Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Scott Jeffrey Miller on the Proven Guide to Great Mentorship EP 317

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Scott Jeffrey Miller, author of The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship, joins host John R. Miles on the Passion Struck podcast to share his valuable insights and advice for mentors and mentees. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring mentors seeking practical guidance and advice. Miller's book and his expertise can help improve mentorship skills and enhance personal and professional development. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/scott-jeffrey-miller-on-mentorship/  Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, releasing on February 6, 2024. The Proven Guide to Great Mentorship: Expert Advice with Scott Jeffrey Miller Discover the power of mentorship in this episode of the Passion Struck podcast. Host John R. Miles interviews Scott Jeffrey Miller, author of The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship, as he shares valuable insights and advice for mentors and mentees. Learn about the reciprocal nature of mentorship and how it can transform both parties. Explore the importance of setting boundaries and guiding instead of giving direct advice. Miller challenges the idea that mentorship is limited to age or experience, emphasizing that anyone can be a mentor and benefit from mentorship. Don't miss this enlightening conversation on the transformative potential of mentorship. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place.   --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/4Hha-bTaNro  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://youtu.be/QYehiUuX7zs  Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Catch my interview with Marshall Goldsmith on How You Create an Earned Life: https://passionstruck.com/marshall-goldsmith-create-your-earned-life/  Watch the solo episode I did on the topic of Chronic Loneliness: https://youtu.be/aFDRk0kcM40  Want to hear my best interviews from 2023? Check out my interview with Seth Godin on the Song of Significance and my interview with Gretchen Rubin on Life in Five Senses. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the AMFM247 broadcasting network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for “AMFM247” Network

Coming up next on Passion Struct. Leaders don't create engagement. Mentors don't create engagement. It's not true. What they can do is they can create the conditions where your employee, your team member, your mentee chooses a higher level of engagement because you've ignited a spark in them.

You've given voice to them. You've validated specifically some unique genius in them. It's why the validator is my favorite of all the 13 roles. Done with the right intention and the right preparation and the right words, you can transform someone's confidence in them. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips,

and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.

Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 317 of Passion Struck, ranked by Apple as one of the top 10 most popular health podcasts. Thank you to all of you who come back to the show every single week to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. Passion Struck is now on syndicated radio on the AMFM

247 National Broadcast. Catch us Monday and Friday from 5 to 6pm Eastern Time. Links will be in the show notes. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member. We now have episodes, stardropax, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.

Either go to Spotify or PassionStruck.com slash stardropax to get started. In case you missed it, last week I interviewed Christina Maslack, co-author of the enlightening book, The Burnout Challenge, managing people's relationships with their jobs. Throughout this engaging conversation, we explore practical strategies and insights to combat burnout, foster healthier work environments, build stronger job-person relationships. I also interviewed psychotherapists Charlotte Foxweber. Charlotte's clients come from different walks of life and face diverse challenges, but they all share a common question. What do they truly want? In her book, tell me what you

want, Charlotte delves into 12 universal wants and desires, providing a practical guide for understanding and articulating our desires to live well. Please check them all out. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. If you love today's episode or either of the others I mentioned, we would so appreciate it if you give us a 5 star rating review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Now let's talk about today's interview where we delve into the power of mentorship and its profound impact on individuals and organizations. In this episode we have the privilege of interviewing

Scott Miller, a renowned senior advisor on thought leadership in the former Chief Marketing Officer, Franklin Covey. Mentorship is not just a buzzword, it's a transformative experience that fosters thriving and engage employees on both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship. Today, there's a growing expectation in business for leaders to become mentors, providing growth opportunities and guidance to future leaders. The benefits are twofold. Mente is developed their skills and find renewed purpose, while mentors also experience personal and professional growth when approached with the right mindset. Our conversation revolves around Scott's new book, which releases today.

The ultimate guide to great mentorship, a comprehensive resource that navigates mentors through the entire mentorship journey, from setting initial expectations and goals to tracking progress and identifying new opportunities. This timely guide eliminates the ambiguity surrounding mentorship and empowers mentors to make a lasting impact. During this interview, we'll explore how mentor-menti relationships work best for both parties. Scott Miller will share insights from top leaders revealing what approaches to mentorship have succeeded and what pitfalls to avoid.

Additionally, he'll introduce practical forms and timelines that will keep your mentorship journey on track, ensuring a meaningful and productive experience for both you and your mentee. Scott's extensive background with Franklin Covey, as well as his role as the host of On Leadership with Scott Miller, positioned him as a true thought later in this field, is published works including the award-winning Mesta success series, The Best Selling Everyone Deserves a Great Manager, showcases deep understanding of leadership and mentorship. So join us on this enlightening episode as we unravel the secrets of great mentorship

and discover how with night, personal and professional growth for mentors and mentees alike. Get ready to be inspired by the transformative insight shared by some of the greatest minds of our time. Scott Miller takes us on a journey of mentorship excellence. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled to have Scott Jeffrey Miller on PassionStruck. Welcome, Scott. Man, I'm honored. John, thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the spotlight today,

looking forward to our conversation. Well, Scott, I have to start out with, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I love your podcast on leadership, and I use it as a research tool for a lot of the guests that I've had on the show. So great job. Well, that's very gracious. Have you thank you, Lee? Just I think topped taping about 300 in something episodes. We now release twice a week. And so I appreciate that. What a great compliment. Well, I've always feel us podcasters. We really aren't in competition because we all do it through our own lens. So I was like to acknowledge podcasters who were on the show because I know exactly how much effort goes into creating these. It's true is it not? I think that's probably not well understood or researching in the

books. And sometimes guess that you have nothing in common with. You feel like they have a lot to offer. So you want to make sure you provide them a comfortable atmosphere. And like you, I don't know. I'm not a journalist and I'm not an investigative reporter. I'm a guy that has dedicated 30 years to the leadership industry. And so our podcast is a leadership podcast, but it goes into people that have suffered great traumas,

people that have marketing expertise, Pulitzer Prize winning authors, generals, colonels. And so yesterday I interviewed Jason Durulo. He's a fairly famous songwriter. And the guy has 110 million social followers. He sold 250 million songs. And so I had to listen to a lot of his songs before we started that podcast.

Great interview. Well, I love it. I'll have to go back and listen to that one. Well, since you started there, I'm going to ask you a question about this journey of yours. How did you end up starting at Franklin, Covey, a place where you've now been for 25 plus years. Most people say I love that question. I hate that question because the answer goes like this.

I was raised in Central Florida, born and raised in Orlando area and went to high school and college there and went to work for the Walt Disney Company right in the middle of college actually. Technically, the Disney development company, which was the real estate arm of the Walt Disney company. And we built a town called Celebration. I was one of the very first people on that team. And after four years, Disney invited me to leave. That's a different interview, different podcast, but I was unemployed. And so where else is a single Catholic boy from Orlando move, John? We'll out to Provo,vo Utah where all the Catholics were. That's a joke, of course, because there were no Catholics anywhere in Utah, 29 years ago.

But Stephen Covey, of course, the author of the incomparable book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He owned a small leadership boutique consulting company. He hired me. It eventually became the juggernaut, now known as the Franklin Covey Company, the world's largest and most trusted leadership development firm. I spent 25 years in that company working from the front line to the C-suite, where I became the chief marketing officer and the executive vice president. I retired from that company about three years ago. I'm still an ambassador. I host two podcasts for them. I write books for them and help them lead their book strategy. But it was an amazing journey. That Dr.

Covey recruited me and I learned a tremendous amount around what to stop doing. And my proficiency as a leader and it's been a phenomenal journey. I lived around the world with the company, lived in Europe for a while, six years in Chicago, where I met my now wife Stephanie. We came back to Utah and we, meaning she, had three sons. And now we're spending all of our time launching them as gentlemen into a fairly tough world. Well, thank you for that background. I know Stephen Covey's books have been somewhat inspirational for me and in my own book that I've got coming out in February. One of the chapters is really dedicated to one of his premises, which is keeping the main thing. So it really is an honor to have anyone from the organization on this show

because Franklin Covey has inspired so many incredible leaders throughout its tenure. So John got to stop there. And I'm going to hijack this interview because my passion is about books and authors and thought leadership. So remind me, and if your listeners want to hear it, they can hear it. Remind me about the title and the launch of your book. I'm fascinated. Yeah, the title of it is passion struck. 12 principles for unlocking your purpose and igniting your most intentional life. And similar to your book,

I violated the seven rule by doing 12, but I just couldn't capture all the lessons into seven. So I ended up doing it with 12 of them. And it comes out, comes out February 6, 2024. That's so great. Everyone should know it takes years to write a book. It takes a year to publish a book and multiple years to launch a book. So I'm impressed because I know what that took. So congratulations. I look forward to reading that book and maybe having you on our podcast as well. Great. Thank you. And for the audience members who are not watching this on YouTube, behind Scott, there are seven plus books that he's written. But I thought since we were talking about authors and many people in the audience might be thinking about being authors themselves.

What would be some of your advice for first time authors of what you would do and what you wouldn't do if you had to do it all over again? How much time do I have? I hear you. Two minutes or less. I would do all of it all over again. I think writing books is a massive gift to people. I tend to write books for myself. Most literary agents will say, write the book for your audience. Who is your audience? And I don't do that. I write books that I would want to read, and then I go find those

people who are like me, and hope that they buy them. So my advice is a little bit unconventional. My first point of advice would be, be real clear on why you are writing the book. Because your why is everything? Are you writing the book for posterity for your grandkids great? But know that. Are you writing a book because you want to become a thought leader and a keynote speaker? Great, write it with that end in mind.

Are you writing a book because you want to launch a consulting service or a public speaking career then you'll write a book for that? But I would first get very clear on why you are writing the book, because no one makes money on books, except for about 10 people in the world, fiction and non-fiction, and how you monetize a book, obviously,

is to build a consulting practice or a keynote speech or a product, or course, some kind of training program around it. So get very clear on what your why is, and that will help you architect and structure your book. I tend to be a very visual learner. So when I architect my book, my framework, my structure, I tend to put post-it notes and pages on my wall,

I move things around, I architect it, and then I actually write my books in email. So I write them chapter by chapter. I tend to write them from 4 a.mam to about 6.30 in the morning. That's my peak time. My circadian cycle is my peak is about 4 to 10 in the morning. I then have a trough from about 10 to 1. I have a recovery from 1 to 5.

And then my energy wanes at around 6 p.m. So know what your circadian cycle is and write it during that time. And then I email the chapters to myself and then I thread them together later in a word doc. I don't use any of these fancy author programs, whatever it is, they're great, but I don't. I always hire a ghost editor,

known as a ghost writer, to use a football metaphor that I'll slaughter John. I tend to write all my chapters and take them to what I might call the two yard line. And then my ghost writer, then runs it into the end zone. Sometimes it takes him 10 minutes, sometimes it takes him an hour per chapter. Sometimes he calls me and says, this sucks. Let me take a stab at it again. I know your point.

Other times he says, I added like five words in your golden. So I always hire someone to carry me into the end zone on my books. I write very short books. They're easy. They're breezy. They're fast chapters. Everybody writes different kinds of things. I think generally people in the reader world are looking for shorter faster read books versus these 80,300 word books. I encourage people to write shorter books. That's my own preference. And the process of publishing is a whole different conversation you asked about writing. But this is some tips I hope are helpful.

Well, thank you for that. And I think those are very valuable because you're right. I didn't go into writing my book. I think I was gonna make much money off of it because I understand so clearly that so few people do that intention for what you're writing it about and what you want to do with it is the most important thing. So I can completely agree with you.

And I think we could talk about finding a publisher in an agent and all that, but it would take us the rest of this interview. So I'm glad to have you invite me back because that's actually my expertise. I would say to all your listeners who have a book in them, just start writing. Don't be self-critical. Write it and be confident and show it to some friends that have a courageous rapport with you and have them give you tough feedback on it and keep writing. I wrote hundreds of LinkedIn articles, dozens of columns for Inc. magazine before I ever wrote

my first book. I have no formal writing training, or other than college degree, and being a chief marketing officer for a public company. I'm a pretty adept business writer, but again, I wrote for people like me, and I went out and I found them. So I would argue, just start to quote Seth Godin, start doing something. I've built a pretty significant business around the content in my books. I keynote three or four times a week, and it's a remarkable business for me. I've monetized my content through courses and coaching and things like that.

My first piece of advice would be have confidence in yourself. Your skills will grow as a writer. Find your voice, find your wit. If you find someone whose books you like, imitate their style. Just write your own story in their style. I'm the master imitator. I tend to get people credit,

but it would encourage people to just start writing tomorrow morning or tomorrow night, whenever your peak is, start writing out your chapters and just keep going. Well, thank you for that advice. And we're gonna be covering your newest book, which when this podcast airs, it'll be your launch date. So I've got it right here. I will make sure it's plastered all over our YouTube and the show notes. But your book is called The Ultimate Guide

to Great Mentorship. And I was hoping you could share some of your inspiration and motivation for writing it. Sure. So as you mentioned, I've authored seven books. Two of them were with Harper Collins Leadership, a prominent publisher out of Nashville. And they came to me. And they said, Scott, we know that you've written a couple books called Master Mentors. Those were books based on my podcast that they had published. It wasn't really about mentorship. I highlighted some insights from some of my favorite guests on the podcast. Those books actually did very well. Master Mentors Volume 1, Master Mentors Volume 2. And the publisher came to me and said, we think there is an opportunity for a

book in the mentorship space. There really had not been a practical guide written in the last decade, at least successfully, on mentorship. So I thought about it and I said, hey, if I do, here's the book I want to write. I've decided there are 15 roles that all mentors play. And the editor passed out and said, no, five. And I said, no, how about 13? They said, deal.

So like you, I wrote a book that had 13 roles in it. And it's very practical. I really thought carefully, whenever I'd been a mentor, whenever I'd been mentored as a leader, as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, as an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur, these are 13 roles that I think mentors play that have great resonance and all those other roles I described. And so I wrote a vast chapter by each of them. Here's the upside, roles I described. And so I wrote a fast chapter by each of them. Here's the upside. Here's the downside when you abdicate this role. Here's the skills you need to design it. And I just thought of 13 roles. The listener, the boundary setter, the closer, the revealer. And I wrote a fast chapter around how I think a lot of people that are great leaders that get tapped to be a mentor

don't always make great mentors There are some differences in the skills that make you a great leader and don't transfer well over to mentorship So the book is a lot of just be aware of this watch out for that Say this don't say that organize it this way be cautious of this of this. And like I mentioned, and you mentioned it releases on July 11th and so far, it's really I think had a great nerve in Fortune 5,000 companies that have mentor programs, but they have a lot of their mentors that are either volunteered or volunteered,

and asked to be a mentor to people, and they don't really know how to mentor. So it's really meant for people that perhaps are alumni with universities. They've been matched with an undergraduate student and follow a process. And so I do think it will make people better leaders and parents as well.

Scott, before we enter into the book, I had a couple background questions that I wanted to ask around mentorship. And in doing my due diligence and listening to a few of your past podcast episodes and Lord knows you have done a lot, my friend, I understand you had a very memorable mentor when you were younger. And while most of us, myself included, we're listening to our favorite rock bands at night. You were listening to a radio show providing financial expertise.

Can you tell me about this and how this story demonstrates the transformative power of mentorship? Nerd alert. So thank you for asking. I was born in 68. So I was raised in the 70s, right? High school 86. Well, back in the 80s, there was a gentleman who really started talk radio.

His name was Bruce Williams. And he was like a small town mayor. He was an entrepreneur, a little cranky at times. But he had a Monday through Friday radio show from, I believe it was 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., syndicated across the nation. Think Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, 40 years ago without the politics. limbaugh shanhenady 40 years ago without the politics and it was called the Bruce William show. And he actually launched talk radio. He launched Sally Jesse Raphael as a column therapist long before Sally Jesse Raphael became Jerry Springer on television. Well anyway, I started listening to the program because my parents did. We went to bed at the Struct Catholic family, went to bed early in the evening,

went home from school to your homework, brush your teeth, have dinner, and go to bed. Welcome to my upbringing. It paid off. Long story short, you're right. While other kids were listening to Cindy Lopper and Madonna and Rolling Stones, every night I was listening to Bruce Williams talk about capital gains

and what a fight goes score was and how to invest in inheritance. And before you open a flower shop, don't quit your job. Go get a part-time job at a flower shop and learn the business before you realize, oh, I don't want to be a florist. And so he was a master mentor to me. And the reason I share that story is because I think most of us think of mentors as the senior vice president on the fifth floor that's matched with you in a program and you meet with her every other Thursday for 45 minutes for six months and by all means if that opportunity is offered to you take advantage of it. mentorship like Bruce Williams, I never met Bruce Williams. He died a decade ago, having no idea Scott Miller even existed. And when someday write a book about mentorship and name him as my ultimate mentor. So my point in that is, you don't have to know your mentor. You can follow their blog or listen to their radio program or do a grateful dead tour

of all where they speak at conferences and listen to all their keynotes and take whatever you can from their LinkedIn post. I would really challenge your listeners and viewers to broaden their definition of what mentorship looks like in their world. And a follow-on question to that, Scott, is in addition to that story, could you share a personal antidote about your 25 years of working at Franklin Covey and maybe some mentors that shaped your understanding of what effective mentorship looks like? So many of them, let me pick one or two.

First of all, I don't think your mentor should be your leader. I think there are outliers when your leader can become your mentor, but I would advise people to generally don't put your boss, your leader in that position. There's a difference between a coach and a mentor. There's a difference between your leader and mentorship. There's a difference between sponsorship, ally ship and championship and mentorship.

They're different and I write about it in the book. But to that point, I once had someone who was my leader in the company and he was a big fan of Marcus Buckingham and Don Clifton over at the Gallup organization. The books they wrote around first-grake all the rules and now discover your strengths. They started the strengths revolution. first break all the rules and now discover your strengths. They started the strengths revolution. It's a whole idea of run with your strengths and minimize and even perhaps neglect your weaknesses if able. I've simplified that obviously. But David Covey, who was one of Dr. Covey's sons, was a great mentor to me and helping me really identify what were my strengths and to stop spending so much time trying to become someone that I wasn't.

Someone that maybe the CEO might value more his boss who I still adore to this day, but to really identify my strengths. And it was David Covey, who went on to be a very famous author. He wrote a book called Trap Tales and he owns his own company now. It was David Covey that really ment toward me to stop becoming the person other people wanted me to be and become the person I was able. And you might argue destined to be.

And that was a massive turning point in my life to stop putting valuable creativity and energy is stop putting valuable creativity and energy into shoring up what weren't my natural talents and just tripling down on my own creativity, my own personality, my own abilities and explode them to my advantage. And he was right. And to David Covey, I thank you. One of my favorite episodes that I've heard Gary Vee talk about is something about that

exact same topic. He did this talk where he said people tend to double down on their weaknesses and his advice is to double down on your strengths because you can exploit them in the uniqueness of what only you can do so much more powerfully, than it's gonna take you working on all these weaknesses to try to overcome them. To that point, I once interviewed Stebman Graham. Stebman is a friend of mine for many years. Many people know him as a famous author, philanthropist, former basketball player,

and most often, as Oprah Winfrey's life partner, right? Husband not married, but life partner, I'm a big fan of Stebman Graham. He writes a lot on the topic of identity leadership, and it's been a profound statement when he talks about most of us live our life fulfilling John the identity that others place upon us, our rabbi, our iman, our priest, our headmaster, our mother, our father. Most of us spend our entire lives fulfilling the identity somebody else chose for us or

voiced it on us. And he says instead of that, determine and fulfill the identity you want for yourself. Who do you want to be and go fulfill that identity? Not the identity your mom or dad placed upon you because of some trauma or fear and their life, of some insecurity or passion. They were unable to satiate or fulfill. I think it's phenomenal advice from Stebman Graham. Well, speaking of incredible leaders,

you and I have both interviewed some of the most prominent leaders around today, including Seth Godin, who we've talked about, Susan Cain and General McRustle. In your research and interviews with these leading thinkers, were there some common characteristics or practices that emerged among these master mentors? I love this question. Viewers and listeners disregard everything else I said and check in on this. Like you, I've had this enormous privilege of interviewing this collection of titans that has been remarkable. So remarkable, I wrote a whole series of books called Master Mentors About Them. Here's what they have in common. And they're going to be underwhelmed.

They work their asses off. They're hard workers. They're relentless. They have an indefatigable work ethic. Whether it's Liz Weisman or Dan Pink, Gary V. Oprah Winfrey, whether it's Seth Goedin or Mel Robbins or Bane Brown or Tony Robbins. These people were not overnight successes. No such thing. Overnight successes is usually as a result of something that's ill-gotten or fleeting.

These people wrote books you never heard about. These people launched radio podcasts and TV programs that flopped. They launched businesses that you never heard of and they kept trying and pivoting and reinventing themselves. And when one door closed, another door opened. And if I told you all of the TV programs that Matthew McConaughey tried out for and didn't get until the one that did where he turned into an overnight sensation in an hour time to kill, Rachel Hollis who sold more books in America than any other author three years ago, only next to Michelle Obama, it was her sixth book that put her on the map. Not the first five.

No one bought the first five. It was the sixth book that made her an overnight sensation. She went from $10,000 a day to $120,000 a day in keynotes in one week. It was the seventh book, Girl Wash Your Face, and then Girl Stop Apologizing. I may have them in the wrong order, but I wanna just reiterate that point. Don't give up, keep going.

Doors are gonna close. Sometimes a disappointment turns into an appointment. Figure out what is that appointment for? A disappointment turns into an appointment. Figure out what is that appointment for? Keep pivoting. Keep reinventing yourself. I'm passionate about this if you can't tell. This is the commonality between four star generals and purple heart winners,

and Pulitzer Prize winning authors, and billionaire investors, and business titans, they have an infatecable work ethic. That doesn't mean they're workaholics, it doesn't mean they're not great family, men or bombs, they have balance in their life, they just have an insatiable desire to keep going and to give back. That is the unifying to keep going and to give back. That is the unifying attribute of 300 of the most famous influential, successful people from all walks of life that I've interviewed. And I would not have gone into this thinking that, but it is like crystal clear to me coming out. By the way, they're not any smarter than you and I. They're not any better looking, they didn't start with a billion dollars. Some of them did, both of them didn't. They were you and me and they had a dream

and they decided to make their dream their future. I'm so glad you brought that up because this podcast is really all about teaching the listeners how they too can live a passion, stark life. And what I mean by a passion struck life is a life with intention where you pursue becoming yourself actualize self. And a lot of people feel it's so far out of their grasp. And I try to concentrate on that it's just the micro choices that you make daily, that you stack upon in the habits that you start building,

that eventually lead you down this path to a tsunami of greatness as Robin Sharma likes to say. But by the way, I love him. He's my hero. I love Robin Sharma. If your listeners haven't read his book the Everyday Hero Manifesto, I think it's maybe the best book ever written.

Can I create some momentum on what you just said? Sure. I'm a stutterer. I have a lifelong debilitating stutter. Hundreds of hours of speech therapy, graces three times, and vis-aligned two times, headgear, retainer. I have two speech coaches. There's about 30 words I cannot say in public. In the winter it quadruples to about 140 words. Everything comes out.

But I have one of the largest podcasts in the world. I hosted a radio program and I heart radio because I talk about it. I hang a lantern on it. I let people know that if I can become a podcast host, you can do anything because I slaughter being a language. A few months ago, I interviewed Peter Zion. He's one of the world's most influential and well-known geopolitical strategists. And within a couple of hours that podcast went, I hate this word, viral-ish on YouTube. And it had 150,000 views in a couple days. Well, we forgot to turn the comments off. The Twitter sphere went, bat, you know what, crazy. And people came out of the woodwork. Like, I should have taken my life by the end of the day reading all the hate and vitriol about what an incompetent host I was. My

13-year-old son and I sat in the car and just read all of the hate and laughed our asses off about how much people thought I didn't even deserve to live. Let alone host a podcast. And so we just laughed about it and said, yeah that's true. Yeah that's true. That's a little harsh. Yeah, that's mean. But funny how they wrote it. And we just, we bathed in the lesson of not caring what other people think about us. Rachel Hollis said something genius. She said, most people don't fear failure, John. What they fear is having other people see them fail.

And from that, I don't care if you see me fail. Just to quote, Brunei Brown, if you aren't out there in the arena, getting your ass kicked alongside me, I don't care what you think about me. And it's such a great liberating mantra. That doesn't mean I don't have coaches and advisors that give me feedback. They do all the time. I walk around with a constant ego in them all day long, but I trust their intention. I trust their feedback to small circle. And I just keep going not in spite of what people say about me.

And there's no person in the world who lacks an opinion about Scott Miller, who's met me. You're either for me or against me. There's no agnostics out there. But I just keep going and I keep trying to find my people and share my truth and learn and grow. That's great advice for anybody who has something you want to do. Use your failures as massive gifts for other people to learn from as well. Well, I'm just going to do two promotions for the podcast.

The first is if you really want to hear a different take on the every day here on Manifesto, I brought Robin on and we did a whole deep dive on it. So you can search for that one. And I also had a Rachel on when she was going through some difficult times. And it was really a very authentic, emotional, and raw episode of her just facing some of her biggest fears had on and what she's learned from them. So I appreciate you highlighting both of those because they both are incredible leaders.

I appreciate you saying that. I am a loyal, unabashed fan and friend of Rachel Hollis. She had a rough time. She said some things she shouldn't have. She apologized for them to many people's unfulfilled expectation. And like Rachel says, you can't control people think about you.

You can kind of only control what you think about you. And she's actually in Salt Lake City tonight at a local comedy club, and it was sold out. And I can't even get a copy or get a ticket to go to Rachel Hollis by friends show. So I made try to show up and buy one off the street. But I'm delighted that you chose to feature her as well. She's having a nice comeback.

Obviously, her former husband, when he passed about six months ago, she was left with a heavy heart and heavy load with therefore children. But my sense is she's going to rise again and crush it again. And I wish her all the success in the world. And if you follow me on social media, because one of my values is loyalty to Rachel, Rachel Hollis, unfollow away. Because my values are more important than my followership. Well, I'm going to steer us back to the book. And one of the things that I really enjoyed about it was the format that you used for each chapter. And I was hoping for a reader who hasn't purchased this yet, maybe you can guide them through

how you laid them out because I think it's simple but powerful. Thanks, John. Real quickly, the 13 roles are as follows. The revealer, the boundary setter, the absorber, the questioner, the challenger, the 13 roles are as follows. The revealer, the boundary setter, the absorber, the questioner, the challenger, the validator, the navigator, the visionary, the flagger, the distiller, the activator, the connector, and the closer. There is no particular order. You can start anywhere, go everywhere. These are the 13 roles that great mentors share. Mentors don't have to play all the roles, the book is not

about gaining a mastery on all of them, but just an awareness of when should I be in this role. When should I avoid that role? When should I be careful not to overplay my role? Because all strengths of overplay become our weaknesses. Role one is role one for a reason, the revealer, and role 13 is 13 for a reason, the closer. But the rest of them start anywhere, go everywhere. The structure of the chapter, there's a cadence, right? I talk about what is the goal of this role?

What does it look like when it's done well? And what does it look like when it's abandoned? And then I identify between four and seven or eight skills within each of these roles, and I talk about them. There's a lot of prescriptive language, like I mentioned. Here's seven things you could say when you're in the role of the boundary center. Here's five things you could say when you're the flagger or the challenger. So it's quite prescriptive. First half of each chapter is the content. And the last half to each chapter is a place to take notes.

What have you learned? What are you struggling with? What do you want to remind yourself of? And it's funny in parts. I share mistakes I've made or insights. I share some stories about me and about others. But I wanted to create a solution that wasn't bigger than the problem.

Meaning, I think the vast majority of mentors have a lot of professional Stewardship and they don't have time for a 10-hour book They need a short easy guide to meet him where they are and give them some tips and some tricks to be a better mentor Understand the position their mentee may be in situationally and so I wrote this book hopefully be in situationally. And so I wrote this book, hopefully, an alignment with what the opportunity was. I didn't want it to be a solution looking for a problem if I wanted to be like the right size solution for the right size opportunity. So it's written quite rudimentary and fast-paced, very deliberately.

One of the things I love that you put at the end of each chapter was a QR code, which since I've got some opportunity now to still edit my own manuscript, I think I'm going to borrow what you did here. But you ended up in each one of these creating a short video that the reader can then tune into. Can you just talk about that and why you decided to do it? Thanks for the highlight. So as you mentioned, and I have two, the book is called the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship.

And this book has a website called greatmentorship.com. In the back of each chapter, I put a QR code that takes you to a short, two or three minute overview video. So in case you didn't have time to read the whole book and you were interested, so what is the boundary setter or what is the activator? You could actually go in and watch that short video. Those videos are available on the

website as well, complimentary, ungated, greatmentorship.com. But I did that because there are a lot of readers who are also visual learners and someone might want to get a kind of overview of the book by watching 13 three minute videos and say, yeah, I like this guy or I don't like this guy. I don't want to buy his book. And so that was a gift to help people take the content a little bit further. Maybe to understand, is this the right book for them? But I also developed a certification program. And if you go to greatmentorship.com, I actually taped 26 videos that are a little more robust. This is gated content.

It's a tuition-based program where organizations can buy the certification program for their mentors, and these are like six and seven minute long videos, a little longer. So if you find that any of your listeners find anything a valuable I said, and they're not fatigued yet from my voice or watching me on camera, which will probably few of them of them if they want to they can go to the site and watch the videos and even get a taste of what that

certification program might look like in Totality the certification videos are about 90 minutes, which again I thought was about what someone who might be in a demanding professional role might have an appetite for if they were asked to be a mentor in their organization or university or school district or foundation, whatever it was. Okay, well, Scott, I thought I would tackle a couple of these chapters, especially ones that appeal to me when I was reading it. Obviously, we don't want to go through all 13 because we want people to buy the book, but I'll go through a few here. One of my favorite chapters was chapter two on the Boundary Center, and I recently interviewed Terry Cole, the Boundary boss author herself, and we discussed the negative impacts of boundary destroyers.

Why are boundaries so critical in a mentor relationship? I think a couple of reasons. One is because I think it's inherently challenging for all of us to have high courage conversations, right? It's awkward. We don't do it well. Many of us are conflict avoidant. I don't know about you, but I've never met a situation that resolved itself because it was abandoned.

They usually always grow bigger and become interpersonal nightmares. So I've said, role number two should be the boundary setter because as the mentor, you are probably not always, but probably older, more seasoned, more mature, and have a stronger life set of skills, including your business acumen and your vocabulary and your network, your contacts. And so I think it's very important that early on in the conversation with your mentee, not the first meeting,

or maybe if I said the first meeting, it's later in the first meeting. And it might go something like this. Let's assume for a minute that I was the mentor and John was the mentee. In real life, it probably would be the other way around, but let's just go with that fantasy for a moment. I might say, hey, John, I'm super excited to be entering in this multi-month mentorship relationship with you. I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from you and I hope you learn a lot from me.

We're going to discover each other's personalities and our Piccadilios along the way and super excited to help you on your journey as you begin to clearly articulate what it is you want to accomplish. That's my job. My job as a mentor is to help progress you closer to what it is you're trying to accomplish in life. And I think one of the things that will help us both make that healthy and engaging is to set some boundaries. And so as the mentor, I'd like to articulate a couple of boundaries, I think it's important that you are respectful of in John. I'm going to guess you may have some boundaries for me too. First, John, I'm going to ask that as the mentee, you are super diligent about coming on time. Like you, my time is my most precious asset, second to my

reputation. But so I'm going to ask that you always come prepared, that you are on time, on camera, you're not in the car, you're semi-requiet, no dogs barking, and you're ready to go. Second, I think it's really important that I'm not required to set the agenda. You need to set the agenda for our monthly 45 minutes. I would recommend that you not put 10 things on the agenda. No one can touch 10 things.

Let's have you hierarchically organize the agenda. Let's not deviate from the agenda. And let's make sure that we have boundaries around honoring the agenda that you create and that you send to me preferably before the call. And then lastly, John, given the length of my career and the breadth of my relationships, I'm going to ask that you respect a very strict boundary I have about my network and my connections so that you don't become embarrassed or I don't have to have an awkward conversation. I am not going to be introducing you to my network of professionals. It's something I

hold with great care. It's something that I find is a huge currency for me and so I'm gonna ask that you not ask me to introduce you to my network or ask me to become Your therapist or your banker or your funder. It's not the role I'm prepared to play So that might have been awkward for a few minutes Thank you for listening and honoring that and that awkward part is past. I'm guessing John You may have some boundaries for me too. You get the point, right? Long roleplay, but it's really important you set those boundaries up front so that if someone were to ask you later on, hey, I see where you know Matthew McConaughey, I've

got a screenplay. Would you? No, no, under no conditions. Now, I think it's important for the mentor to set strong boundaries up front so that at your own pace, you might decide to reinforce them. Maybe you lower them. Maybe you eliminate them all together because over the course of multiple sessions, your mentee has proven himself to be amazing.

They show up on time. They use the right language. They are respectful. They deliver on all of the commitments they made in the previous call and now you say, oh my gosh, my friend Matthew McConaughey, I love to have this, you get the point, right? I think it's really important not to be impulsive and start offering your entire network because the quickest way to destroy your reputation with your network is refer people in that you really have not vetted whether it's

their character or their competence or their ability to make and keep commitments or be trustworthy, you have to earn that in my life to tap into my network. Now some of your listeners are going to misinterpret this as me having a scarce mindset. Wrong. I am one of the most generous, abundant people you will ever meet. And I will make more connections than anybody I know when you have proven to me that you earned it. And that's my essay on the Boundary Sutter.

I have lots of tips on how to do it. A lot of people won't agree with me. That's fine. If you want to introduce your mentee to Stillin's Spielberg and your first 20 minutes, go at it. I'm out. That's not what I do. Or whoever your Steven Spielberg is and your network.

Well, thank you for sharing that. And I think it's invaluable advice. Another role I really liked was in chapter five on the challenger. And the reason that I picked this one is because it was a role to me achieving my goals, especially doing what I'm doing now. Because Scott, similar to you,

I went through seven years of speech therapy myself because I would mispronounce words and had other issues. So as I was going down this path of wanting to get back into keynote speaking and doing this podcast, I had to confront a lot of fears, negative mindsets, and behavioral issues that were impeding me. And luckily, I had a career coach who really challenged me to look at what's the worst thing that's going to happen if you do this. And by seeing it and challenging all these negative assumptions

that I was making, it really opened the door for me to have the courage and confidence to take that leap and do what I'm doing now. And so I just wanted to share that because I think it's important. I love that you share that. What's the worst thing that can happen? It's the best thing, 150,000 people take it out on YouTube

and you and your teenage son laugh your ass off in the car, reading all the comments about you and scoring them accurate from a scale of one to 10. It was honestly one of the best bonding days of my life with my son. And I love that you picked the challenger as one to talk about right now. And I think it's a great parenting competency. This is a great leadership competency. It's a great marital relationship competency.

As I think most of us probably fall on one end of a continuum. It's either we are either high on courage or we're generally high on diplomacy when we're giving feedback to someone, when we're offering people advice or some coaching. We're really courageous and sometimes we like steam roll over someone and eviscerate them verbally or we're so diplomatic and we're

so considerate that we obstu-ca-te, we beat around the bush and we don't actually share what's on our mind and that person leaves scratching, wondering, I'm not sure what you think. And obviously the goal is to exercise a compliment, a balance of courage with diplomacy. So in the challenger, I really help people plot themselves on what I call the challenger continuum. Are you a passive aggressive person? Are you an avoidant person? Are you a sort of scorched earth? And you just say whatever is on your mind, regardless of how the mentee might feel it or accept it. And I think there's a couple of other skills I

teach in here as the challenger that you're pushing back on your mentee, right? Is this a good idea? Have they thought through this? Are you really struggling with being a florist or an orthopedic surgeon? Because those don't have a lot in common. And let's talk about why those are the two options, a florist or orthopedic surgeon. That's obviously demonstrative, but you might be surprised. And I think the big idea that I share in this is understanding what is your natural challenging style and how can you calibrate it

with the personality, the maturity or lack of maturity, the defensiveness or vulnerability level of your mentee, how do you match your challenging style to their style? And to become that expert challenger where you have enough emotional agility to quote Dr. Susan David, the Harvard Medical School Psychologist, George the book by the same name,

to implement the crucial skill of differentiating facts from your emotions, your opinions, and your feelings. Your emotions and your opinions and your feelings are vital and valid, and rarely are they facts. And as leaders, a lot of us have spit decades surviving in organizations by learning how to conflate or present our emotions and our feelings as facts. Welcome to the C-suite.

And I think it's important as a challenger to really ask yourself, am I challenging this because it's patently wrong? Because it's unethical, because it's illegal potentially, or because I just am not comfortable with it, or I don't understand it. And I think this is an important role that's used judiciously. You cannot challenge everything your mentee says, because it will fatigue them. But used with great care. John, I want to stop for a moment because I love your passion

and your excitement about this farmer's market idea you have. I love the fact that at dinner parties people are loving your lemon poppy seed bread. And I love your vision to scale this. I want to challenge you for a moment because there are some processes that you need to be aware of what it takes to open up a retail bakery. You have to be in receipt of a county and probably city license. You have to have a health inspection certificate. You have to have some state certification train. You get the point, right? I'm not starting them down. I'm just talking about some of the things that they've got to do or know about in order to scale. This one can be extraordinarily helpful.

It also could be soul crushing if it isn't used with judicious care and that you declare your intent. John, I want to stop you for a moment and first let you know I'm going to challenge you on a few things. moment and first let you know I'm going to challenge you on a few things. Not because I don't think your passion can become a viable future, but there's some crucial steps you're skipping over that you're going to have to address now or later, but you cannot short-circuit them because they're inevitably going to trip you up if you don't address them. You get the point on the challenger. I now wanted to just ask you a couple questions on the application of this. So as you're well aware, several recent Gallup polls have indicated that globally between 70 to 85% of employees are disengaged around the world. And this is out of the one billion full-time workers around the world. What

role do you think a lack of mentorship plays into this figure? I hate those studies, by the way. I think they are doomsdayish and negative, and I'm sure there were a billion people who didn't want to get out of bed today. But I think the study is accurate, and I understand why you're certainly bringing it up. I don't know anybody who hasn't had a successful run-in life that hasn't been the recipient of great mentorship, formally, informally, consciously, unconsciously. So I'll bet you if your listeners and viewers go back and think about the key transition figures in their life, they'll recognize, yeah, that person was a mentor. Even if I had not named them a mentor, I had not asked them, hey, John, will you mentor me?

Everyone has success as a result of someone who believed in them more at appointing their life than they believed in themselves. At every point in everyone's life, there are times when our spark dims, when it snuffed out by a betrayal, a breach of trust, an unethical or opportunistic leader who took advantage of us and mowed over us.

And it often was a mentor that came in and reignited that. So to answer your question, I perhaps more than anyone, the mentor is the role that can help to build engagement. But let me debunk an often shared human resource adage. Leaders don't create engagement. Mentors don't create engagement. It's not true. What they can do is they can create the conditions where your employee, your team member, your mentee chooses a higher level of engagement because you've

ignited a spark in them. You've given voice to them. You've validated specifically some unique genius in them. It's why the validator is my favorite of all the 13 roles. Done with the right intention and the right preparation and the right words, you can transform someone's confidence in them. I was the CMO of the Franklin Covey Company for about a decade, right? Large global public company. On paper, I was a peer to the CFO. You might even argue,

I fairly prototypical public company CFO, white dude in the 60s. Impeccable character, un-impeachable integrity, super competent. He and I had very little in common when it came to our technical skill sets. I was the CMO, he was the CFO, right? CPA. One day he walked past me and he stopped me and he said,

Scott, you are a creative genius. And he walked onto his office. Like, this is the guy that's the opposite of me. I was the impetuous, loud mouth, always thinking of cookie plans and CMO. I hope that I was more than that, but, I mean, he was a mentor to me and still is this day in so many ways.

He wouldn't call himself that. I haven't named him that. But my engagement level shot through the roof as an executive officer because the CFO thought I was a genius and I wanted to keep that image of him with me. Do not underestimate the linkage between what a mentor and a leader can do to set the conditions whereby someone chooses where by someone chooses a higher level and even sometimes a lower level of engagement based on the role that you're playing in their life. Because as a mint-torn leader, you can through your actions create the conditions while where someone chooses a lower level of engagement. It's a powerful role. Really is.

And Scott, I had two quick questions for you to round this out. I know you wrote this primarily for mentors, but how can individuals who are seeking mentors benefit from understanding the 13 roles captured in your book? The Harper Collins asked me if I wanted to write a book for mentees. And I said not yet, I've got some other books in me. I'm not sure I have a whole book worthy of content. And to answer your question, it clearly is a book written for mentors. But if a mentee read

this book, they would have a watershed of information on why I recommend the mentor set boundaries. information on why I recommend the mentor set boundaries. How important it is for a mentor to never say, well, if John, if I were you, I would do this. Don't ever say that as a mentor. You're not John. You don't have John's fears or traumas or passions or creativities or setbacks or joys or vision. And so I think mentees could read this book

and it would have a consequential impact and improvement on how they were able to suck the life out of the value that comes from their mentor. I might write a book for mentees. I got a lot of my plate right now. I got to deliver on a few promises I've made to publishers and clients, my wife and my sons, the podcast guests, but stand by one might come. And then the final question is, what do you hope readers will take away from the ultimate guide to great mentorship and how it can positively impact their

professional and personal growth? Well, a couple of things. I'm often asked a question about reverse mentorship. When I say what? They say reverse mentorship. Have you ever heard of it? Of course, I've heard of it, but it's not a thing. It doesn't exist. There's no such thing as reverse mentorship. It's called mentorship. Your age does not matter whether you can mentor someone. I've got a 23 year employee who mentors me every day on social media and AI and chat GPT and how to sync my phone with my social accounts. It's called mentorship. And I believe this book can really help anyone who is

in a role of mentorship regardless of your age or longevity or business acumen or education or wealth or 401k balance. These 13 roles will make you a better friend, life partner, spouse, parent leader, and most of all mentor because you will both be mentored by many people in your life and you will also mentor by many people in your life and you will also mentor many people. And I believe, passionately, my book, The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship can have a substantial impact when you're in a conversation. Oh, you know what? I probably should be in listening mode right now,

not in selling mode. You know what, this is a great time for me to validate this thing I see in someone and make sure they own it. This is a good time to be the flagger. Hold on, time out, not cool. We're going to put this car in park metaphorically. We're taking the keys out and we're going for a walk because this is a crazy train. And if you keep on this train, serious things could happen to you. I love you. I care about you. Let's go for a walk. Now, my language tends to be a bit flurid. but I believe this book of roles

is potentially life-changing for people who are mentoring others. Of course I do, I wrote it. And then Scott, for the listener who's tuned in today, where is the best place for them to go to for everything, Scotch, I'm pretty familiar. Sure, so all my books are on Amazon and every other bricks and mortar and digital retailer

out there on this particular book. You can visit greatmentorship.com. Lots of great resources on there, downloadable tools, videos to watch, things like that. And Scott Jeffery Miller, J-E-F-R-E-Y, I, Scott Jeffrey Miller.com is my main website. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, you name it, I'm on it. Well, Scott, thank you so much for the honor being a guest on today's show. It was such a joy to have you.

You're a great interviewer. Look forward to remaining friends. Thanks, John, for the spotlight in the platform today. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Scott Miller. And I wanted to thank Scott and Franklin Covey for the honor and privilege of having him appear here on the show. Links to all things Scott will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links. If you purchase any of the books from the

guests that we feature on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show videos are on YouTube, but passion struck clips and John our miles. We're now on syndicated radio on the AM FM 247 national broadcasts tune in every Monday and Friday from five to six p.m. Eastern time. Links will be in the show notes. Everties are deals and discount codes and one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.

I'm on LinkedIn where you can sign up for my newsletter or you can also find me at John Armiles on all the social channels. And you're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast I did with Dr. Bapu Jena about his new book, Random Acts of Medicine, where he showcases how medicine really works, as well as its effects on all of us, combining popular topics like behavioral science, health, and medicine through the lens of economic principles and big data, reveal

the unexpected, but predictable events that profoundly impact our health. When we think about the US healthcare system and why it is that we don't have the outcomes we want, we focus on a lot of things that are important. We focus on access to care like insurance, we focus on things like cost of care. One of the things that I think goes unnoticed, but it's really important, is the time. If you've got a patient in front of you, it's really difficult to make a diagnosis to build trust in 15 minutes or 10 minutes. It's nearly impossible.

And yet for many doctors, that's what there's constrained to do. And you can imagine how challenging that might be. And so the question is, all right, well, if you allow doctors more time with patients, if they weren't rushed, would they develop better relationships, would they develop better relationships, would they get better outcomes?

A fee for the show is that you share it when you find something interesting or useful. You know someone who could really use some ideas on mentorship and definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is when you share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become Anshin Struck.