Welcome to the Seidman Mentorship Podcast.

This is your captain speaking on this show,

we navigate the voyage of life through the lens of Lakers,

some who have just come aboard, and others who are well underway.

We will speak with experts who will show us the ropes, help us plot a course,

and recount exhilarating tales of uncharted territory,

all while promoting lifelong learning agility and a culture of mentorship.

Today on the show, I welcome Phil Sims. Phil and I talk about self mentoring.

Can you go it alone?

How to get the most out of your mentorship and the internal dialogue that causes

us to fear failure and run from success.

Phil's a 2010 graduate from the Seidman College of Business School of

Accounting. He's been a CEO,

worked in the public sector and even done turnarounds as a business consultant.

Phil's a friend of the program and has mentored many students. All right.

It's my honor and my pleasure to welcome back, uh, one of my mentors and,

and a good friend of the program. Phil Sims. Phil Ahoy,

and welcome back to the mentorship.

Good to be here, man.

Uh, you didn't get enough the first, uh, first time. Uh,

so we're going to bring you back as our resident expert on a few things,

and I always enjoy our conversations,

and as I've gotten to know you over the last, uh, year, two years,

um, I'm always enthralled and so are our listeners about the differences in our

styles. While we're both successful in business,

we do things differently and I love our,

I wouldn't call it a juxtaposed positions because I don't think of them as

opposing. Um, I just think of them as almost complimentary,

and I kind of regret that we didn't go into business together.

Still time, man. <laugh>.

There's-.

Still time.

I'm kind of married to academia now. Yeah, I, I,

I'm having too much fun doing what I'm doing. Uh,

not that I didn't have fun before, but, uh, this is pretty rewarding work as,

as you know, because you're involved in this, uh, a lot.

So can you kind of take us, update us on, on what's going on with you and, um,

how you've been and,

and maybe a little bit about what you've been doing with the mentorship program?

Sure. Happy to do that. Um, yeah, since last time,

so last we sat down, I was still the CEO of Integrity Tree Services. Uh,

I resigned about three and a half months ago, um, to pursue another opportunity,

but just a quick fly by in my career so far.

Graduated from Grand Valley in 2010.

Did an internship with BDO out of Grand Rapids, and, uh,

was with the assurance practice as an auditor. Did that for six years. Um,

that was a really good run.

And when my wife and I were expecting our first son at,

seemed like a good time to get off the road.

I was presented with an opportunity to join Integrity Tree,

which I did in a financial capacity in 2015 to build out the

infrastructure of the business.

We had landed some large utility contracts and saw a lot of

potential to grow. We had about 45 employees at the time, and, um,

long story short, two years in a finance capacity there.

And then five years as the CEO,

we grew up from 45 to 220 employees.

Sold at a hundred percent to the employees last August, um,

through an ESOP transaction. And, um,

about March of this year was presented with a pretty cool opportunity to help

out a distressed business, which has its own really unique backstory.

Uh, but I'm with a commercial bakery now,

partnered with a co-investor in a bakery, turning that around.

So severely distressed.

We were burning about $30,000 a week in cash in March,

and we've got it to sustainability. And I actually, uh,

just stepped out from our incumbent CEO that I'm excited to have on board, um,

who's joining the team here.

So we've got a pretty bright future and getting around distressed dysfunctional

businesses is actually pretty exciting, uh, from my perspective.

And we're really excited about the work we've done and,

and what the future looks like there.

So that's kind of a fly by on what I've been up to.

They're lucky, uh, they're lucky to have you. Uh,

tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the mentorship and then I'm

going to dive right into, uh, our topic for today.

What I've been up to with mentorship. Um, yeah. So I'm on the, uh,

alumni affinity board and, um,

am essentially the liaison between the board and the mentorship program. Um,

basically you make me look good by doing a really great job with the mentorship

program. Uh,

we have a lot of fun brainstorming together and coming up with different plan

designs and, uh,

I think many of the ideas are rooted in what we're going to discuss

coming up here on the podcast.

But just being thoughtful about the students and the experience

that we desire for the students to have,

which is a value add experience that's pretty low

calorie burn on their part. Pretty low calorie burn on the pro mentor part.

And that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a commitment and dedication of

time,

but that the time that is invested is actually something that both the pro

mentor and the mentee is passionate about.

And so it feels like it fills their energy buckets rather than pouring out.

Um, so it's been fun being thoughtful with you about that.

We've seen a lot of growth, a lot of really positive feedback, uh,

significant uptick in events and really excited about what the future has in

store.

Uh, likewise. And, uh, I, I've learned so much from you and,

and you're helping shape the, the program. You also, uh,

mentor students directly like one-on-one, right?

Yeah, that's right.

So you're telling me that if I'm a student out there and I'm thinking about

this, that there is a possibility I could be paired with somebody who,

CPA, been there, done that, been a CEO,

and now is basically being a business consultant.

Yeah, definitely.

I'm, uh,

we're going to hold onto that and we're going to talk about that later when we

talk about the famous equation that you and I came up with over a,

a napkin to talk about a different way to think about mentorship.

So let's jump into this. The question today that I want to address is,

is there such a thing as self mentoring? Can you, can you go it alone?

And if you can, how do you do it?

And was that closer to your path than my path,

which Gerry wandered around the building and looked for people who were willing

to help him?

Yeah,

so I read that question and immediately felt some tension because

I think mentorship and self feel maybe not

completely mutually exclusive from one another,

but I don't know how you do mentorship without feedback.

And self-awareness is something that everyone is weak at

as a human, I believe. Um,

there's a lot of focus on emotional intelligence and being empathetic

and being able to be a good listener,

but actually having a mirror for yourself and building enough relational equity

with somebody else outside of yourself to give you feedback is,

I think so critical that I, I don't know how you do self mentorship.

I think maybe personal development, personal growth, you know,

reading, listening to podcasts, uh,

pursuing your passions that are naturally interesting to you and

going to work on why they're interesting, I think is,

is a really cool self journey that you can go on.

But when you start thinking about accomplishing things in a community of

indivi-, individuals,

I don't know how you sharpen your skills or your craft without human feedback.

Um, so I, I guess I would take issue with the,

the concept of self mentorship, self-improvement,

and, and from an awareness of self-improvement,

engage with somebody else that overlaps well with your Venn diagram and your

style that can help you better grow into

who you are created to be and who you are as a, as somebody who is creative and,

and has beautiful things to do in the future.

It's interesting because as I talk to pro mentors like yourself and I talk to

our students when they don't connect well and I hear about it and usually it

comes up as ghosting.

<Yeah.> So I can't get ahold of my professional mentor or I can't get ahold of

the student. Or we connected once and then we never connected again.

When I dig into it, I've discovered something.

I'm going to go out there and say that in my professional opinion,

there's two major mentorship styles.

There's task-based mentorship and there's more of a discussion,

a platonic-based mentorship. I'm using platonic there to talk about the, the,

I'm using my philosophy minor from Grand Valley to talk about having a

discussion. I would describe our mentorship as discussion-platonic.

I like to talk and ramble.

You listen to me and then we identify what it is I'm trying to say because I

don't know what it is. And then you help me through it. Mm-hmm.

<affirmative> task-based mentorship is if I came to you and said,

Phil, this is the problem. And you said, Gerry, read this book.

Talk to this person, listen to this podcast and we'll meet in a week.

And what I find is I'll hear a complaint from a pro mentor who says,

I met with my mentee the first time we didn't meet again and they didn't take

any notes. Or I told them to read this book,

or I told them to go meet this person and they didn't do it.

And so that just didn't work.

The opposite thing I'll hear from the mentee is I met with my mentor and I

really wanted to ask them about joining this fraternity or this sorority and

they didn't care about that. They said,

I really need to go to the career center and work on my resume.

So the two sides aren't picking a point forward.

And when I think about self mentoring and I agree,

I'm not sure it's something you can do in an echo chamber,

I do think that there is a value in learning what your style is

and identifying it.

And then I'm sure we're going to end up probably talking about this,

but vulnerability of saying, um,

if I was in that situation and you were task-based mentor and said,

Gerry do these things, I'd be like, Phil,

that's not really what I want out of this.

I'm just really struggling and I kind of need somebody to vent and talk to,

and that's a vulnerability.

Whereas the opposite might be where the pro mentor might say who's task-based?

Hey Gerry, um, I'm a little nervous about doing this.

I've never been a mentor before, so I really want to work on things that are my,

in my wheelhouse and my skillset and these are the things that really helped me

succeed.

So I really need you to read this book because I think it's going to help tee us

up for how I discovered this, that or the other thing. Yeah.

Did that resonate with you at all when student Phil was

going through this? Because we've talked about your story before.

<Yeah.> A little bit about how you were kind of like twisting the wind.

You're one of the few candidates in BDO,

BDO Seidman Seidman and Seidman Seidman College of Business.

There's a connection here, right? <Yeah.> So it's a big deal.

<Yeah.> In Grand Rapids to work for BDO. Did all that resonate with you?

How did you do it?

So I didn't participate in the mentorship program when I was in college.

But the reason-.

-And,

and I don't think there was an official one here at Grand Valley at that time-.

-There might not have been, but to try and just connect the dots,

um, the reason when we first started getting to know one another, um,

I wanted to be involved in this was just,

I have such a recollection of sitting across from

interviewers of CPA firms. Uh,

it was 2010. So there were,

there were an incredible amount of candidates looking for internships just

because of what the economy had done.

For those of you who don't know, 2008 was a very big year in the economy.

Especially if you were in banking or accounting. Yeah, yeah.

But the competition during that era was really intense.

And I bombed a couple interviews, mostly just because I was very,

in my head,

I didn't have the wherewithal to ask for help and really open myself up

to the polishing process of feedback. Um,

and I just remember the feeling I,

I sat down across from interviewers and they would say, what do you want to do,

accounting or, uh, they would say, auditor tax. And I'm like,

I actually don't really know the difference very well between the two of those.

And I think the unique spot that mentorship would've met me

in pre those interviews had it been a thing,

would've been sitting down and having coffee with somebody who's already been

down the path 10 years. I could have shared my vulnerabilities with,

I could have shared my insecurities with and they could have given me feedback,

could have given me some vision for how to approach those questions or could

have already helped me explore myself well enough to know how to confidently

answer that question. So that's,

that's why I was really keen and excited to be involved in this is something,

is what may sound as basic in air quotes as that need

is a mission accomplished through the mentorship program as far as I'm

concerned.

Sp when I hear you talk about that and I think about that,

that need to know in an interview, because I bombed a few interviews too,

and obviously the point when you had probably admitted that you didn't know the

difference between those two major concepts is when the bomb went off.

And you probably saw it in the people's faces. And,

and I did that too cause I felt like I'm the new guy, I'm supposed to,

I'm fresh out of college, I have a degree, I should know these things.

And later on in life I remember being in an

interview for a promotion at the company and internal promotions were,

it was a four to five interview process and I was going to go to sales and sales

was the tip of the spear, made the most money, got the company car.

I mean this was it.

And I remember the maturity difference I had between the first time I

interviewed for sales and the second time, because the first time they're like,

tell us about, you know, a time in your life where your challenged.

And I'm like, I always overcome all challenges. You know, I'm-.

-Yeah.

Uh, I'm it, I'm the guy.

And the second time I remember I knew the interviewer,

I'd been with the company 10 years and they asked me, um,

interview question number, I think it's called interview question number 13,

you can go out on the internet and look at interview questions and you can come

to the career center and they'll tell you some of the standard interview

questions. And the question was,

tell us why you're the best candidate for the job.

Younger new student Gerry would've said, well duh,

I mean of course I'm the best candidate for the job. Older, more mature,

Gerry decided to say, I don't know that I am.

And I remember the interview sensing a weakness, plunged in with their,

their dagger for the coup de grace and said,

well how could you say such a thing? How could you come in here,

this is the final interview,

come in here and say you're not the best candidate for the job? And I said,

I'm not saying I'm not the best candidate for the job.

I'm just not arrogant enough to say that without knowing the other candidates

that I am or why I am because I know other people that have applied for this

job, which was true. And I know you got a stack of great candidates over there.

The only thing I can tell you is that I've been here 10 years,

everybody in this room knows me and knows what I've done and knows about my

passion for taking care of our customers.

And if that's the kind of guy you want, um, that's it.

And I remember thinking, alright,

you've jumped the shark and the bomb has gone off and I'm going to walk out of

the, you know, flattened fallout on fire room and that's it.

And the hiring manager met me at the door and shook my hand and later on he told

me that was the answer that got me the job. A combination of vulnerability,

a combination of awareness. But when I hear you talk about it,

and I'm going to go back and talk about self mentoring again a little bit,

I think part of the self mentoring process,

and I'm not saying self mentoring replaces mentoring,

but maybe it's the precursor to mentoring is number one,

having the awareness to um, be vulnerable,

admit what you don't know and then share,

I think maybe those are the three concepts of self mentoring to get ready to see

a mentor.

Because if you're listening and you get a chance to sit down with a Phil Sims or

any of our great professionals in the program who are likely alumni,

they're giving up their time because they care.

But most importantly don't be intimidated because they're

mentoring because they missed something.

Almost 100% I can guarantee they missed something

and they want to share it with you so you don't have to miss it.

Is there resonance in that for you?

Yeah, I mean that is, that to me, when I talked about Venn diagrams,

that's where the time invested by the pro mentor or

the mentee gives a return above

the energy required for the relationship is knowing that you

helped somebody else not have to encounter the same fact pattern or scenario

without being equipped with what you've benefited from as a result of your

experience. So yeah, for sure that resonates.

And I think that's where the real value comes from.

And you talked a little bit about the dynamics between pro mentor

and mentee.

And the interesting thing about those scenarios is they both parties

lacked, you could call it vision, which does two things.

It captures the head and the heart.

And I think we want to be a part as humans of any endeavor that captures the

head and the heart times a finite resource we can't get back and we want to

dedicate, um, our head and our heart to endeavors that we know we can belong to.

And so creating that sense of belonging between the pro mentor and the mentee is

critical as a first step.

And the assumption that the pro mentor knows what this roadmap looks

like, maybe does or does not articulate,

it may or may not align with what the pro mentee is looking for.

And then we can flip the script to the pro or to the mentee and basically say

they were looking for something.

And whether that's articulated or not is going to set the relationship up for

success or failure.

And if there's this preconceived notion for what this looks like as a

well-traveled path and you just hide behind this is what I think I'm supposed

to do or what Gerry said I was supposed to do, um,

I think you miss out on the real heart and nature of the mentorship program,

which is having a real human need for connection.

Having a desire to either through the relationship or

future state for yourself,

engage your head and your heart in what you're endeavoring to do or better

understand what you want to engage your head and heart in through perhaps trial

and error and, and other connections to the pro mentor of,

I think maybe I wanted to get into, um, you know,

personal finance consulting or I want to get into M and A work,

I want to get into tax work, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You aren't supposed to know until you have that direct experience and you can

ask the questions.

But I think our inner dialogue makes us feel like we're supposed to know.

And then we just operate in this realm of assumptions for what this mentorship

program is about and what it's supposed to mean. And,

and I think that's ironically where it's most engineered to fail is just not

spending adequate time articulating what both parties, not one,

but both parties are hoping to accomplish.

And I just love the concept that when we sit down, you know,

stuff I don't, and I know stuff you don't.

And real value comes from teaching each other and learning

and expanding our minds together. Um, and being creative. I mean,

there's real joy that's the head and heart dynamic of there's creativity that

exists in that. Um,

so I'll get off my soapbox,

but I just think that that's such a critical part and such a critical step that

if it's skipped over out of insecurity or fear or just perhaps we aren't setting

the program up clearly enough to have that be core to the heart of what's

going on, which I've attended your training and it's talked about.

But that's, that's such a critical element of what,

what someone is hoping to accomplish and it's collective and mutual.

It's the pro mentor and the mentee both hoping to accomplish something and

uh, that's got to be well understood for it to be successful.

I feel like I jumped the tracks a little bit on what you were asking for,

but that's-.

-I loved it. It was, uh, it was a great description I think,

and you're providing really good roadmap for I think the mentor and the mentee

and it tees up very nicely. The next, uh,

part of our discussion I want to talk about, and that's,

you and I spent kind of a year when you volunteered to be the liaison to

mentorship. So for folks at home,

there's members that are on the alumni board for Seidman.

These are all Seidman alums like Phil, they sit down and they say,

we're going to dedicate resources,

i.e. Person or persons to each endeavor at the university.

So some folks are working with alumni in the classroom,

some people are working with student organizations that are related to Seidman.

Uh, some people are working on the the Seccia breakfast series,

which is our most popular event at Seidman and Phil, right?

What was he saying? He said,

I'm going to work with Gerry on this mentorship program, which was new,

which I appreciate. Um, we're sitting in a coffee shop one day having our,

our biweekly meeting and we're talking about the difference between

our styles extrovert and introvert. If you,

that's kind of a blunt instrument to talk about our styles, but it's fair.

And we came up with this equation and I remember how excited you were because it

seemed to make sense to you. And and we've talked about it several times.

We had, kind of fun factoring in this equation as well.

So for those of you listening at home,

the equation is,

what I want (WIW) times what they have (WTH)

equals or is greater than the energy it takes to connect.

And what that means is if I know what I want,

I want a red Ferrari because

magna Pi is back on TV and red Ferrari's are cool, even though my stature,

I would never fit in a Ferrari.

And I know Phil has a Ferrari and I don't know how he got it. That's a,

that's a one v one relationship. I want a Ferrari.

I know a guy who's got a Ferrari and I know Phil because he's a, he's a friend.

That would take very little energy to connect.

I think that's a great example of a positive and somebody thinking in their

mind, well why would I do a mentorship program where it gets a little bit more

nebulous, a little more complicated is I want a job,

what kind of job? I don't know, I want a job.

Is that kind of how you felt the equation worked and,

and how it made sense to you? Or am I off base here?

Yeah. Uh, just to back up for context, probably one of the most fun

memories I have of that coffee was you talking about how your approach

to mentorship would be to have students print off a bunch of business cards and

hand them to professors and build their network in a very proactive,

outgoing way.

And I just remember you passionately explaining that this,

this is the approach that you recommend and that would work really well.

And I was like cringing inside because that would be probably one of the

greatest turnoffs to having you as a pro mentor is if you're telling me to hand

out business cards,

like pretty much this is over and like I'm not probably going to be listening

anymore.

And so how do we make that a thing where people have permission to be like maybe

style-wise there's a misalignment?

That's where we got into the introvert-extrovert was just talking about maybe

there are some things that make you cringe about certain styles and just being

able to talk about that is actually engineering their relationship for success

more than just like you said,

in a very blunt style thinking about personality types and thinking that

um, just because the pro mentor is a little bit further down the runway,

they have it all figured out. I mean, personalities are personalities.

It's not like just because you have 10 more years in your own personality that

you're going to better overlap with somebody of a different personality.

So yeah, back to the equation, which, um,

it must have been the caffeine that made us excited about this because I'm not a

huge fan of like math equations and things of that nature. Um, but yeah,

I, I guess just to unpack that a little bit, um,

which by the way, the red Ferrari I would have is probably in my basement.

It's a matchbox car that my five year olds probably wrecked in their sprinkler

or something like that. As a student, you're very busy,

you're in a new environment,

you have positive and negative stressors going on,

and you're doing this calculation in your mind of,

is my committing to this program going to be worth my time?

Because it's another stressor for me, positive or negative.

If you're outgoing and it's another thing to do and it makes you feel good as a

human, maybe it's, maybe it's positive, it still costs you time.

So it could be a positive stressor.

If you're introverted or you've been in the program before or

whatever and you're, you're feeling like it's a negative stressor,

then what do both of those fact patterns have in common? It's you're,

you're doing this calculation of is what I'm going to get out of this

going to be worth what I'm going to put in?

And so we started playing with the idea of what I want being,

if I just stop there and kind of play both sides of the coin. So the pro,

let's start with the mentee.

So the mentee may want a job or they may want clarity on which

direction they want to go. Finance in general is very general,

so I want to better understand what all of the finance

field offers. Banking. I mean you can get into that in insurance,

you can get into that in, uh, mergers and acquisition houses.

You can get into that in consulting. There's just such a CPA work,

there's such a vast array of what finance can serve.

So let's say that's your desire. And then let's say-.

-Can I pause you one second there? What I love what you did there is, so the,

the WIW what I want part of the equation,

you went from a job and then you hardened that target. You,

you got more specific.

<Yeah.> You made that part of the equation more powerful by just saying, okay,

so pre the mentee, getting with the, the mentor, if your goal is nebulous,

like I want a job. Yeah. Spending time thinking about,

I don't know if this job exists or I don't know if this,

maybe it's the lifestyle, the job maybe you think merger and acquisition is-,

your cruising around the country buying, selling companies. Yeah.

That may or may not be true. The more you harden that,

the more that you reinforce the WIW part of the equation.

<Right.> And that makes it more powerful when we get to multiply that by what

they have.

Correct. Yeah. That's super fair. I mean, in my mind you're double clicking,

right? So you have this aspiration and then it's like, why, okay,

everyone's going to answer the why different.

So let's say I want to do mergers and acquisitions. Okay, why? Well,

I'd like to own a business one day. Why? Well, I like,

I like the idea of having autonomy for my time.

I also have a high risk appetite.

I also have people in my family that, um,

have been entrepreneurial and have encouraged me. Okay, why? You know,

you can keep going-.

-The five whys. Yeah.

So professors that teach organizational behavior are very excited and they're

clapping right now. Yeah, because they're-.

-Yeah, it's a thing.

It's a real application we use in business to make decisions,

but what you're saying is you could do it in your own life.

A hundred percent. So that's, that's the what I want. Um,

so now we're flipping to the other side of the coin. So there,

there are pro mentors that exist that genuinely

want to help somebody answer that question,

but it requires articulating that question well enough to,

for you to be able to pair the right formula together to have a

successful outcome. And so the tools in your toolbox are sharper

in direct correlation to how clear what both parties are looking for in that

equation. And by the way, you're doing that times like hundreds of people.

So that's not a small task. The sharper the better. The pro mentor,

they may just be like, hey,

I remember sitting across from crow and bombing a question and

that feeling was so bad that I actually will get something.

What I want is for somebody to not have to relive that experience.

So now you have this what I want, and they're not the same. The,

the formula, what I want is not the same for both parties.

That's the beauty of where the overlap exists. So, and then what they have,

okay, I think that's fairly obvious.

So there's a professional who's been down the path, they've had that experience,

which helps them understand what they want to give back.

What they have is experience in a specific area.

And to the degree the mentee is clear with what they're looking for,

what they have is a need.

And I think if that equation is well articulated,

then you're,

you're in a position where both parties can come together and the rewards they

get from meaningful human conversations

can be above the calories required that

they're putting in.

You're making me hungry.

Calorie.

So that's-.

-Yeah.

Yeah. I, but, and, and no, that, that's a good way of describing it.

And I would also say that as the mentee, if my side of the equation,

what I want is weak and I know that I can also

harden the target on what they have.

So if I ask myself the five whys of, I want a red Ferrari,

and that boils down to I want to live a certain lifestyle.

I had a,

a uncle who was a mentor in my life for many years and he was in

the insurance business and I desperately thought I wanted to be in the insurance

business. And I did right out of, uh, my graduation at Grand Valley.

It turns out I didn't want to be in the insurance business.

I wanted Uncle John's lifestyle. I thought the lifestyle was

possible because of his job in insurance. I learned later on,

it could be any job,

could have been the lifestyle and as we talk about work-life balance, but

the idea of what he had was something I thought I wanted.

And so my side of the equation could be weaker.

So if you're a mentee out there going, well, I don't know what I want,

that's okay. Find somebody,

and maybe it has nothing to do with the job. Maybe it's their lifestyle,

maybe it is a car.

But ask yourself the five whys and then ask yourself if it's worth the energy to

connect. And the last part of the equation,

is it greater than the equal to the energy connect?

Is it worth it for me to do it?

There are a million opportunities at Grand Valley and West Michigan community to

network a networking event to me is nothing more than me going there.

And maybe I have solved the equation, maybe I haven't. But the,

everybody's there to connect anyway. If you come to a, a mentorship event,

and maybe it's not one of our professional development events,

maybe it's mentorship movie night.

I get pros all the time that ask me why am I supposed to come to mentorship

movie night? If you want to. Is there an outcome?

Yeah. But you,

you're telling me you're probably a task-based mentor and you want me to tell

you how it is.

Maybe it's developing that relationship and then talking about a great film that

opens up a new dimension of your dialogue. Me being a dialectic, uh,

mentor that gets you to that why,

or get you through that piece. And that's why I think this is a very,

you know, tactile way of thinking about it.

So if you are more of an internal person and you're listening to this podcast

and you start writing that out and write those five whys you've come equipped

and I think any mentor, and if you're a mentor, you do it too.

I think that would be fair.

And I think it would be powerful and maybe even a little vulnerable.

So let me cast it back, Phil. Isn't that self mentoring?

I think, I think it is

because it involves others. So when I read self mentoring,

what I envisioned was this solo walk down a path through the woods where you're

uniquely growing. Um,

from a mentorship perspective,

what you're saying in my mind involves others. So I think that's the,

the reason that, yeah, that makes sense. I mean it has to involve others though,

because it's that interaction with others and then that feedback loop that

really helps

the mentorship cycle work.

You can't, I don't, I don't know how you absent, a pro mentor could say, oh,

I'm like on your resume, let's sit down across from an interviewer and say, oh,

well I did a self mentorship program at Grand Valley.

Well what does that involve? Well, I read a lot of books.

That doesn't really work.

Like if you're an employer interviewing for a job and you're looking for

somebody who's really leaning in to their weaknesses or really leaning

into, hey, I identified that this is an area I'm really weak and I'm,

I'm getting after whatever the feedback is, the accountability is,

the deeper conversation is to help me get to the other side of that.

I think that's,

that's the outcome of the mentorship program that a solo journey can't,

can't provide these.

Great samurai movies, you know, Yojimbo, San Giro,

all the Kura-sala stuff, right? So

I came across readings of the masters,

Miyamoto Mui, right? Greatest,

arguably greatest Japanese swordsman ever was against

training with a master.

His idea of training was you get a sword and you swing the sword and the sword

will teach you everything you need to know about being a sword. So,

or being a swordsman,

when I go back and I think about this and I was doing the same thing you were,

I was challenging this idea of self mentoring.

There's gotta be a way for somebody to do it on their own.

But the sword was the mentor. So I think of I want to be an entrepreneur.

Well then go start a business, but you're not doing an echo chamber.

Now your customers become your mentors.

Beause they're going to tell you especially what you're doing wrong, right?

Your landlord or your real estate agent, when you buy this property,

put the business in your suppliers. These all become your mentors.

That is a path, but it isn't an,

an echo chamber of self, uh, mentoring process.

And that will work just like the swords going to give you feedback if you swing

the sword every day. To become the master. And I think that's why

rather than self mentoring, what we're talking about is pre mentoring, right?

I'm talking about preparing myself.

So we have a whole system on this called life crafting. It's an awesome seminar.

Everybody in the program is invited to attend and it's about sitting down and

thinking through kind of the five whys we have prompts and we ask about you and

envisioning your future state, but without limit. What is it you want?

What is the life you want to have? Job is part of that,

but what's the life you want to have?

And then you've answered that WIW part,

we can help you with the WTH part, what they have, right?

So tell me what it is you want and what connect you to somebody.

And that's the beauty of mentorship program and the energy to connect,

fill out our form in the form. You, you,

we ask you what you want and then I pair you with somebody who has probably that

or something similar. I'm making it as easy as possible,

uh, to connect you with the resources, uh, for people. So

thanks for that.

Yeah.

Now let me tee up a tough one for you.

What do you wish students today would do that they don't do?

Uh, fail more about that which is outside in

a structured environment.

I think failure sounds really scary. And

what I've learned post-college is my richest moments are moments of

really deep failure. And

the path of wisdom is not avoiding failure.

You don't become a wiser person because you avoided all failure.

Because as fallible humans, we are going to fail. So just

unpacking your relationship with failure as a student and

understanding that if you can fail quickly and you can recover quickly

and you can master that skill and your relationship with failure.

Even small baby steps with what if I do the mentorship program and what if my

pro mentor is really hard on me and I walk away feeling miserable?

That could feel like failure. Um, but I probably,

one of the most meaningful thoughts that I've ever received on failure

is that failure is an event. It's not a person.

And I think that this idea that if I fail,

it then confirms I'm a failure in your psyche.

You already believe that you're a failure. And I, I think that the,

the mentorship program in college in general with so much newness,

by definition, with newness,

you have so much opportunity to potentially fail.

And if you heard me say failure and you thought about it in like catastrophic,

devastating ways, perhaps rethink this continuum of failure,

which could be catastrophic or it could be tiny little ways.

So how does the student do that? I mean, how, how does someone practice that?

I think putting, just putting yourself out there and if, if, if you can work on

yourself, uh,

in your relationship with yourself and your internal narrative.

I heard it put best a couple weeks ago when I was sitting down with somebody I

really admire and he said, Phil,

if you are sitting with your internal monologue right now and you were having a

cup of coffee,

would you stay at the table if your internal monologue was outside of you

sitting across from you? Like,

do you talk to yourself in a way that you enjoy the company of

your internal monologue?

If it were separate and distinct from you sitting across the table from you,

that was a special day of me being pretty critical of myself.

And so the answer was no. And it's like, okay,

well if you have control over that to a degree,

are you controlling what you're putting into your mind?

Are you controlling the way that you're treating yourself?

Because you would never treat somebody else that way.

So like why are you killing your energy with your internal monologue of what

that looks like? And I think that

there's some puzzle pieces there that you can figure out how to put together

that will help you to rebuild your relationship with failure.

And if, if your internal monologue is not contingent on acing the test and

running the fastest mile and doing your best bench press ever,

and you know,

if your life's contingent and your internal monologue's contingent on just this

continuum of success, it's, it's,

it's a, I think that the way that that social contract works with yourself is,

is going to result in failure at some point because there are limits on

how far you can go as an individual building,

building the way you think about your life out. So rethink,

I'll try to land the plane on all this.

So rethink failure and expose yourself

to scenarios where you may not get an A,

whatever that is.

If it's having a conversation with somebody that you've sat next to in class and

thought like 30 times, maybe I should just say hi,

but I for some reason feel a little bit awkward.

Like just have the conversation.

You are as somebody who is a person,

not the failure event. So failure is an event, not a person.

You're exposing yourself to an event where as a person who's not a failure but

a creative being, something cool could come from that. And, and you know,

we talk about networking to me, I heard it,

I heard it said once opportunity is attached to a human,

every opportunity is attached to a human.

If you're desiring an opportunity and you understand what you want well enough,

expose yourself to humans that can help you

and, and do it with a mindset of I am a human, I'm not a failure,

failure, yeah, as an event it could happen,

but it's not going to forever bruise me and wreck me to the point where I'm just

going be completely on the roadside out of fuel.

Build up your inner-, inner monologue, build up the way that you treat yourself,

put yourself around people that are going to love you,

are going to encourage you,

are going to help you also shape that internal monologue on how you're talking

to yourself. And from that, from that network if you will,

you can continue to grow your network and put yourself around humans that are

going to really influence you in a positive way. And a lot of,

a lot of people who are in college that ask me, well, you know,

should I do this? The salary's this, um, the travel's this, the,

uh, type of work I'm going be doing?

Is this my number one question that I both ask myself

and I ask anybody else because it's really impacted me. Well,

and this may be helpful for somebody, is stop and look at the people,

the people you put your yourself or around are going to affect the trajectory of

your life and your career more than the salary of the position that you're

first encountering. So think about the people,

think about how you feel around them,

think about how they make you feel and definitely make sure that's a variable.

It doesn't have to be like the only variable because if the job doesn't pay

anything and it, there's no upward mobility, I'm not saying like just go

be with people that are, you know, these,

these gurus of making you feel good, but just look at their lives and,

and are the lives that they have built 10,

15 years down the road or five years down the road or three years down the road,

does that look like where you see yourself and what you would like your life to

look like?

If so then definitely make sure you're weighing and balancing that in your set

of considerations.

What I hear you say is practicing this is doing something outside your comfort

zone and there's ready-made opportunities in the university.

Is your opportunity as a Petri dish, I think to experiment,

experiment, um,

trying ways of your personality and seeing how they've mesh with others. Um,

trying opportunities, trying careers, trying different degrees.

Uh,

Gerry says it's okay if you change your degree if you know why you're changing

it, but what I also hear you saying,

is if there's a ready made opportunity with very low

barrier to entry, high return possibility and

a safety net for failure, I'll use air quotes.

Let me introduce the Seidman, the mentorship program.

I would say the program's working because we're wrestling with

accessibility and we're wrestling with the core why

of the program in that we're not just thinking about this as

another thing to do. We, we actually,

rather than it just being another thing to do, we want it,

we want it to be an experience where you're met both as the pro mentor

and as the mentee and thinking about where you are

and what year after.

And designing the program to be agile enough that one size doesn't

have to fit all is why I would say I think it's working.

And I think that you're doing an incredible job of listening

and responding to feedback,

both good and bad or positive and negative or whatever,

however we want to label it. And trying to iterate this thing and,

and having a growth mindset around the mentorship program that the,

the end goal is not for Gerry to receive all positive feedback.

The end goal is for the majority of the participants in the program

to be able to say, yeah, that at,

at a human level was really helpful to me in a way that

the core syllabus of my finance

class didn't.

And I think Grand Valley understands there is that need and it does desire

to meet that need in a thoughtful way and in a human way because

the academic rigor and the requirements of

a class are critical.

But absent the balance of that human element of how do you then translate this

knowledge that I'm building up and this human potential that I'm investing in by

growing myself, how do I then translate that to the marketplace?

And I think that the mentorship program is the answer to that question.

Thank you for that.

And we absolutely couldn't do it without co-mentors like you alumni like

you who,

who care and behalf of the mentorship program on behalf of Grand

Valley, on behalf of the Siemen College of Business. Thank you, uh, Phil.

And thanks to all of our pro mentors who take the time to come back and care

and really, really spend genuine time with these students.

I know our pro mentors out there, um, they do this because they want to do this.

They don't do this because they think they're great and they need to stand on

top of a hill and shout it. They've all been there and done that.

And I think that is the heart of the program and the,

the culmination from Bill Seaman's time of having Grand

Valley be a repository for great citizens for West Michigan

and great workers for the businesses. It really pays off here.

And I think I've said it before, this is what makes Grand Valley unique.

That's what makes our program unique.

I've never called a professional and had them say no

when I said, there's a student, this is the specific student I'm reading their-,

this intake form and they need you. I've never had a,

a businessperson say, a pro mentor, say no. I've had him say not this semester,

but I've, I've never heard anybody say no. And that's, I,

I'm pretty sure that's unique in all the mentorship programs. I talked to you,

we don't have that. We have a very unique thing going on here. So, uh, Phil,

thanks for your time today. Uh, I appreciate you, um,

as a human first and foremost. You're a great human being, uh,

but also a good friend of the program, good friend to me and,

and a mentor and I, I really appreciate that. Thanks for coming today.

Yeah. And thanks for all you're doing. It's been a joy and it's fun to

see where this has gone and I'm really optimistic about the future and look

forward to continuing to build our relationship and build the mentorship program

together. Appreciate it.

Thank you for sailing along on this episode of the Seidman Mentorship Podcast.

For more information on the Seidman School of Business Mentorship Program at

Grand Valley State University, set your heading to www.gvsu.edu/Seidman.

If you have a story to tell, know someone we should interview,

have questions or comments, email us at go, the number two, gv

biz spelled b i z at gvsu.edu.

Until next time,

keep a weathered eye on the horizon and we wish you fair winds so

long.