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Zachary takes over hosting the podcast today to discuss networking your mentee with other people. We've all heard the phrase, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." and Zachary and Stephen dive into how that plays out in the mentoring relationship. Today, they discuss the two parts of networking: the importance of networking for your mentee and how you can help your mentee have access to your network.
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others you can mentor.
Speaker 2:So many opportunities in life come from relationships, networking, people in your community connecting you. Today's episode is all about networking and the power of connections and teaching your mentee to value relationships. We hope today's episode gives you or your organization value. And if it does, please rate the podcast, leave us a review, and share this episode with someone you think would benefit from the content. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3:Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, mentors of all ages. Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. This is your host, Zachary Garza senior, and I'm here with the one and only, drum roll, please, Murdaugh. Stephen Murray. Hey, guys.
Speaker 3:Today, I'm gonna be taking the reins away from Stephen because that's what I do.
Speaker 2:You're very good at the intros.
Speaker 3:Break into a room and take over. We're gonna be talking about the power of networking, the benefits to connecting your mentee to other positive people. Come on. Everyone has heard the expression, it's not what you know, but it's who you know. And we think that there's some truth into that.
Speaker 2:It's so true.
Speaker 3:It is true. So as mentors, networking is a huge deal, specifically for those kids who are older. So can networking help all people? Yes. Of course, it can.
Speaker 3:But this episode is probably gonna be more impactful if you mentor someone who's older. Junior high, high school, and beyond. So let's talk about networking, and I'm gonna open this up with a story. So I I didn't really ever believe that networking was a big deal. Honestly, I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 3:But as I look back in my life, I love to ask the question, how did I get here? And more times than not, the answer to that question is a person. And it's sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's not intentional. But I'm gonna talk about one relationship that introduced me to a lot of people that the Lord used to make an impact on my life. So I went to college.
Speaker 3:I went to a a small school out in West Texas. And the reason why I went there is because there was this older kid in my youth group who attended that same college. Now I didn't know a ton about colleges and universities and things like that. And so I I honestly just went to this college because this guy who I thought was cool went there. I didn't I didn't go on any, you know, college visits or anything.
Speaker 2:I did the same thing. So
Speaker 3:The only reason why I went to the schools because I was like, he's cool, and he goes there. Yeah. Sure. Which I look back, and I'm like, man, thank you, Jesus, for guiding my steps. But this guy's name is Casey.
Speaker 3:Right? And Casey had a job during the summers at working at a summer camp. And because Casey was cool and I looked up to him and he had this job, I wanted to pursue that job as well. So the summer after my freshman year, I got a job with Casey. And Casey introduced me to this guy named Bob.
Speaker 3:And Bob, if you guys have, paid attention to our podcast for a while, you guys know that Bob is the guy who the Lord used to really transform my life. Right? Bob helped identify a lot of things that that the Lord transformed in my life. Mhmm. Bob introduced me to this guy named Dan.
Speaker 3:Right? And Dan gave me my first job out of college in San Antonio working for a church. At that church, Dan introduced me to this guy named Joel. And, Joel was my best friend while I worked there in San Antonio. And Joel introduced me to his friend.
Speaker 3:His friend's name was Randy. Right? Now through Casey, I met these 4 guys, Bob, Dan, Joel, and Randy. And I'm gonna share what the Lord did through all of those guys. Through Bob, I learned that growing up without a father impacts me in in a negative way.
Speaker 3:And I learned that it was important to deal with the fact that my past is impacting my future. From Dan, I learned the importance of learning kids names, earning the right to be heard and getting on the level of the kids that we're spending time with. Dan was hands down the best person I've ever met dealing with junior high and high school kids. Joel Joel taught me how to be a cool, fun guy who loves Jesus because I didn't think that those guys existed. But Joel firsthand taught me that I didn't have to be a nerd or not cool and follow Jesus.
Speaker 3:And then lastly was Randy. And Randy rewrote my book on how to treat women. He taught me how to have a godly relationship and how to treat the girls that I was dating with honor and respect. Out of that one person named Casey, I was introduced to 4 guys who radically transformed my life. That's the power of networking.
Speaker 2:It's huge. It's awesome. And I I think your ability to identify the tools that have come into your tool belt through relationships that you might not have today if it weren't for the first guy who started this chain of connecting you to this social network of of other men.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure. And there's a phrase that we say a ton. Right? Relationships change lives, which is true, and they do change lives.
Speaker 3:But one of one of the benefits of building.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a truer thing. Can I just say that?
Speaker 3:One of the things that relationships can also do is it can introduce you to people that the Lord can use in intentional and unintentional ways to open up doors or to teach you things or to give you experiences that totally transform your life. So our goal as mentors, we want to surround them with people who can encourage them, who can love them, who can influence them, and who can believe in them. Because the more people that your mentee has in their corner, the more people they have to learn from, the more people they have to lean on, and the more people they have to look up to. And that's always a good thing. Right?
Speaker 3:And you as a mentor can provide that through networking for your mentee, but also introducing them to your network. One of the best things that you can do for your mentee, especially if they're older, is to introduce them to your network. So who are the people that you know who can help or who can encourage your mentee? If you can identify those people, be intentional about introducing your mentee to them. One of my favorite things is people love to help people who want to get better.
Speaker 3:People love to help people who take their advice and who can use it to improve their lives. Right? People will help those who are good stewards of what they've been given. And so it's our job as mentors to introduce our mentees to as many positive people as possible, help them receive as much as they possibly can from those people, and then to help them be good stewards of what they have received. Networking can help you get a job, get into certain programs, learn skills, open up doors for new opportunities, can help you meet people of influence, can help receive advice and learn knowledge.
Speaker 3:Give an example of something to aspire towards. Can help provide people who can support, who can give you, who can upgrade your social status, gain self confidence, and most importantly, people who can believe in you and who can vouch for you. Today, we're going to talk about 2 parts of networking. 1, the importance of networking for your mentee and then 2, how you can help your mentee have access to your network.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. Yep. And I would say that mentors when when you start a mentor relationship, you're usually thinking about how can I give my mentee what I have? And I think the the first iteration of that is any skill, knowledge, wisdom that I have, I wanna give you. But the the next step, which I think is the humble mentor, the humble mentor recognizes what he doesn't have in his personal belt, but that he knows someone else has, and giving the his mentee access to that person is what's best for the kid.
Speaker 2:And so, really, humble mentors know that what's best for the kid is not just relationship with them, but it's relationship with those that they trust as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure. And I know for me as a mentor, there was a time early on whenever I felt like I had to teach my mentee everything, and that put a lot of pressure on me. But now that I've been doing it for a while, one thing that I see is I don't have to teach them everything, but I can introduce them to people who can teach them everything. Right.
Speaker 3:So it reminds me of.
Speaker 2:And even acknowledge that.
Speaker 3:Right. And it reminds me of that verse, right? Like I tossed to see Apollo's water, right? Like the Lord's going to use different people during different seasons to make impacts in the lives of your mentees. It's not up to you to take them from point A to point B to point C to point D to point E to point F.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you take them from point A to point B to point B to point C, but then you hand them off to someone else. Right? And what an honor it can be as a mentor to hand them off to someone that you know and that you trust and that you that you can say to your mentee, hey, you're in good hands with this guy, right? Mhmm. There are some things that I am good at.
Speaker 3:There's some things I'm bad at. There's some things that you're good at that I'm bad at. And I can say, hey, look, I can teach you how to be faithful, but you're into graphic design? I'm not good at that. But let me introduce you to Steven, and Steven can teach you how to do that.
Speaker 3:Right? I think that that's huge.
Speaker 2:Another side of that before we get into the point is just that there's there's 2 kinds of mentor relationships. There's formal, like, you've been assigned to this kid, and then there's informal, which are more, I would say, just natural mentor relationships where you meet a kid through somebody and you build a relationship. And for formal mentors who are assigned to a kid, I think a great goal is to create natural mentor relationships from your formal mentor relationship. And so the ways you're connecting your kid to natural mentors who would not know this kid other than the fact that you are mentoring them is huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like, if my kid loves creating software stuff on a computer, that sounds terrible to me. I don't want to do that, but I can introduce him to someone that I know who loves that stuff. And there's power in that, right? And man, I just think that that's so cool that you can really, open up doors, create opportunities for your kid based on who you know and who you're intentional about introducing them to.
Speaker 3:So but before you do all of that stuff, the first thing that your mentee has to know, and this is something that you as a mentor can teach them, is the importance of networking. Right? I didn't know what networking was till I was in my thirties. But we as mentors can teach them this concept early on. And there's a couple of things that I think that it's important for us to teach our mentees.
Speaker 3:Number 1, be nice to people because you never know who will become what in your life.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:It's like the the power of kindness, right? All of us, I'm sure, have stories of that kid who you went to elementary school with, who you thought was a total nerd or you thought was dumb or.
Speaker 2:He's now Elon Musk.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like, now he has 1,000,000 of dollars. Right? And he is your boss. But, man, it's just like you can make connections in junior high and high school that can propel you forward in your adult life.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And, there's a story, right, that I have about this kid who I went to high school with, and I sat next to him in math class. He was a couple of years. My junior, I think I was a senior and he was a sophomore. And for those of you guys who don't remember high school, seniors usually aren't nice to sophomores. Right?
Speaker 3:But for some reason, I was nice to this kid. And I don't know how I was nice to him, but all I know is that he remembers me being nice to him. Well, I didn't know this at the time, but the kid didn't have have a ton of friends. And so he really looked forward to the fact that he would sit by me in class. And this older kid who he thought was cool was being kind to him.
Speaker 3:Right. Well, fast forward 20 years and here I am in this community and I have a nonprofit. And one of my main jobs is to fundraise so that we can receive money to help put on all of the programs that we do. And I got back in touch with this kid and I whenever I saw his name pop up on my computer, I was like, man, that name sounds familiar. Why does that name sound familiar?
Speaker 3:And whenever I connected with him, we got connected. We're a friend networking. Whenever I sat down with him for coffee, he told me that story about he how he was the shy kid in high school who wasn't cool, who didn't have any self esteem, and how he was so encouraged by me and my actions as a senior. And I don't remember it to save my life. Right.
Speaker 3:But all I know is that the way that I acted back then. Well, it's making a difference in my life now. Because this guy, not only did he become a donor, he also became a mentor. Right. And he probably wouldn't have done that if he didn't look upon me with favor.
Speaker 3:Right. If I was a jerk to that kid or if I was mean to him, if he moved into our community, saw that I was in charge of a nonprofit, he probably wouldn't wouldn't have been as quick to give money or to volunteer his time. But that's the power of being kind. Right? You never know who's gonna become what in your future.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's really good. I would say my friend, Daniel Roby at Austin Street Shelter, one of the things he always talks about is how relationships are one of the primary indicators or reasons people experience homelessness is because somewhere along the line, this this concept of recognizing how important relationships are, being kind, caring, and building relationships, really, when you lose the social network of relationships, that's what leads you to become homeless.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You if you're not kind, you're not gonna have good relationships in work or in the home, and I I think it leads places that you couldn't imagine.
Speaker 3:So the first thing that we can teach our mentees is the power of kindness. The second thing is learn how to take people up on their offers. Use those who who are willing and who want to be used. Right? So if you introduce your mentee to a guy and this guy says, hey, I want to take you out to lunch or, Hey, I want to let you use this thing that I have.
Speaker 3:Or you can come to my work and see what I do. We got to learn to teach our mentees to take people up on those offers because you never know what those offers will turn into. Right? So just the power of saying yes, the power of taking people up on their offers, the power of being curious to see what the Lord's going to do through this relationship.
Speaker 2:I think that's hard because for kids, even even in high school, it's like, what am I getting out of this? And have they have such a short term mindset that moving into this long term impact, which I think that's the power of networking, is that you are being strategic in building relationships in in expectation that this will benefit you for the long run, not just have a good time today. Yeah. And so I I I think that saying yes to the things that don't necessarily make sense at the short term, like which I feel like that's what I experienced in college ministry is that so many kids, I would say, I wanna mentor you. I wanna disciple you.
Speaker 2:I wanna teach you everything that I've learned. When kids say no to that, obviously, there's a 1,000 things that could be going on in their life, but I wonder how many of them were actually taught, like, how beneficial having a mentor is in your life and how meaningful saying yes to one thing can lead to a 1,000 others.
Speaker 3:Most definitely. And for us as mentors, we have to teach our mentees, hey. You're in charge of your life. Mhmm. I'm not always gonna be here for you.
Speaker 3:You are in charge of making connections and building relationships that are going to help propel you towards what the Lord has for you. Right? And so, hey, here's Steven. Steven's a really important guy who can teach you a lot of things that are really going to help you in life. Use him.
Speaker 3:Right? Teach them the power of networking, the power of relationships. Right? That's good, Steven.
Speaker 2:There's there's some mentor organizations that don't give kids mentors. They train them how to find mentors, which I think that's a pretty interesting concept because if you learn how to find mentors, you'll always have mentors in your life. I think I mean, I think that's the power of networking is that how how are we teaching our kids to build their own network?
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And then lastly, when it comes to explaining the importance of networking is the power of thank you. Right. Whenever I was starting out as a nonprofit, I wrote a thank you note to every person that I met with, every person who gave their time towards helping us and every person who gave us money. And I single handedly believe that that's the reason why we are here today is because the power of thank you.
Speaker 3:It took our organization from this idea in the seed and it turned it into something real. Right. So teaching your mentee, hey, this guy has given up his time. This guy's given up his money. He's taking you out to lunch.
Speaker 3:He's important. He doesn't have a ton of time. Maybe he's got 1 kid, 2 kids, 3 kids. Maybe he's married. Maybe he has a packed schedule.
Speaker 3:You have to be appreciative. You have to say thank you. Write him a thank you note. Send him a text and give him a phone call. Just you can never say thank you enough.
Speaker 3:And you never know what that thank you is going to do. That's one really important thing that we can teach our mentees.
Speaker 2:Super practical. I mean, I'm just thinking about how many opportunities we have to train our mentees to do the things that will pay off in the long run, and how many of those opportunities do we miss out on?
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I'm kinda discouraged even just thinking about it. Like, how many times have I encouraged Zamari to write a thank you note? I I can't think of one time that I've encouraged him to do that. That's a miss. But I I I think it's it's valuable to see how much, as mentors, we can set our our mentees up to realize the benefits of relationships and networks.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So and I think that's what's so powerful about the Christian family. Right? It's like the whole concept of Christianity. It's like we're a part of a family.
Speaker 3:And, like, this guy's my brother and this guy's a part of my team. And if an older person sees a kid who's been dealt a hard hand in life, and if he sees that he's appreciative and that he's paying attention and that he really values what you're giving him, that person's gonna wanna give him more. And that person's gonna wanna introduce him to people who can give him more. Right? And so we have to teach our mentees, hey, this is what relationships, this is what networking can do.
Speaker 3:Use it. Right? And then the second part of this is how to help your mentee have access to your network. Right. So first, teach them why it's important, how to take advantage of it, how to maximize it, and then actually introduce them to people.
Speaker 3:So here are a couple of ways that you can introduce your mentee to your network. Introducing him to your church home group, your church small group. Right? Surrounding him with your personal friends who are people that your mentee might aspire to be like. Take him to work as much as possible.
Speaker 3:Maybe if you're going to lunch with a guy who has a good heart or who loves mentoring or who follows Jesus, ask that guy, hey, is it cool if I bring my mentee? Right? And then you're meant to just sit there and watch you and your friend have lunch. Watch what you'll talk about. Watch how you sharpen each other up.
Speaker 3:Watch the questions that they ask. So much more is caught than taught. And a mentee can catch a ton by watching you interact with people. So put them in opportunities, situations where he can watch you do that. And then lastly, kind of like what we were saying, if you find something that he's interested in, specifically something that can help him for the rest of his life, like whether it's art or singing or how to code or how to write.
Speaker 3:Connect him with as many professionals that have the same skill set that he wants to have. Yeah. So if he's interested in writing, introduce him to your friend who's a writer. If he's interested in in math, introduce him to your friend who is a banker. Right?
Speaker 3:I mean, just like be strategic and intentional and, my mentee has a desire to learn this. Here's a guy who can teach him that. Right? So that those are just some ways to help your mentee have access to your network.
Speaker 2:When it comes to networking and training our mentees on the importance of relationships, something that I feel is, like, it always comes back to motivation. Like, does this does my mentee even have motivation to take what I'm trying to give him? And, really, what we're saying about this is that a mentor's job is to cast a vision for why these things are important, and and don't just assume that it's a motivation issue. Assume that he has no idea why these things are important. He has no idea why giving access to other relationships would be beneficial, especially if his his experience has been relationships are not beneficial.
Speaker 2:Like, I'm better off on my own and has this ingrained mindset of self sufficiency, independence. I gotta make things work for myself. It's not a motivation issue. It's it's a perspective issue on really opening them up to the the idea and the truth that they're going to be better when people are in their life investing in them, and they have to be open to that Right. In order to grow.
Speaker 3:I think one thing that I think is so fascinating. Right? For a long time, I was a teacher, and even now I've spent time with kids. And one thing that always happens is there's a parent that will come up to me and be like, man, Zach, thank you so much for telling my kid this. And then he tells me what I told him.
Speaker 3:The parent always says, I've been telling him that exact same thing for years, and he won't listen to me. And here you come and say the exact same thing. And all of a sudden he thinks it's it's the most important thing that he's ever heard. Sometimes that can happen between mentor and mentee, right? You tell your mentee, hey, it's important to do your homework.
Speaker 3:It's important to do your homework. It's important to do your homework. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then you introduce him to your best friend who your mentee thinks is cool. And he says, hey, man, you should probably do your homework.
Speaker 3:And you're meant to say, oh, man. Yeah, for sure. Right?
Speaker 2:Totally right.
Speaker 3:So like, man, it really is like you never know whose voice your kid's going to listen to. You never know the impact that just a tiny word, a tiny phrase, tiny off the cuff conversation, kind of like what I had with my friend Chris about becoming a teacher, you never know the power that that's going to have. So introduce your kid to as many positive people as possible. Open up those doors and see what the Lord does, because relationships truly do change lives. And those people who I know who are the most successful for the most part, they have a huge network and they've learned how to receive from other people and how to help relationships work for them.
Speaker 2:So good.
Speaker 3:So today we talked about how to teach your mentee the power of networking, how to get him to see that it's valuable, that it can really help him in life. It can help him get jobs. It can help him make money. It can help him really to anything that he wants to do. The second thing is to teach him how to use networking to create opportunities for himself, how to use those people who want to help him.
Speaker 3:And then lastly, how to introduce him to your network. It can be a basketball league. It can be a small group. It can be a men's bible study. It can be going to play poker.
Speaker 3:I mean, guys, anytime you hang out with guys who have something to offer your mentee, be intentional about trying to make that happen.
Speaker 2:It's good. So that that's your challenge after listening to this episode. What's one way you can connect your mentee to your network? One relationship. What what would be beneficial for them?
Speaker 2:Do it. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you found this episode beneficial, helpful in any way, please share it with someone you know, rate the podcast, and we look forward to seeing you next week. Bye.