In just the past 3 months, I’ve spent $47,500 on mentors, mastermind groups, and conferences.

What this means is that, generally speaking, I spend more money on mentors than I do on on my house mortgage, car payments, or any other expenses that I have!

That said, I’ve been able to meet, talk to, and glean wisdom from people who’ve made multi-millions and even billions of dollars with their companies.

Why I spend so much money on mentors

I spend money on mentors because all the tremendously successful people I know do the same thing.

Either they spend their own money (way more than me, like hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars), or they leverage their social influence and power to make friends in “high places” where they can exchange knowledge and information.

This is why typically the 1% at the top continue to become more and more rich. They continue to make more money because they gain access to privileged circles and privileged information that took other successful people decades to learn through trial and error.

Unfortunately, the average Joe or Jane does not have access to this level of influence, financial capital, knowledge, and social capital.

Paying for expedited learning

If you wanted to learn how to build rockets, how would you go about it?

What steps would you take to go from having absolutely zero knowledge to be able to build a rocket?

You would need to either read a tremendous amount of books on rockets or you’d need to go to school and go through many years of formal education to learn about rock science, aerospace engineering, etc. Did you know that Elon Musk did the same thing? He just read books and talked to a ton of people who are experts in this field, in order to create SpaceX.

But I’m not Elon Musk. I’m nowhere as smart as him, as courageous as him, rich as him, or have connections like he does.

So what that means is that my access to quality information is limited. So in order to gain further access, a person like me would typically need to pay to gain further knowledge and to be able to learn directly from top experts in each field.

Paying for mentors is like paying tuition for school

I see no difference between paying for school, paying for books, paying for online courses, paying to attend conferences and workshops, and paying for mentors.

Do you see a difference?

Ultimately, what you’re doing is you’re paying to acquire knowledge and information that you previously did not have, right?

School is overrated; it hurts me how broken the school system is. People don’t learn how to negotiate, how to sell, how to invest in stocks, how to do public speaking, how to create a budget, etc. And to make matters worse, most people don’t remember anything they learned in school!

Can you say the same for yourself? Do you remember anything from grade 1 – 12? Seriously, other than maybe the multiplication table, there’s not a whole lot I remember.

That sucks though because I’ve spent 12 years in grade school. And you’ve probably done the same and/or are doing the same thing right now! Think about how much you could’ve accomplished with 12 years of mentoring, taking e-courses, and going to business conferences!

And to take it further, how much better of a place would you be in right now if you spent all the money that the typical person in America spends on college tuition (tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars), and rather spent that money on mentors and as capital for launching your own business?

Having a group of mentors is one of the biggest life hacks

This is how I view mentors. It’s a way to pay someone to learn from their mistakes.

You actually don’t have to go through the same pain and trial that your mentors went through!

I can’t do huge and impactful things by myself. Why? Because I’m only one person. And my abilities are limited. What about you? What are some of the things you want to accomplish in life? Do you want to create positive change in the world? Do you want to have a tremendous amount of financial freedom so you can do and pursue whatever passions you have?

I can’t even begin to describe the amount of money I’ve lost or mistakes I’ve made that cost me money. But what if I just told you what pitfalls to avoid so that you wouldn’t make those same mistakes? Wouldn’t that be worth it? Well, that’s the same way I approach having mentors of my own.

I get out of my way to find as many mentors and work with as many people who’ve created success so that I can emulate them.

Free YouTube videos can only go so far

There’s a ton of great content out there for free. Like this blog for example. I honestly believe that I give out a lot of great education and personal advice, for free. There’s great material all over the internet. But let’s be real, none of these avenues can act as your own personal coach and mentor.

Think about the greats, like Michael Jordan. Did he not have great coaches throughout his career that pushed and motivated him?

This is why I still consume a ton of free content on the web and through podcasts; but way more than that, I actually talk and connect with real people who have created real businesses. And they push me to be better. This is just how humans work: in a group configuration.

Mentors and Mastermind Groups keep you from procrastinating and being fearful

If you’re anything like me, you sometimes procrastinate. Sometimes a lot! And do you think people like me don’t get fearful and anxious?

I get fearful and anxious almost every day.

But I have a lot of things that help me conquer those fears: praying to God, reading the Bible (I’ve been slacking off here so I need to read the bible more; just being honest), talking to my wife and closest friends.

But the one ingredient that people are missing from a financial, career, and business success standpoint, is to have an actual group of mentors and coaches that will help you conquer fear and procrastination.

I have people that I mentor too, and yeah I charge money, and here’s why

I charge $500 for a single 1-hour mentoring session (I’m maxed out currently).

A lot of people ask me, why do you charge money? That’s so messed up! Dude, that’s greedy bro!

This is where I get very confused.

Because I’m spending a lot of my own money, way more than most people ever will, to gain wisdom. And for me to give the same exact wisdom to other people for free? It makes zero sense. I need to make more money so that I can, in turn, continue to spend more money on mentors to further improve myself. It’s the circle of life in business.

Books shouldn’t be free, because then we would have a lot of crappy books!

It’s the same with books, don’t you think? Some people think that education should be free. Period. Like all books and learning should all be free.

But then, here’s my question to that: where will we find all the great authors and business people that’ll write for free? And why would they waste their precious time doing it?

Would you spend years of your life researching, interviewing, and learning in order to write a book, but not get paid for it?

The end result will be that yes we’d have free books, but it’ll all be very bad because no one would be incentivized to write.

This type of thinking leads to communism.

Do you think everything should be free? Jesus was a carpenter and the Apostle Paul sold tents

If people add value, they should be paid. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Money is not evil. The love of money is evil. I still don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape about people actually charging for their products and services. Money is simply a tool, nothing more, nothing less!

Sum Up (tl;dr)

• I spent $47,500 on mentors, mastermind groups, and conferences in the past 3 months; this means I spend more money on mentors than I do on my cars, house payments, etc
• Spending money on mentors is like paying tuition for school and textbooks; there’s no difference
• School is overrated; it hurts me how broken the school system is. People don’t learn how to negotiate, how to build their credit, how to purchase their first home, learn how to sell, how to invest in stocks, how to do public speaking and communicate with others, how to create a budget, etc. Real important life skills!
• Having mentors is one of the biggest life hacks because you get to pay way less money than what your mentors had to spend to learn it the hard way
• Free material can only go so far; they’re good, just like this blog has great free education and content. But it only goes so far.
• Mentors are like coaches because they help you stay motivated and push you so that you don’t procrastinate
• I charge money to mentor people too, but I’m not taking any additional people at this time for mentoring, sorry; I’m working on some ways to offer more mentorship opportunities though
• Books (and education in general) shouldn’t be free because we’d have a ton of crappy books. Seriously think about this. Why would anyone write a book then? Would you?
• People should be paid for their time and effort. It’s a principle and there’s nothing wrong with it. Jesus was a carpenter and the Apostle Paul sold tents. Money is just a medium of exchange.

What are your thoughts about this? I know this can be a fairly controversial topic, but money’s rarely an easy subject to talk about. And what are your thoughts on the traditional schooling system and where the world is going with all of this? Why do you think that they never teach you the most important life skills in school and what do you think can be done so we can improve our schooling system?