There’s a trap that I fell into in my teens and early 20s that I want to save you from. It has to do with finding mentors.

We all know it’s important to have mentors, the point of this video isn’t to tell you not to find mentors. They’re extremely important to have.

We have an actual cheat code these days with the abundance of books as well as the internet to find the exact mentors that we need.

What used to take years of asking questions, learning, and thinking can be solved in a matter of minutes because of all of the information out there.

But as a guy in my teens and early 20s I was hungry. I had questions and I wanted answers. The world was changing and people were questioning the common path of go to school, get a job, get fat, retire, and die.

So when I went online and found people challenging this path and answering the questions that I had — I was hooked.

• I would find someone making money online and think they had it all figured out
• I would find someone talking some sense about fitness and thought that’s all there was to know about getting in shape

Just because I had answers to my questions, even if those answers weren’t the full picture, I stopped asking questions and looking for answers, I thought I had my mentors locked in and I had to live like them.

The point though is that we’re all unique. Getting hooked on this content made me lose that individuality. Their goals became my goals because the way they portrayed it online made it seem like the perfect life.

Instead of looking at people like mentors I was idolizing them. I thought what they were doing was it. They had it figured out. That’s what to do.

I wasn’t able to form the perspective that they were experts in a specific area and that they didn’t have the answers to everything. I had to use many mentors to form my unique perspective.

You need many

The most important aspect of this is our individuality. At the end of the day you will need many mentors that align with how you see the world in all of the different facets of life. This is what makes you uniquely you.

A massive part of my life is health and fitness. When I was younger I would see a jacked dude who was probably on steroids and think they had it all figured out. These days I follow different people for different aspects of fitness.

• I don’t want to be a bodybuilder
• I don’t want to be an athlete
• I don’t want to just train for mobility
• I don’t want to be a boxer

I want to be a blend of all of these things. That means I need to learn the best way to do each one and incorporate it how it fits into my life.

When finding a mentor look at what they’re doing and what they’ve done.

Mike Israetel is great when it comes to bodybuilding and strength training. He can tell you the best and most efficient way to put on muscle, and if you look at him it adds up. He’s an absolute meatball.

But when it comes to mobility I turn to kneesovertoesguy. He’s someone who has a similar build to me, had knee problems like I do, and fixed all of his stiffness and mobility issues.

But he’s also pretty skinny, so I don’t just do the exercises he teaches and think that he is the final form of fitness. I incorporate it into my routine to get closer to my mobility goals while still growing in other areas as well.

And when it comes to lifestyle, I don’t go looking at these people for advice, maybe they live a life that lines up with what I want, but probably not, so I have to take that aspect from somewhere else.

But that leads into the next point.

“This is it”

A very important part of this is understanding what you want. This comes in two ways, and both are equally important.

First, you have to listen to yourself and think for yourself to figure out what you want.

We’re distracted these days — and that has taken out any thinking and pondering that we used to do as humans.

If you’re finding yourself lying awake at night just thinking, that’s your mind telling you that it needs time to think about what it is that you actually want to do. Since you spend all day distracted there’s no time for your mind to figure it out.

Just journal. I recently started journaling again and man, it’s the best thing you can do. Most days will feel boring like there’s nothing on your mind, but then once in a while you just have these aha moments that you break through with.

This is how you learn about yourself and what you actually want, then you can go looking for someone who’s done it and you can start making steps towards that goal.

But at the same time you need to be aware of that aha moment as it comes out of nowhere.

I recently started following Noah Ryan, a twitter guy. He talks health, fitness, and lifestyle, and when I first started reading his stuff I was like “this is it”.

You have to be on the look out for this — this is the kind of stuff that really helps you figure out who you are. It can come from someone you know, a mentor online, music, whatever.

There have been so many times I’ve gone on a month long YouTune binge of someone’s content or a period of only listening to a specific artist because it just clicked in my mind.

But those moments of “woah, this describes everything I’ve been thinking about” are your opportunity to really start learning about yourself.

The fine line though is to not start idolizing someone because they said something that makes sense to you. Take the lesson as it applies to your life, and make it yours.

Noah Ryan has a lot of good stuff when it comes to lifestyle, diet and exercise from a broad perspective. But when it comes to the details, I’m now ironing those out to how they apply to who I am.

Which leads directly into the next point.

Big picture vs. the details

You should have mentors for both. Like I said I like a lot of what Noah Ryan has to say about the big picture stuff.

• Cycling your training
• Following your curiosities
• Living a more natural lifestyle while still understanding we live in a modern world

But when it comes to those different things, I don’t take his advice as it is, I find people that teach the best ways to do each of those things.

• I cycle my training, and like I said I can learn from Mike Israetel and kneesovertoesguy on strength training and mobility.
• I box, but I hire a trainer to work with.
• I follow Dan Koe for how to write out my thoughts and share them like I’m doing here
• I follow John Lovell for lifestyle and preparedness
• I have my own father as an example for how to raise a family
• I use my own intuition for how I want to build my life (family, freedom, minimalism)

The point (of this point?) is that you should find people that click with the big picture you’re looking for, and then learn from the best of the best for each important detail of that big picture.

That could be your dad, that could be a lesson in a book, that could be someone online, and that could be from your own problem solving.

If you just stay curious and keep looking, while staying in touch with yourself, you’ll be able to find the answers that you’re looking for.

In the end, the main point here is to avoid idolizing the life of others and instead use what they teach as a guide for different aspects of your life.

If you do things the way I talked about, you won’t have to worry about that idolization.The accumulation of all of the mentors you have and lessons you’ve learned will make you who you are.

Then maybe one day, as you continue to grow and learn, you can become a mentor for someone else and you’ll be an important piece of their growth in some area of their life.

Whether that’s a bunch of people online, a friend, a wife, a brother, whatever.

Just don’t idolize anyone, figure out who you are, and learn the best and most effective ways to be that person.

​

​Click here to talk about online training​