Finding Mentors & Sponsors

"If you're thinking about getting a coach... talk to two or three different coaches. And really get a sense of their vibe and how well you get to know them... half of people that founder their coach literally went with the first coach that they talked to."

"I think we tell women things like, you need to find a mentor and you need to find a sponsor, and that's just another set of hoops... I had the extreme generosity of so many wonderful leaders who helped me on my way, but I didn't feel like I had this mentor... I had everything I needed, people were so kind and generous, but I didn't recognize it that way because we talk about it differently."

"It's actually better to have a stable of mentors. You want to have three or four. And ideally, what you do is you meet with each one of them once a month on a different Friday of the month."

"When you ask for advice, don't just ask what to do but why. Be an obnoxious two-year-old kid, why? Why? Why? Why? And really try to understand the framework that someone is using to give you advice."

"You're going to find the loudest, most influential person in your organization, the person that everybody knows, knows everything, is in every meeting and stuff, and you're going to ask them to teach you. You're going to challenge them. And if they don't have the time to teach you, you're going to volunteer to help them."

"Brian would go to experts and say to the expert, 'I don't know what the hell I'm doing.' He did that with me when it came to hospitality. I appreciated that a guy who had a lot of hubris... could also have the humility to say, 'I want to learn more about this.'"

"Maybe that's what a mentor can be is a confidant, someone who gives you confidence and helps by asking questions, helps you as the younger mentee find your roadmap to success."

"One of the things I loved at Airbnb... where I had something to teach them and they had something to teach me... mutual mentorships."

"Mentors are great, don't get me wrong... but when I think about the people in my life, who... the time that they donated to me... I would actually describe those folks as being sponsors and advocates, people who were willing to put up capital, whether that's professional, social capital to bet on you."

"putting ego aside and embracing not knowing stuff and embracing not being good at stuff, and not feeling self-conscious about that and letting the desire to be the best at something or at least be great at something overpower the fear of being inadequate at something."

"I'm in a lean-in group and we are just like, we support each other. I'm in a coaching circle in YPO, so that's a group of CEOs. And I'm in a number of these coaching circles, which give you an opportunity to learn from each other and to get pure coaching. And I think that's a great place to start, especially early in your career when you're seeing the same people making the same mistakes."

"Don't think that you have unique problems. You don't... Your problem has been solved by somebody. Or at least that there's a lot of failures on the problem that you should be learning from. And number one thing that whenever you have an initiative or whenever you have a metric that you need to go and move, to not start from scratch, ever."

"Not hiring advisors is something that I do not recommend for you to do. You can get access to anybody for one hour a week. Yeah, you'll have to pay them... but hiring advisors is the biggest career amplification and your business amplification can possibly do."

"I think of this as sponsorship, not mentorship. I don't necessarily find that in my career. I've had a lot of managers where I'm like, "Wow, their day-to-day help was super awesome at helping me be a better leader." ... But what I do have is a couple examples of people who deeply trusted me to solve big problems... it's about creating trust and knowing that you have a sponsor there, someone who's going to go to bat for you."

"The first rule of thumb is, don't ask a person to be your mentor. That's really awkward. First, identify them. Say, this is a person I think that could be helpful to me. And then, find ways to be helpful. Everybody needs help."

"The equivalent of that in your life is an executive coach... Number one, make space to ask yourself the big questions in life about your career, your relationships, your health... And then part two is that person can hold you accountable."

"get a personal board of directors like they talk about in the Wall Street Journal. In other words, get people who will give you advice, give you social support, and hold you accountable."

"make the smallest ask possible, which is the opposite of what 95% of people do. 95% of people is like, 'Hey, I've never met you... Can we set up a call?' That's like a big ask. What I do... reached out in the evening and I was like, 'Hey, thanks so much for speaking today... Is there an example of product that you think was created with this approach?' Something he could answer in literally two minutes via email?"

"The first one is really about people. It's about surrounding yourself with the best people you can find... The important thing when you look back is how much luck played a big part, and of course the risk that somebody took played a big part... If you're create enough opportunities, especially early on in your career as you asked, around hanging around people who are doing interesting things and they're doing things which really are different, or they're doing things in a different manner and it's exciting, the right things will happen."

"Never ask someone to be your mentor... the more it can be organic where you talk to somebody, you have actual advice that you want... reach out when you actually have a problem. People that want to help others are just going to, if they have the time, they'll say yes."

"I think that learning is changing... there's community, which I think whether it's within your company or outside of company, I think is the answer that we'll see more and more. I think community as a way of creating safety, having authentic conversations, feeling that you're not alone, that others are going through the same thing, and then sharing best practices is so powerful."

"Reach out to somebody, sort of like a podcast, that's ahead of you on a similar path, and just send them a message and say, really thoughtful message. Say, 'Hey, you're on a path a few years ahead of me. I'm really curious about this. I don't have people in my life that have done things like this. Can I just pick your brain? If we can't jump on a call, can I send you a list of questions?'"

"One of the ways that everyone listening to this podcast today can get a mentor, you can get what I call a dead or distant mentor. Warren Buffett is my mentor, he just doesn't know it... I mean really study. If you really study Jobs, you have to come to 1997... if you really study that moment and study what Jobs did, it can inform your decisions and actions."