Sean, bring this home for us. How can Fire Nation right now uses inspiration to go all in and find their first or next mentor. I got to say, that was incredible.

21:42That was your words. The Goldilocks. Oh, that's so good. It's so good. But you inspired it, man. You inspired the answer. You inspired me to think about that. Thanks. And so what we tend to have a tendency to do is to not have a mentor, like a consciously, or we are on the other side where we're jumping around from person to person to person. and I'm a big advocate of finding somebody that you really admire who's their life in whatever field that is, whatever particular thing. They don't have to be perfect at everything, but maybe it's a financial mentor. Maybe it's a mentor in podcasting. Maybe it's a mentor in health.

22:18Really dial in and spend more time with that person. It's not that you can't dibble and dabble, have some other influences, but really just decide like, this is the person I really want to follow. Because what that does is it literally helps your brain to lay down more myelin and basically making those pathways of information that you're learning from them stronger and deeper. But if you're bouncing around and getting so many conflicting ideas, it's not that they can't be helpful, but it can just confuse you and delay your progress. So number one, to move away from that lone wolf approach that I had.

22:51And on the other side, being a little bit more cautious about getting multiple mentors at one time, especially if it's in the same domain. And the last little cherry on top there is giving yourself permission to have mentors for different areas, because I think we can also fall into a pattern of wanting to have that mentor and following everything that they say about everything. And chances are, if they're a general person, even if they're successful, they're going to have some big time peaks and valleys in their life. They might be outstanding at business and outstanding with their health, but their relationship with their wife might be absolutely terrible.

23:34But social media won't tell you that. So really go to somebody who you know for certain has success in that area. So again, choose a mentor in one particular area. Really follow that person and really get dialed in and connected. Be careful and conscientious about lone wolf syndrome. All right. Don't try to do stuff by yourself. Don't say, I don't need a mentor. I don't need influence. And at the other side, don't bounce around from person to person too often because it's just going to get you a lot of confusion and delay your ultimate success. Fire Nation, this was just a glimpse at Sean's genius when it comes to mentorship.

24:14he reveals everything his entire contribution obviously is in chapter five of the common path to uncommon success and if you're listening to this anytime close to the release date in early march of this episode there's still time to go pre-order this book which you want to do because there's five amazing bonuses that come with every single pre-order so with a 17 kindle pre-order this book, you are literally getting hundreds and hundreds of dollars of real value. Not to mention you're getting the book with Sean's genius and 16 other amazing contributor genius. I'm shipping to your door, all three of my journals.

24:55And Sean, I don't know if you still have it handy, but hold up that Freedom Journal. He used the Freedom Journal to write the book, Eat Smarter. He used it. He was flipping through the pages showing me earlier. I mean, it's such an honor to know that he's done that. You get the Freedom Journal, the Master Journal, the Podcast Journal shipped to your door if you're in the US, the digital version if you're outside the US. And there's four other insane bonuses. Check them out. UncommonSuccessBook.com. UncommonSuccessBook.com. Pre-order. And Sean, thank you, brother, for sharing your knowledge, your genius, your truth with Fire Nation today.

25:30For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Awesome. Thank you, man. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bombs was brought to you by Sean Stevenson. And hey, one final call to action, UncommonSuccessBook.com. Get those five bonuses, pre-order the book. Your support means the world. I'll catch you on the flip side. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more.