Business Innovators Radio - Episode 29: The Power of Mentoring in Cultivating the Superpowers of Other Men with Maurice Evans

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Construction Executives Live Gentlemen, have you ever thought of yourself as a superhero? Not the caped crusader flying around Gotham or the billionaire genius in an iron suit, but a real-life hero in your own narrative. While you might not have lasers shooting from your eyes or the ability to leap tall buildings, you possess something even more impactful: the ability to mentor and empower the next generation of men.Join me with special guest Maurice Evans as we explore the topic of mentorship and how to create a win-win situation—where your protégé gains the wisdom and courage to face life’s challenges, while you get the incomparable satisfaction of having made a lasting impact.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-29-the-power-of-mentoring-in-cultivating-the-superpowers-of-other-men-with-maurice-evans

Welcome to In the Zone and Construction Executives Live, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to Construction Live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements out here in sunny Northern California, where we just broke out. out our long-sleeved shirts. Don't worry. It'll be 70s today. We'll be fine. But I hope you guys are all doing well. I know we're probably all recovering from a giant candy hangover. I ate one too many Kit Katz.

I'm sure you guys all have your favorites. Let's not get into that today. That's too controversial. But thank you for being here. We have another great show for you today. As I mentioned earlier and last month is we have a platform update. we've had some situations in customers and clients ask me about creating a referral program that's easy to use for our clients. At three generations, we've always struggled with this trying to reward our clients for their business or reward them for giving us referrals or even a nice gift for employee staff.

So we think we found it. We are done with the gift card thing. This is one that we did where we put our names and faces on it. We mailed them out to clients. We found out their expiration was a lot quicker than we realized. And homeowner losing them. And so we are literally done with the gift card. So we have a program called Referral GIFTR.

So check it out. Referralgiftr.com. Take a look at it. It's a very easy program to send out a referral voucher to a client. And they can just shop right online. So we think we're, we got something here. Just looking for a couple. more pilot users to get 50% off of their subscription fees. If you have any questions, you can email

me, Jeremy, at us construction zone.com. Our show today is really cool. This is a subject matter that is near and dear to my heart, so hopefully you guys stay, stick around until the very end. I wanted to also mention that our show is being sponsored again today by Build 12. And you need to take a look at build12.com where they will automate your construction business into a revenue generating machine. I am using build 12. I'm flabbergasted by how many things they have. They keep adding things to the platform to make my job easier and I'm all about it. So today's show is titled the power of mentoring in cultivating the superpowers of other men. And, you know, I don't know, gentlemen, have you ever thought of yourself as a superhero? I know.

I have not, but not the Caped Crusader flying around Gotham or the billionaire genius in an iron suit, but a real-life hero in your own narrative. While you might not have lasers shooting from your eyes or the ability to leap from tall buildings, you possess something even more impactful, the ability to mentor and empower the next generation of men. Today, special guest, Marie Sevens, will explore the topic of mentorship and how to create win-win situations where your protege gains the wisdom and courage to face life's challenges while you get the incomparable satisfaction of having made a lasting impact. We're going to talk about leaving legacy people.

We all want this. Let's figure it out. Marie Seven, also known as Mo to his friends, is a successful pastor, entrepreneur, number one bestselling author, consultant, and sought author after speaker. In Florida, after being twice homeless, he built his company from zero to ten employees in two years and a million dollars by year three. He has since made multiple companies to this level of revenue the same way over the years. Maurice met and married Shmirna de Jesus, the love of his life in 2004 in Clearwater, Florida.

In 2018, the couple found in their current venture power now, which we will get into in this show. In his free time, Maurice enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and giving back to his community. He is passionate about helping others achieve success personally and professionally, and his experiences and values have greatly influenced his work. So please help me welcome. Maurice Evans, Maurice, thank you for being here. And thank you so much for having me. Yeah, and I just want to let everybody know he's having a little bit of technical issues. So we got the avatars going today. So you guys are going to have to look at my ugly mug a little bit more today. but I appreciate you being here.

I know with live shows, you know, we have technical difficulties. We have a hard time logging on, all those super fun things. But I just, I'm happy that you're here because we got a lot of great stuff to talk about today. Yes, yes, I am excited. And I see that there is a live chat happening. Is that something I need to be? Yeah, I'll help manage that. But if there are people who have questions for us, Mo really likes that live engagement.

so feel free to send it to me. We do have a lot of content that I want to get through, but if there's something that's pertinent, I'd love to bring you guys in into the conversation as well. But I really wanted to just get started with, like, how did you get started in this, I guess this mentorship thing, but also, you know, powerality and the superheroes,

and how did you all come to this as we are right now? Man, it's a very long hero's journey, right? And I was doing all kinds of things that I believe have divinely led me to this point right here. Being involved naturally as a pastor, being involved in the personal development industry, as a motivational speaker, as a coach, as a trainer, these things over the years. And psychometrics being a part of that. many people are familiar with 16 personalities Myers-Briggs MBTI disc those kinds of things and I was a comic book collector as a kid okay and I was of course and still am to this

day team Marvel as you know and so but we collected all kinds of indie comics DC Marvel all of the all of the things out there and yeah growing up the the zeitgeist of superheroism has had a hold on culture to different degrees in stages and phases sometimes it was you know a big deal then it kind of fades off and you know it's in books it's in TV it's in movies it's a cartoon it's just for kids it's graphic novels for adults it's you know weird alternative people then it's popular for everybody with cosplay and then, you know, it has these seasons and stages where it evolves and grows. So I've been a fan of the concept of superheroes and superpowers and definitely understood this historical significance to psychometrics. Plato and the proto-psychology of this concept of temperament and how,

these things impact our interpersonal relationships and how it impacts our lives. And so in 2017, my wife and I began, and these interestingly enough began as emojis and then, which were text based. So explanation marks and plus symbol. And so it wasn't even smiley faces. It was very interesting. And then it became superhero nality and then it became super power nality and then power nality. Finally, it's what we have become today and what you see on the screen are the primary character types, including the hybrids and those are all the superheroes. The supervillains are not mentioned on there. They're not seen on there. But this is something we've been. working on for five years now since 2017 and we're really, really excited about doing our pilot launch

currently. And in 2024, we're really going to be going big with getting this out. We find that this is really, really helpful with all people in all situations. And so you and I got to meet and discuss how power nality impacts this dynamic of mentoring. Yeah. And, and you. And, you and I got to meet and discuss how powerality impacts this dynamic of mentoring. Yeah. And how that impacts legacy and how understanding what we like to call your super self really is the key

to everything. Success in life, productivity, mental health, all of these things kind of center on this fact of, who am I? My sense of identity, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's so strange.

I mean, as I think about construction in our industry and the reason that I read you, your article in The Good Man Project and like there's all these things that, you know, in our industry, we struggle with relationships, especially with other men. We struggle with this finding or wanting help, you know, whether that's a mentor or whether that's a marriage therapist, you know, right? We, for whatever reason, we panic. And I think there's a weakness factor where we think that we're, being weak. But I really like the super power component to this because, you know, like you

have mentioned, that all of these superheroes have a personality trait that can be associated to you. And I know that you are working on also that personality test. Is that something that's going to be rolling out this next year as well? Absolutely. Well, so we do private assessments currently. We're in the process of certifying individuals. We just actually last week had a gentleman who graduated with his level one certification. So shout out to David. And so we are training people and teaching them how to go into organizations and in their communities to help people with that. In fact, I believe David is in something called Trail Life, which is very similar to Boy Scouts. Okay. And they have a very strong mentoring component.

So I think he's going to try and incorporate some of that and what he does there. He's also a corporate coach. So he's going to be bringing that into cultures and organizations. That's the beauty of this. This isn't just for men. It isn't just for mentoring. It isn't just for couples. It isn't just for families.

It isn't just for children. We're all humans. Right. And that's what I love about this is how it amplifies the superpower of every individual. An interesting dynamic occurs that we've noticed when people begin to identify and activate their super self. And they realize that they were born with superpowers and that their personality is their superpower and they're okay to truly express themselves in the way that they're built in the way that they're created. It brings not only a sense of confidence to them and clarity to them, but it's a sense of confidence to them, but it's a sense of confidence. It also gives them an ability to recognize and respect the superpowers in others.

Right. And so it changes the way that we interact with everyone. Yeah. Every relationship we have with a stranger, with our spouse, every relationship suddenly changes. Yeah. And it's like we always have this focus on our weaknesses, right? And I think that's even starts in school, which really bugs across. crap out of me is like, oh, you're not good in this subject. Well, but you're fantastic in this other

one. Let's not focus on that fantastic one. Let's focus on this one that's really that you struggle with. And I think that it's just, it's sad that that's also the case when it comes to someone's personality a lot of times, right? Like, instead of focusing on those positive things that make you become a great person, you're focused on those negative things and then you live your whole life, thinking about the negative things the whole time. And that's the challenge, right? So you have a baby incredible Hulk. And you put them in an environment where everyone has to go super fast.

It's all, he's surrounded by the flash. There's only so fast the Hulk is ever going to get. And they're upset when he's smashing things. They're upset when he's lifting things. We just need you to go fast. We really don't need you to bring all the strength all the time. Yeah. So that becomes a challenge.

Right. And the same thing in reverse, the flash, they're like, we really need you to be a lot stronger. He's surrounded by all these hulks. And he's like, come on, we need you to smash some stuff. And it's not happening because now they want the flash. Okay, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you some steroids.

We're going to put you in the gym. We're going to change your workout routine. And we're going to change your diet and nutrition. And that's all fine. But he's going to get an incremental change in his strength. Right. Whereas if you poured into his strength, he would get an exponential change and improvement by focusing on the strength. We're all made to be different.

Yeah. We really are. Yeah. But we find ourselves from our parents to our culture, our society. It tries to get us a part of it is also a fascination with the overcomer story. Yeah. Oh, right. You know, people love to hear that, you know, I was homeless twice. Yeah.

And you shared how I started a company, went from zero to ten employees in two years, but I started that when I was homeless. Wow. And so I could get into that story and people will be like, wow, that's great, that's great, that's great. But that's not where my superpowers lie. And we, but we love those underdog stories, the bad news bears. Oh, you're not old enough for that, Jeremy. Oh, no. How about Rudy?

Give me Rudy. Give me Rudy. Rudy. Rudy, okay. We love those underdog champion stories, right? The, what was the movie, Gladiator? He started as like a slave or something and then became a champion. in. So we love that. And we kind of look for that and we kind of say, well, this has to be

everybody. Right. You got to overcome the biggest challenge in your life and you got to excel in this area. Whereas really, if we focused on how we were built, maybe I'm very intuitive and empathic, but people don't want that. They want me to be more scientific. that's problematic. And we isolate. We are very good at stereotyping, right? So all construction workers are these big burly guys with a tattoo of an anchor on his bicep and a cigar hanging out of his mouth. And, you know, he's got a vest with cut out sleeves. And that's every construction worker, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. Last time I was on the job side, there was only a few guys. I look like that.

Right. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, women can't be construction workers. And, you know, it's, it's, we have these kinds of things. And that adds to that pressure from the outside that you have to become something that maybe you are. But what if you're not? Yeah.

What if that's not you? Yeah. Can you still be celebrated? Can you still achieve? Can you still succeed? will you still be supported? That's a good question. It has to start with yourself though, right?

Because again, if you're focusing on those negative things, you're never really going to celebrate your positive things, right? You're never going to be your full self. You're always going to be like, oh, I'm not this, you know, instead of I am this. And I think there's such a tendency in our life. I think social media makes this astronomically worse. this fake persona that we all have online, right?

And then our real one is, yeah, let's just hide that. Or maybe not even tell our spouse. Let's just make it, that's just my personality. And that's not to share. But that, it's just a gross, gross thing about our society right now. It's the Instagram filter perspective that we put out there has added to, the detriment of this dynamic. Yeah.

Mostly because I think that some of us who are older lived in the era before social media. And what we don't understand is that we still had that Instagram filter in real life. There is a way that you're supposed to behave in the boardroom. There's a way that you're supposed to behave on the work site. Yep. Now, granted, on the work site, some of that behavior is safety related, right? All right, guys, stop horsing around. If you've ever had to project manage or form in any site, you had to save that a time or two, I'm sure.

Yes, definitely. And so that's a safety issue, but still, we have lived in that there's a way that you're supposed to behave. There's a way that you're supposed to speak. And the internet has just created a new environment where we put on those airs. The problem is young people growing up in these things and not seeing anything different anywhere. Now it becomes a psychological issue where now my identity is obfuscated. I'm faking it until I make it, but now I've become what I have faked. Yeah.

But I am not really that thing. So now I'm dealing with this imposter syndrome and I'm trying, I'm not sure who I am. And there's a mental stress and anguish that comes about. Right. Yeah. These are all societal pressures. At some point, we have to come to terms with who I am. You know, when I was a teenager and very young man in the workforce,

somebody told me this I was complaining about the job that I had and how much I was being paid or rather the lack thereof and someone said you know young man no one's ever going to pay you more than you demand no one's ever going to pay you more than you think you are worth right and so a big part of this identity is people have to be taught how to treat you you you have to command and demand how you want to be treated but what if you don't know how you want to be treated right yeah never been modeled it right yeah no doubt i'm i wanted to we kind of started a little bit with why why do men struggle with this uh you know the seeking help whether you know like i said therapist mentor i know that there's some natural instinctual things about us that don't want to ask for help. What is that? And how do we, how do we check ourselves a little bit more, whether that's our ego or, you know, or being vulnerable? How do we, how do we become more well-rounded men in terms of asking for help?

I mean, that's huge right there, right? Getting to the place where we can ask for help. I think it's important. This is where mentoring comes in the modeling, right? We have these things called mirror neurons in our brain. And that's how we learn to do majority of the things is it mimics what we see another human doing. We see human doing something and we realize we can do it too. And then there's elements to that as well. Age related, gender related, these kinds of things also tie us in with these. these elements of our mirror neurons, but we follow most of what our parents do because we observed it, and so we mimic it. The mentoring is an extended version of this. This is what initially happened when we had a society where there was a master at something, and then that master would have an apprentice, right? The apprentice comes in and learns under the master craftsman of how to do whatever it is. Build guitars,

forged swords, whatever it may have been. But a lot of that is watching it, seeing it can be done, and then duplicating that, and then this master craftsman helping coach along and say, this is, you know,

how we can do this. And so I think that a lot of the problem with the asking for help is our mirror neurons never see that. We don't witness men that we respect asking for help. We witness men behaving as if they have it all together. So now our mirror neuron tells us I'm supposed to have it all together.

Everywhere that I've worked on, you know, now I'm my own GC, right? But, you know, I started out working and as I was working and, you know, I came in as, you know, an apprentice and I'm learning. I'm starting on the trade. I'm following everything. But it seems like everybody there as I go up and become a journeyman. As I go through the ranks, it seems like everybody seemed to just have it all together. They always had the right answer. They never had any stress or problems or concerns because that was what they put on.

That was the image that they presented. So now I think that's what's supposed to happen. And so they never asked for help. They never talked about asking for help. They never really encouraged me to ask for health in a safe way. And so now that I'm there, I believe from my mirror and nerves, everything that I've seen, I'm supposed to have it all together. Now on the inside, I've got all this turmoil. Yes.

Because now I feel inadequate. Now I feel like, man, I'm not good enough. I'm not as good as, you know, the guy I used to work with or work for or the other guys or because everybody's pretending that they have it together. So that's the first big issue when we talk about men and asking for help and mentoring is we don't see enough of it amongst ourselves. Right. Right. So go back to it. So as parents, if you don't, we're modeling our parents so much, right?

But then we enter in our career path, right? And then we stop that, right? Now it's now that I'm a man. and I've reached the point of I'm entering my career, then that kind of stops, right? Especially in construction. You're still not seeing anybody model that, that mentorship role or seeking help.

So you just continue down that same path. But we have like an innate desire, right, an actual God-given tug in our heart to have that community, that mentorship, mentee role. Like that is a part of us, whether we want to, you know, admit it or not. And like Corey, like Corey said here, master and apprentice, like we miss this generational storytelling of I need to learn, like I learned from my grandpa and my dad in construction

so that it just doesn't go away, right? Right. This organizational memory. Yeah. This generational knowledge, that's the challenge with us passing away because every person passes away, take some knowledge with them. We generally feel as human beings that each generation feels it's smarter than the last one. But that's actually not true.

I mean, we still don't know how the pyramids were built. Right. Without the things that we have today, you know, where was their excavator? Where was, you know, I don't, Caterpillar is pretty old, but it's not that old. So, I mean, we just are, there's certain things we don't even understand about ancient technologies. So the reality is we lose a little bit with every generation. Right. And so this makes mentoring and this master apprentice so much more.

Here's how we learn anything significant. It's kind of four stages, right? if you are my mentor then what you're going to do is Jeremy you're going to say okay I am going to do this thing Mo you're going to watch me do it and afterwards we're going to talk about it yeah and I'm going to do that for a while because I need to see I don't touch that because that's hot right right this is heavier than it looks, I need to make sure I, you know, safety first. Put my goggles on, put my, I'm talking to everybody out here. Put your goggles on. I don't know why. Everybody feels they put on mask, but no goggles. Stop it. Put goggles on. You only got two eyes. Okay. So now you, you have that

approach. I do, you watch, we talk. And then now I've been watching for a while, Jeremy, you're like, okay Mo let's kick it up a notch now you say to yourself Jeremy say okay I'm helping you here mom I'm mentoring you I'm going to do you're going to help and then we talk yeah right so now I'm a helper and then I'm probably just carrying your tools I'm probably just passing you but see I've watched enough that I know what they are when I say it um the the very love of my life to this day still does not know what a Phillips is. Baby, can you, can you hear me my Phillips screwdriver? Is that the, is that the flat one or this, this, this, this, this star, baby.

Still, we've been, we're going on 20 years of marriage. She has zero interest in any of this kind of stuff, but so that is, it's not helping, I, you know, because she doesn't watch me do these things, though. Right. Right. That first part is important because that first part is giving you vocabulary, that that first part is giving you identity, that first part is giving you awareness, that first part is giving you familiarity. It's hard to help if you're unfamiliar. Right, right.

Yeah, and we talked a little bit about this community aspect to mentorship. You know, if you don't have people that you're rubbing shoulders with where you want to emulate, right? I mean, I found a mentor and he's someone who I want to emulate. I want to be more like this person. Whereas if you don't have that, there's this community poll that you have where you start putting yourself in these camps. You know, like we talk about it on the phone, you know, whether you're a Swifty or whether you're this or that. I know my daughter is a giant Swifty and she's part of this community. It's these like-minded people who love the same thing.

And there is the obvious Are you a Swifty? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. It's so shocking to me. But you know what I mean? So there's a desire to be part of a community, right?

Whether you realize you're doing it or you're not. You know, we could talk about a political party being one of those. You know, it's like a fandom. It's like, you know, maybe it's a sport. You know, like there's all these things that we have a tendency to be drawn to, and then you go all in and you're, you're part of this community. You don't even really realize why you're doing it, but you actually desire it. It's like an innate, it's like a tug. You're being tug to it. That's a part of that hardwiring. We're built for community. We are built for learning and looking for teachers, mentors. You know, it starts with our parents. We're built for that. This is how we are, our brains are hardwired to do this.

And there's a biological, physiological element to community that certain elements within the brain chemistry that happens with oxytocin and other types of endorphins and things that fire only in community and how our brains actually begin to sink around other people. And this is where the like-mindedness comes in. This is why Swifties know things and they'll say things. And you'll say what? And they'll laugh at you. Right. Because he doesn't know. But you're like, okay, you guys are weird. Right. And this is why the right doesn't like the top and the bottom doesn't like the left. And the Swifties don't like the beehive and the DC don't like the Marvel. And we all have our little things that we're a part of. And we have certain levels of geekiness and nerdiness involved with it. But it is. is we're designed to have a common language, a common vocabulary, a common perspective. We're built for that. But the problem is that over time, we have gotten more and more segmented. And instead of being diverse in our communities, we're more and more homogenous. So we want people who only speak like we speak and look like we look and talk like we talk and think like we think.

And we become xenophobic to the point where we're violently opposed to those who do not. Which is why yesterday I was, you know, I live in New York City. We have five boroughs. I was in Manhattan yesterday. And it was Halloween. And I saw some people dressed up. And I was like, hey, how you doing? But then I saw some people dressed up like DC characters. So I kicked their behind. I stopped them into the, no. But this is, for some reason, we take that. That sounds like really weird and freaky, right? But the reality is when we have our little group and there's that other group that's opposed to us, we kind of feel.

that way, right? Right. Yeah, whether you're realizing you do or not, it's a strange phenomenon. And when it comes to the business community, like in mentorships, can you really become that person that you desire, you know, whether that's a, whether that's a goal of a revenue or whether that is a type of person or a lifestyle or freedom of time? Can you really become that person without a mentor showing you the way because otherwise it just seems like luck it seems like oh all this stuff fell on my lap but that really isn't how it works is it i don't know anyone of any high level of success in any industry who did not get there without some form of coaching or mentoring it's i don't i don't think it's possible at high levels of success you're going to hit a plateau where you just don't know

what to do. There's things you just don't know. Doors that need to be open for you, behaviors, skill sets that you're not even aware that you need to have, that you can only find out from someone who has already been there. Not to mention it's a force multiplier. So whatever you do, you're going to do it better with a mentor. Whatever you do, the time frame is going to be shortened. It's going to be accelerated by your mentor. And that's because of that force, that process. right so it starts out i do you watch we talk it moves to i do you help we talk then it becomes you do i help we talk and finally we become peers and it's you do i watch we talk it comes full circle right and and and and this is designed to be passed on

person to person, generation to generation, but even community to community, because we have to know how to interact within the community. So you can say how to be the GC and how to manage your job site, but how do you operate as a contractor within the industry as a whole? How do you interact with other GCs? How do you interact with government? How do you interact with the clients that are hiring? How do you, how do you learn those things? Right. That's now more a community basis.

So understanding who you are is the beginning of this because if you don't understand who you are, how can you help somebody else understand who they are? If you're not learning,

you really can't help somebody else learn. So true, so true. And it reminds me of, you know, like I said, how I met you was the, from that Good Man Project article and it was titled

Unleashing Your Seventh, super self, the power of mentoring, incultivating the superpowers of other men. And you wrote something in there that, you know, that I wanted you to touch on those. You basically have the described for, I guess, personality traits or types of people, commander, energizer, protector, and calculator. And like you were saying, like if you don't know where you are, where your skill sets are, then, yeah, it's like you haven't learned enough to become a mentor, right? Otherwise, it just feels like you're just talking at somebody, you know, like, what you should do. And like, you're just, I don't know, how productive can that be? You really want to have a clarity on who you are. The Good Man Project

have a series of articles coming out with them. And these articles are all related to men, mentoring, and how your superpower impacts that. And so we do talk about the difference. between the four types of superheroes, right? We call them the commander, the energizer, the protector, and the calculator. Each of these represents the superpower within your personality. Your personality, we can all agree your personality has strengths. So we just call those strengths superpowers. And so what we do is we just help people understand the dynamics of the

these characters are custom created that kind of visualize some things that are superpowers within these types of individuals. Some individuals are more outwardly expressive. Some are more inwardly thoughtful. Some are more people and feelings and emotions oriented. Some are more task and objective oriented. And it is those combinations that kind of determine where you fall. on this scale. Once you understand who you are in your superpower, well, now you can kind of

understand how you're going to approach things. Our brains stem very specifically responds to stimuli and multiple stimulus will cause it to determine and identify what it's seeing. And from there, how does it want to respond? And so some are drawn to things. Some are more decided to take action to move away from things. And we can all look at the same exact thing, but depending on how we're built, determines on do I see that as something friendly or do I see that as some sort of threat? Do I see it as something I should attack or do I see it as something I should retreat?

from. Right. Even locus of control, locus of control is where how do we believe circumstances impact us? If I have an internal locus of control, then I believe that I exert my will on the environment and I adjust life circumstances. If I have an external locus of control, I believe that the external situation and circumstances has an impact and control on what, I can experience in life. And all of these, none are better than the other. None are right. None are wrong.

They're all just different. And they're very different in their perspective, very different in how they identify, very different in how they address things. And that's where we kind of get into issue sometime because somebody doesn't see things the way we do. Right. Or they don't act the way we do. I'm the halt. and they're moving way too fast and not strong enough. I'm the Flash and they're just not moving fast enough

and they're really just smashing things up and that's not appropriate. Right, right. Yeah, it's so in terms of like when you have a mentor, for example, or a protege, do you recommend finding out what their personality styles are as well? because obviously if you're just speaking at them and you're a flash and they're the exact opposite, it's just going to be going over their head, right? How do you talk to them in a way that they can understand and appreciate? You're definitely talking about understanding their language.

And so if you're French and all you speak is French, but you hire someone who is German. and all they speak is German, something's got to give. So the question becomes, do you insist on them learning French or do you begin to speak to them in German? Which do you believe is going to give you a greater productivity out of your employee? Right. Yeah. Obviously, you've got to learn their language. Yeah. And so it's the same when we talk about our temperament, our superpowers, when we talk about our power inality, by understanding who they, are, but understanding who you are as well. If I understand who I am, I know where I'm coming from,

but how do I get them to understand where I'm coming from? I have to first understand where they're coming from. Yeah. Their motivation is different than mine. And here's what's interesting. We begin to put people into places that cause less friction. A lot of times we're asking people to do something out of their strength, and it causes dysfunction. Right. And we're mad about that. We're upset with that dysfunction. When we're mentoring somebody, we are not trying to create a clone.

When we're mentoring somebody, we're trying to help someone become the best version of themselves possible. We should be looking to empower them. Yeah, no doubt. All these things you're describing is something that we often don't use listening, right? And I think that there's such a tendency, especially high power ego guys and gals where you're in a particular position of power, you're used to just, you know, getting your way. And usually when someone's talking to you, you're taught, you're thinking about how you're going to already say the next thing. So you have to really be a good listener in order to do any of these steps, right?

Absolutely. And so if you are on that outwardly expressive of a faster pace and you're mentoring somebody who's at a slower pace is going to be frustrating for you as the mentor, but it's going to be more frustrating for the mentee because you're pushing them to go faster. And that's just not their way. They need time to process. They're inwardly thoughtful. They cannot move fast. And you're going to cause more harm. then good at that point. You're no longer mentoring. You're now bullying. Same thing if you are more inwardly thoughtful and at a slower pace and they are very fast paced and you're trying to force them to slow down or to not talk as much or to not be as expressive. Again, now you're bullying them.

You're trying to force them to be like you. Right. And a mentor's job is not to create an army of clones. A mentor's task is to help someone become the best version of themselves as possible. Right. Yeah. And there's this great thing that happens. I mean, I know I go to lunch with a kid, an elementary school kid, as like a mentor, mentee relationship.

I've been doing it for years. And so often said that when you are serving somebody or when you're giving back to somebody, they usually give you more rewards than you give that. And that's definitely the case in this circumstance. But why is that and why is it important to not think of this as a knowledge transfer relationship? How do we get to those deeper levels of life where you can really make impactful waves in someone's life?

Not just the, hey, how you do marketing is, hey, how's your life, how's your marriage, how are your kids, like those bigger things. Man, that's huge. Great, great, great question. And it goes back to it's better to give than it is to receive. That love expresses itself through giving. And so love being a choice as a mentor, we should be loving the person that we are mentoring. Now you're talking about a level of expression that for many men becomes very, very difficult.

And so we talked about this difference here in, from the very beginning of this conversation, we talked about the difficulty that men find in asking for help. Right. And that is because you and I, I believe, had this conversation. A lot of people don't like the word and, you know, we don't use it. The word vulnerability. Right. Because that implies weakness and that's dangerous to be vulnerable.

And so the word, we. prefers transparency. And to be transparent with someone, we have a formula, part of our three core values. Authenticity is one of our core values. And we say that as a formula of authenticity equals integrity plus transparency. So you can be authentic as a mentor by having integrity and being transparent. And so we get to those deeper elements by not just passing on some information and intellectually transferring from my brain to their brain.

That's, you know, just hand them a book for that case. When you, when you truly are transparent and talk about, hey, you know what, when I first did this, or, you know, one of the challenges I'm facing right now. now or, you know, this is difficult for me. I still, to this day, face this. A lot of young people or even new adults that I mentor in regards to public speaking say, well, you're so, oh, you're so amazing. And, you know, my mother was a Motown singer and I literally got in front of stages and cameras at age two. So people think that I get out there and it's no problem for me. And I tell people. I said, I have major stage fright. To this day, every time I'm about to speak,

I had it at the beginning of this conversation. I always have it. Nobody knows this. Mummo, why? That doesn't make any sense. I see you. Nobody can see it. It's, yes, because I've learned to work through it. I've learned to understand that physiologically, anxiety and excitement are the exact same process, the exact same systems. So I tell them, I said, listen, it's okay to be afraid. I'm afraid every single time. I just do it afraid. Wow. And I let it go. I get butterflies in my stomach, my palms start to sweat. So yes, but guess what? As a result of the hard work, I make it look easy. I love the Olympics.

As human beings, we love watching people in a state of flow. Yeah, for sure. And the Olympics, that's all it is. What's the little game with the scrubby broom and the little Luba that they push around? I still don't know the rules of it. Curling? Curling, yes, Canada. I have no idea how to play that game.

I love watching them do it. It's mesmerizing. And I'm like, yeah, go USA. Yeah, we won. And I only know we won because they tell us we won. Yeah. Somehow you sweep and the sweep makes it go faster, but you sweep and it makes it go slower. And I have no idea.

It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I don't know what country they found that from. I don't know what it is, but we're watching humans in a state of flow. And any time you see people in a state of flow, the gymnasts, the floor work, the parallel bars, Just the high jump. You see people do these things and it looks effortless to them. Right. Right.

But there is a work that they got to this level of expertise to be able to eyeball it and look. My grandfather could look and know measurements within a center meter and just draw the line. And, you know, I don't know how you just. A lot of cutting. No, it was accurate. But, yeah, he had what? How many thousands of cuts by the time I was born? And eyeballing and knowing that this is this length and, you know, hey.

So the reality is that when we're transparent about what's going on on the other side of things or how we got to those things or the struggles that we have in the process. And if we can be openly transparent, not vulnerable, but openly transparent to others, then that's not weakness, that's strength. And now we can create an environment. We can create a culture. We can create a community. We can create a one-on-one mentoring mentee situation where we're dealing with the deeper things of things that are going on.

Hey, you know what? I got into an argument with my wife on the way to the site today. sorry I didn't mean to snap at you. I got other stuff going on. Right. You know, right. That's different. Right.

That's different than just the technical specifications of the job. Yeah, no doubt. And how do we go about, I mean, none of us are arrived. None of us should feel, never mind, let me rephrase that. None of us should feel that we've arrived as a person, right? That we are at our full potential. So we all should be seeking a mentor, right? I mean, how do we go about not only finding a mentor that's right for you, but also maybe finding someone that can be your protege.

And maybe when is that a good time? After you've been mentored or I think that's a tendency to, right? Is that people are like, I'm not, I can't mentor somebody. I'm not good enough. So how do you wrap our minds around that? Because I'm sure there's a ton of us thinking that. Like, I don't have anything to get back. Well, speak for yourself, Jeremy, because I've totally arrived.

And I think that's the key point, right? That nobody has arrived. I think the concept that I'm not good enough to be a mentor is that there's somebody that's arrived and I've not gotten to that level yet, right? Yeah. And so think about a child that's three years old. helping their little baby brother or sister that's two years old. Right.

You only have to be one step ahead of a person to mentor them, to coach them, to guide them. That's it. If you know one more thing, if you're one step further, then you have the ability to mentor them if, and nothing else in that one step. Right.

Maybe, you know, they've, they've never used a micrometer. Maybe they've never used a multimeter. Well, there you go. Yeah. You have something that you can give to them. So never be concerned about where you are. So I think that we all should be in this process of looking for mentors and finding people to mentor at all times at all ages. I think, yeah, I think children should be mentoring others.

Peer mentoring is a huge thing, especially for those who are minors. I think that we need to definitely find and seek out people who are willing to pour into our lives and that we should be willing to pour into the lives of others around us. I think it's just a circle that should just keep feeding itself over and over. You should be mentoring until the day you die and you should be mentored until the day you die. Because think about it. When should we not have grandparents and parents? right when should we not have children right is this is this cycle that is is always going on and and mentoring

the concept of mentoring apprenticing disciplining all of these things are based off of family it should look like family right how much time should you spend with the person you're mentoring i i don't know how much time should you spend parenting like you know can you mentor a whole group of people that want you can. How effective is it going to be? You know. Yeah. So it should be intimate. It should be personal. It should be real. It should be authentic. It should be something where we can really just get into understanding, well, what are you trying to do? What are you into? What is your perspective? Because we, as mentoring is not just telling, we should be asking just as much. Right. And that's where our superpowers come in because now as a mentor, I shouldn't feel exclusive. I should say,

well, you know what? I see what you're trying to do here. Here, let me, come on, come with me, and let me take you over here and introduce you to this person. Now, let's hang out with this person for a little bit so that you can see how to do this because they're really good at this. Right. Yeah. And then go back and talk to them. Now, what did you learn from that person? Oh, okay. Well, now, did you notice this about that person? Okay. Well, what do you think you would do differently? What do you think maybe are not necessarily some healthy things from that person? Oh, yeah, great. How do you think you can improve? Would you like to be like that person?

In these areas, because the mentor is the confidant to really have those real question and answer sessions with, to process. Yeah. Yeah, and there's a piece at the end of your article I really wanted to touch on here in the end. And you said, quote, mentoring is more than a responsibility. It's a legacy. In the world of superheroes, legacies are often physical objects like enchanted hammers or mystical amulets. But in the real world, your legacy is the positive impact you leave behind.

The lives you've touched and changed for the better. And as a person me speaking, I have this innate desire to leave a lasting legacy in the construction industry. I don't know why that is. I don't know where that comes from. And I don't know why that's a goal of mine, but I can feel it. And so why do I have that? And why is this mentoring? such a huge component to doing that. Like, if I don't, if I'm not doing stuff like this, I feel like when I'm doing this and I'm bringing someone like Mo to all of my community, and this message will live on. And I want people to hear these types of things.

So why do I have that? And why is it important for you to, to pass that on to leave a leg? I think it's built into us as well. The, you know, ancient scripture says that man was given deba, dominion over the planet, right? And so I think that this is a part of that desire for dominion and that that's passed on generationally, that that's passed on as a legacy into our children and through our communities and through our tribes, right? The tribal aspect of it, that our tribe would have impact that our names would not be forgotten, that we leave something for prosperity,

that it goes further and further through each person that we touch who can also touch. You know, thank God to Mr. Phillips, whoever that was, because, you know, otherwise we'd be stuck with these little slots all the time, right? The lasting legacy. That's right. It's, I, you know, I don't, I don't know what we would do if we didn't feel like we needed to have an impact greater than our time on this planet. Right. We probably wouldn't have much.

If we want to think bigger, we want to think beyond, and we want to be a blessing to other people. that what we did was foundational, was key, was core, that others can build off of that and they can have legacy and that all our legacies are tied together. I think it's just passed on to us from the creator. I think that he desires legacy. I think we desire legacy as a result. That's my spiritual perspective on that. I think that that is something that we carry on as humans who have parents and our parents. and have children and have been children.

I think it's just a natural element. And it's so key that mentoring becomes a part of that because it determines the quality of your legacy. Right. If you're not mentoring, then your legacy is not going to be good. And, of course, how you mentor. I mean, there's some people who have a legacy and they mentored very strong and we're not really excited about,

you know, the legacy that Genghis comes. left or others that could be mentioned. Yes, yes. Yeah, right. You have that influence. Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate your insight. Marisa, I mean, I can't tell you. This is something that's, like I said, I'm exploring this myself.

So it's just a great time in my life for this. And so I appreciate you being here. If there's a, what was the best way for someone to get a hold of you if they wanted to learn more about what you're doing? Powernality.com. Okay. feel free to email me power nality at gmail.com as well but the website powernality.com that's being developed every week. We're adding things to you that. There's a whole university system that's being added to that. So there's a lot of great content. We're putting articles out as well. So

there's there's a lot more coming here as we enter into 2024 over the holiday season. I'm really excited about that. Thank you so much for having me here. This has been amazing. And I'm really talking about this. Yeah, thank you. I can tell you you have a passion behind it. And I think you found something, right? Because you can hear it in your words. I don't even need to see your face to know how powerful this is for you.

And so it's like I feel like you're on the right track. So just keep me posted on your 2024. It sounds like that's going to be a big year for you and rolling out a lot of new stuff. So just let me know how I can help. But I just want to push this content out. Absolutely. appreciate it so much. Let me know whatever I can do for you guys. As you build like physical things, but as you build on the inside as well, that's what I really love about what you're doing is,

is, you know, you're constructing the inside of men with excellence. And I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Mel. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Thanks again for being here, everybody. This has been Construction Executives Live. I've had a great time today. hope you have what as well. Check out build12.com. There are sponsors again today, and we will have more valuable content coming this winter. We're going to roll right through December and January. We're going to keep going.

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate all the kind words that have said in the chat. And we will see you guys next month. Bye. You've been listening to In the Zone and Construction Executives Live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In the Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction industry news. Be sure to visit usconstructionzone.com.