So, Brad Aronson (my CEO-BFF) – wrote this amazing piece on 42 ways to just inject happiness in people’s lives randomly.
I am so lucky to have met Brad, and thank my lucky stars that he takes time for me from time to time. He is who I aspire to be in so many ways. Brad cares about people, and as an ex-CEO of a multi-office, 150 person, multi million dollar search company back in the late 90’s – you would think that when we get together, we would talk about growth and expansion. He’s been there, he’s done that, so he is a wealth of knowledge. But what many people don’t know is that he worked in a group home as a counselor to kids before starting this business. So he has that volunteer and business side. I bet at some point he spent time in Oregon Truffle Hunting, ha!
Yet so often our conversations go from Revenue to Relationships. What people don’t know about Brad is that he started off
Where am I volunteering my TIME, how he can support my charities, how am I making Nora feel special, am I taking the time out I should be for my team, my wife, etc.
Brad has grown a business, sold a business, hired, and fired, he’s made tough decisions that people may not have liked, so he’s no sap, he is tough on me on firing quickly.
I wanted to write this little quick piece to remind people of this…
For anyone out there who has a mentor or is seeking out mentors, my advice for you is find balance. Keep in mind mentors also give bad advice sometimes, and don’t follow it blindly.
Surrounding yourself with people who only talk about revenue growth is fine, if growth equals happiness for you. For me it does not, so while Brad drills me on revenue growth, he’s equally as interested in my relationship growth.
He knows how to probe on the revenue side and he knows how to probe deep on the relationship side too. For me happiness is about balance, its not becoming a 10 Million dollar company if that gets in the way of my happiness. Happiness is about helping people and if my mentors were focused on revenue growth only, I think I’d need new mentors.
While Brad is the “super mentor” because he:
- built and sold a business that is in my industry
- lives 10 minutes away
- makes himself available often
- big on family
- big on volunteering, community impact
I would recommend that you don’t look for super mentors, instead find the things you need advice on, the things you need to be kept honest on, and find mentors who fill those gaps for you.
Now I gotta figure out how to take the 42 little things and implement them, for my clients, my team, my wife, and my family. Nora and I just has a conversation last night about traveling, and I think I might be able to take 1-2 of his ideas and turn them into something that can bridge that gap when we are apart.