Читать книгу Future Proofing You - Jay Samit - Страница 18

Before I went searching for a mentee, I needed to set up the guidelines for my Future Proofing You experiment. First, I wanted to make sure that the process was repeatable and accessible to all. I was going to mentor someone to do it on their own. I was the coach, but they had to go on the field and run their own plays. To be a fair test, the insights had to be theirs alone. They had to decide what type of business to launch, how to find their niche, and how to acquire customers. The effort too had to be theirs alone. If they didn't internalize the process, they wouldn't be Future Proof.

Since many first‐time entrepreneurs blame a lack of money or access to investment capital as the reason for their failure, I needed to find someone who was broke. My mentor would not get a penny from me (though, in full disclosure, I did buy him pizza at our lunch meetings). I also wanted to show would‐be entrepreneurs that success could be achieved without raising any capital. He would have to use his skills to create a business that wasn't capital intensive and learn to reinvest his own profits to fuel his first year's growth.

Second, I wanted someone who had no external advantages. I wanted someone with little or no corporate experience. Someone who had only worked entry‐level jobs so that every reader could relate. My mentee had to come from working‐class roots. No entrepreneurs in the family to use as role models or to lean on for a loan. I also wanted someone with a limited social network. I wanted to find the proverbial fish out of water. Someone new to Los Angeles with no safety net.

Lastly, I was not going to open any doors nor share any of the business connections in my vast global network. I wouldn't ask friends to throw business his way or help him find employees. For this experiment to be truly fair, my mentee would have to build his own universe of contacts and associates. By setting these conditions, I knew that the mentee would feel the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with achieving something on your own. I needed him to internalize that feeling and use it to catapult him over each new obstacle in his path.