The Power of Mentors 👩‍💻

I read Tim Ferris’s book 4 Hour Work Week (4HWW) back in 2012 and it made a lasting impact. I remember like it was yesterday. I had just moved back home to co-run my family’s business and I had flown from London to Boston to spend a week at my family’s fave holiday spot. On our drive home to Montreal, it was time to get down to business and I started reading the 4HWW.  I distinctively remember having this overwhelming feeling of possibility. What resonated with me most was Tim’s matter of fact approach to creating a life you want, combined with the belief and demonstration, that it is all possible. It threw out this notion that you had to slog long hours with shit bosses doing unfulfilling work. Instead, it laid out the steps one could choose to live a life less traveled and I chose the latter. 

It wasn’t an overnight success and I still work more than 4 hours a week, but it taught me the foundations of working smarter. In hindsight, it all seems so obvious but I still need to go back to some of these core lessons and I can’t do a talk on leadership without referencing some of Tim’s wise words.

For example, how he approaches challenges like automation I’ve flipped into how I approach delegation (My delegation decision tree is a complete take on his automation decision tree). How we views prioritization as a time= money relationship helps identify what I should and should not be doing.  Some of his principles towards entrepreneurship I have adapted to leadership work.  

Tim has a new book out, Tribe of Mentors and I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy (thank, Gabor 👋). Tim is usually a recluse but for the launch of his book has been doing some press. I actually watched his entire interview (I have the attention span of a goldfish) with Gary Vee and urge you to do so as well (Gary actually does do some good listening in this episode).

I’ve touched upon the power of mentors before but really hope Tim’s perspective and approach reinforce this with you. Mentors can come from anywhere, but you have to be open to listening in order to take in what they have to say. Mentors don’t have to be asked to ‘mentor’. Mentors don’t have to be in your industry. Mentors don’t have to be older than you. Mentors don’t even have to be people you know personally (as you can see from this newsletter, I would consider Tim Ferris one of my biggest mentors).

The new book is massive but was able to do some skimming and looking forward to really getting into it over the holidays. MUCH WISDOM!

🔸 Making your emotional roller coaster work for you. How to pair activities with energy. (This is directed to entrepreneurs but many of us go through this wave). 

🔸 5-minute Journal. I’ve adapted this many times to make it work for me, but so many studies have proven the benefit of daily journalling rituals. 

🔸 Imagine a world where you only check your email twice a day. Tim explains how that’s possible. 

Tim’s content is directed to the entrepreneurial (and predominantly male) community but that does not mean it is any less relevant for non-entrepreneurs. Sometimes the best learnings can be found from outside of your industry and your role is to adapt that advice to your world. Case in point, The 4HWW isn’t about working less than a day a week, it’s about thinking and working smarter. 

Until next week,

Gillian 🤘

P.S.  We (finally) have a website 👏

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