Pick a Mentor to Influence The Important Areas of Your Life
How to choose a mentor that fits you? Andy tells us how to look for a mentor that you would want to emulate.
In this video, Andy looks back at his beginnings. He narrates how his goal to move out of his hometown made him look for ways to make money in order to achieve this goal. When someone hired him despite his age and lack of experience, it fueled his desire to continue working towards his goal of moving to the other side of the country. His life began to change when he believed that he could have his cell phone store and using the management and leadership training that he had, he was able to pull it off and make it successful earning his 1st million and building his own team.
All these accomplishments happened because Andy got the right mentor. He acknowledged people who were higher in the ladder than he was and used their insights to improve himself. He was able to grow a successful business by creating a system, and becoming a mentor for others.
Andy talks on having goals, recognizing your progress and acknowledging your successes are key to success. He encourages us to continue working and improving because when we do, we will impact lives along the way.
You will learn:
- How to pick a mentor
- How to be successful
- The importance of goals
- The key to a successful business
- The importance of recognizing your progress
Follow Andy Audate on:
Website: https://andyaudate.com/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyAudate
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyaudate
Transcriptions:
Andy Audate
I want to change lives. I want to show people how to progress and money. I want to show people how to progress their mindset. I want to show people how to progress in their brand so that way they can take care of their family. Take care of finances and experience freedom.
Reyna Pacheco
We're going to talk about today as just your life and how you really got started and how you're expanding your business and really trying to influence others in the world. So I guess my first question would be definitely where you got started and how this has changed your life in so many ways?
Andy Audate
Oh man, that's a great question and how it changed my life. So. I'm originally from the East coast, came from the smallest state in the, came from the smallest state in the country. And I was raised in the smallest city in the state mind. The city I was raised in is literally once, once we're a mile or so from one end of the city to the other, you can walk and it's only a mile and it's a bunch of people piled up on top of each other. Piled up on top of each other, that it's a crab in a bucket and you're living in that type of city and that type of environment. It's a hustle, fast pace, get what you want. Get out of my way, honking in the whole, the whole nine yards. And, but there are also drug drugs, gang violence. There. And I knew at a young age that I really did not feel like this was for me. So I started researching different ways to make money. So one day I could leave. and I realized, I learned about commission sales. So at this time, I'm working at Wendy's fast-food restaurant. And I'm learning how to flip burgers. So my attention span is solely on how do I flip this burger and how do I, what's the difference between a small fry and a large fry, and how do I get it, get it into the bag fast enough.So I can hand it out the window in a quick pace, because we had a clock running and we were always trying to beat the time of like getting somebody out in 20 seconds, like from order to completion, get them out in 20 seconds. Can you do that today? Our team went. And that was, that was my day to day experience.And I knew that I was capped at making $7 and 40 cents per hour, but I wanted to make more money per hour. So I learned about sales commission and I saw that T-Mobile. Had a commissioned job opportunity. I applied for T-Mobile and they denied me for whatever reason, maybe because I was 17 for whatever reason, then right next to mobile was Metro PCs. I walked them to Metro PCs and I said, Hey, I'm looking for a job. Give me an opportunity. and then the guy who said, who's standing there says, okay, I'll take your resume. And what he ended up doing was throwing them away. But I later found out I went down the street to another Metro PCs who happened to be connected to the first one.And I walked in with my polo shirt tucked in and the manager says this young black man Watson with the polo tucked in, you know, very polite. I want to give him a job. So she gave me a job and I'm working at this place and it was a black owner who owned the company. So a black guy named James owned this company. And though how it changed my life and that's how I started, but how it changed my life is that once I got that job working at Metro PCs, I first went to the first guy and I said, Hey man, why did you throw away my resume? I heard you threw it on my resume, but no problems. The second store hired me, but I went to James and I said, would you teach me how to sell?
They teach me how to run a business. And that's how it all started. So at 19, someone believed in me, suggested I opened up my own cell phone store after working for James for a year, learning the ropes of running the business from James learning, how to be a manager under James, his leadership after a year, working for James, someone believes in me and says, Hey man, open up my own self, open up your own cell phone store.I had to overcome fear. I didn't have that belief in myself. I said to that person, I said, look, I'm 19, I'm overweight. I'm a college dropout. I'm from the hood. There is no way I can be successful in my own business. And he said, dude, go for it. And I believe in you just do it. So I said, all right, I scraped up, scraped up some money, opened up my first location inside of a mall, a little kiosk. And that one location ended up bringing me my first million and four locations afterward with the support of 14 employees by the age of 21. So, the real key factor is, is I had a mentor. That's the real key factor is that I had a mentor who had already succeeded, that was able to teach me the ropes. So that way I can propel my experience, something that should have taken me maybe 10 years, I was able to accomplish in one year because of the support of a mentor. That's how it changed my life.
Reyna Pacheco
That's so great. So I guess my next question would be on picking your mentor for people who don't really know where to start as for starting a business, or maybe they're just needing help to grow as a person, you know, life coach or something like that. What would be your key tip on how to pick a mentor?
Andy Audate
The best way I would suggest in picking a mentor is by finding someone that you truly want to emulate a certain area in their life. So you may have mentors that are for specific areas. There are four major areas in life. You have faith, you have fitness, you have finance, and then you have a family. So I may pick a mentor specifically for the family because. They are successful in their business. I don't want to learn from them. I don't want to learn business strategies from them, but I want to learn how they are a husband and a father at home. So I may have a mentor just for the family. Then I may have a mentor for fitness, where this person is a, had a busy schedule, the same way that I have a busy schedule, or this person is super, super dedicated in so many areas in their life, but they're still at an elite level and in their fitness So I'm going to choose that person for my fitness mentor. And then I have a mentor for faith and I, a mentor for finances.but there are some mentors that you may look at this one person, you say, this person emulates all the areas of my, that I want to experience in my life. So I'm going to learn from them how they're able to manage all four areas of life. But essentially you'll be duplicating that person and that's okay. Because you ended up giving that person and then you add a little bit of your own swag to it.
Reyna Pacheco
That's true. That's so good. I think one more question that definitely, yeah. More people would have: how is it that you maintain keeping a successful business, but also keeping a successful life?
Andy Audate
That's it. That's a, I don't know the answer to that, man. I'm still trying to figure that out, man. Hey, I only know who knows the answer to that, but there's so many other areas in life, but essentially I would say that the key determining factor that I've discovered has been to create systems and scale and remove yourself, as much as possible.So when you're creating different positions, which you essentially would like to do or want to do is figure out what it is that you're doing. So that way someone else can come in, you gotta, you got to take the creative knowledge out of the deal, out of the position and create it to become a system where you're able to duplicate the same results every single time.So for example, that could look like when I was running the cell phone stores. That could look like the sales position in order to do a sale. Our first step was to greet the client and we had a system or a way that we greet the customer. Then our second step was to qualify the customer based on the bites that they held.And then our third step was to present a new solution or an upgrade to the customer. Then our fourth step was so close and that is true in all those areas in, in, in, in sales, no matter what business you're in. However, we had a system that I had, I was able to take myself out and put somebody else there.That's how I was able to grow to two employees, three employees, five employees, six employees, eight employees, 10 employees. You know what I'm saying? It's having a system. So that way you can scale. I remember one of my biggest goals back in the day was I wanted to be at the gym with my best friend who that guy who believed in me, his name was George and George and I, we were always talking that one day.It was, we wouldn't be considered successful in our eyes when we were able to go to the gym, work out while the stores were open while it's something, because it meant that he wasn't working, I wasn't working with. And so when George showed her belief in me and we opened up the cell phone stores, Essentially, it was like, I would work all Sunday.He would work Monday or I would work Tuesday morning to 12 o'clock or three o'clock and then he would work the remaining remainder of the day. So we were always switching back and forth. And then we ended up bringing a few people, a few people in to support us and help us. But our biggest determining factor was when we were at the gym working out one day.
And he looked at me and said, do you realize what we're doing? We're talking about doing biceps. And he's like, no matter where the gym is working out and we have multiple Sobol stores open at the same time, man, I said, Oh shoot. So it was a good thing also to recognize your progression. Literally two days ago, last night, I'm sitting here in front of my laptop.I'm looking at the stuff that I've created over the last three years. So after I left we went, so I ran the cell phones. I'm 24. Now at 21, I closed down the cell phone stores. I exited that company and took the money and moved to California, the West coast. And I became a speaker and I traveled with the number one motivational speaker I learned from this speaker and then not.
And then now I'm producing conferences throughout the country. And I'm teaching people how to grow their business and how to market their brands. And I passed, I was looking at a video last night where I'm looking at this video and it shows a full audience, maybe about 200 people in this audience. The room is completely packed.I have a group of people on my stage, on my stage, the revenue on the stage, we're doing a panel and the revenue on this stage. One, two, three. Wow. It was probably around the, around the area of $60 million a month. The amount of people that I have in the same suit, one guy, he makes 12 million. The other guy makes five other guys make ten.So that's how, like, that's how I gauge that number. So by $60 million a month in revenue, Over half of a billion dollars in revenue on this stage and per year on the stage in front of me. And I call these guys my friends. So this is a panel guys. I call these guys my friends and I'm saying to myself, dude, Andy, you came to California with no relationships without a clue.What direction you were going to go into? You literally landed, got an apartment and said now what, and three years later, within three years, you're producing these high class world-class events with people in your network that are making this type of money, living this lifestyle. Man, and you never actually acknowledged yourself.So yesterday I was looking at the videos and I was like, wow, I'm acknowledging the progression that I've experienced coming from a hood on the East coast. That's a small city, one mile in each direction and one square mile in each direction. ex drug dealer, cell phone, cell phone Slinger. High school, you know, high school, always in trouble, college dropout.I think I dropped out my second semester. it was just, it just wasn't for me or whatever I said to myself and you know, all these negative beliefs that I have for myself and I'm like, damn dude, you created all of this stuff. I looked in the mirror. I said, man, you, I acknowledge you. Number two, you are sexy, dude. I love you. Let myself know, because I realized that I just did not acknowledge my successes.
Reyna Pacheco
That's really good acknowledging your successes. I think a lot of people just don't do that enough. I think that's really good because there's also people who try. And they make, you know, two or three steps above the ladder. And they're like I don't know if I want to keep going, cause I don't know if I'm going to make it, but the fact that you actually acknowledge you sat there and you took the time to acknowledge what you're doing.I think that's really good. And that's really healthy, like to sit there and think about it.
Andy Audate
I liked that. How you said one step, a couple of steps above a ladder, the higher the ladder, right? Well, first of all, you don't want to be average. So that's where I wrote the book. No, ma'am. And if your people want to get this book or average, tell them to go to no more averagebook.com, no moreaveragebook.com.But when you go up higher on the ladder, like, like you were saying, what I believe in, and it was confirmed by someone who's much higher above the ladder, as far as like revenue revenue and employees and influence than I am. Well, what I discovered was that you're going to doubt yourself more. The higher you go, you're going to experience more fear.
The higher you go, you're going to experience more suppression and oppression, the higher you go. And so you gotta make a conscious decision that if you really want to go high, you got it. You're going to experience the opposing forces as well.
Reyna Pacheco
So for your book, what was one thing that was a non-negotiable? It had to be in there no matter what.
Andy Audate
I don't think there was a non-negotiable here.and in this, in this book, when I, when I wrote this book, truthfully, the reason I wrote this, Oh, well, the underlying message, the underlying message throughout the whole entire book is recognizing your thoughts of greatness.
Your thoughts of greatness are the ideas, the ideology that you would possess as a person of what you want to create in the future. So what I believe is that everyone has this idea of the best, right from the future. And my belief has always been that God is literally giving you this thought, this, this idea, this, this version, and this is what we call potential.So any company that you're working towards, your potential, you work on your potential. Like you work in cords, that person that you, that you, that sexy body, that, that car, that job, that lifestyle, that family, the money, anything that you truly desire, I believe that God placed it decide and you, because, because it's going to help someone else.So when you get that car, The, the, the work that you do to get that car has a story and it impacts somebody. So when you get that car and you're working at that nine to five job that you might not be thinking of as the ideal life that you get, what you're working towards is that car. Well, I truly believe that when God gave you that idea of that car in your heart, that as you were working towards that car, you were learning new skill sets.You were supporting other people. So you might've been working that nine to five job that you don't like, but it was giving other people support. Hey, you, you went to college to be a nurse, so you can get that. So you can get that car, but you were saving lives along the journey. So your focus was on the car, but your job was boring.Other people. So the thoughts of greatness in this book is recognizing that you have a duty and a responsibility to get that lifestyle, to get those results. And this book teaches you exactly how to, and it's essentially by changing your environment with a certain type of. People are a certain type of group of people getting mentors.I teach you how to get mentors in the book, as well as, as what to do when you're in stuck situations and how to repeat, how to reach peak performance, really, and ultimately the most important thing, how to control your mindset.
Reyna Pacheco
That's good. So when controlling your mindset, what's one thing you have to do?
Andy Audate
So I learned that a couple of days ago. That the, if you look up the root word of, of 'em discipline, the root, the word means to follow a system. So it never meant, I thought for a while that it meant to be original in certain actions, all it means is to follow a discipline.
So when, what follows the system. So when, when someone says I'm disciplined, it just means that, Hey, I just follow the system. And sometimes it's, it's, it's a system that you created or a system that someone else created. So what it means to control your mind in my life is to follow the system so that I use multiple systems.How do I, how do I overcome fear? I, you, I have a system. How do I, how do I change my activity levels? I have a system. How do I choose my person that I want to be with? I have a system. How do I choose my friends, my business partners. I have a system so on and so forth. It's simply by having a system and following the system or how to control your mind is to be disciplined.Follow the system.
Reyna Pacheco
Yeah, that's really good because discipline, especially nowadays displaying, I think people. Think of it as a different thing. They don't think of it as their own life in their own mind. Like with their own body. There's so much that you have to just put discipline on with yourself, with waking up with going to the gym with actually like doing the work you have to do.And with that being said, like you were saying, you were like, you have to be disciplined and that's very true. Like you do. As you think a lot of people forget that one step is think, okay, I can change my mind like that. Like I can just, you know, start thinking different thoughts and it's like, no, you have to actually put the work in and actually put yourself on some kind of agenda where it's like, okay, you know, I'm going to do it. Like it's going to happen. Super good. what would you say is something that you tell everybody?
Andy Audate
What would I, what do I tell everybody?
Reyna Pacheco
Yeah. They'd like, if, if anybody, if anybody just wants your help, like randomly, they're like, I need your help. What would you say?
Andy Audate
I just say you're a powerful man. You know, anyone on my people, my staff, it's funny because.
Like I have copywriters that write my copy for like my emails and blogs and stuff like that. And people, some people on my staff, they joke around not really joke around, but as you're writing the copy, it's to sound very similar to how I sound because it is coming from andy audate and they were right in the copy.You're powerful. Like a lot of times. One of some of my emails to start with. You're powerful. And that's a true belief that I have is that you're powerful. You're a powerful human being. And I think we undermine our capabilities. We undermined our power yesterday. I had a wake up call, one of my speakers at my seminar.I host a regular seminar called the progression conference. The progression conference is a tour that I'm bringing around nationally. The idea of the progression conferences is that as people come in, they're going to enter this community of daily progressors, people who get that on a daily basis and leave knowing information about how to grow their income.
So that way they can have freedom with their family. Cause that's important to me having a family and, and, and having the freedom to spend time with them. And in order to have that freedom, you need income. So I brought up one of my speakers to the progression conference and at the progression conference we were discussing about me mentoring her son.
So yesterday I was with her son as I took them off to go play basketball. We went out to eat food. we went to hang out the ice cream, the whole nine yards and four. For when we, when we got into the car, he takes his right hand, grabs the seat belt, both. Was it in? Okay, sweet. Then we get out the car after, after driving and get out the car, go play basketball.And then he gets into the car, takes his right hand, grabs the seat belt buckle. It turns it to the turns, turns around, bottles it in sweet. Then we drove over to an ice cream spot. No, you drive up to the restaurant and. After we ate, you spent about an hour. We ate, he got back into the car, grabbed the seatbelt, turned it around and said, I can't do it in, but can you do it?And I said, Oh, I, you've done it before. Why don't you do it? And he's like, he looks at me, he's like, I can't do it. It's just, it's just not going in. And then he, this is what he does. He's four years old. He goes, I can't, I can't do it. I was struggling, Andy. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm not your mom, this, this, this doesn't work.
That doesn't work for me. I need you to get it in. And he said, he said, he said, I can't do it. I give up. And I said, Hey, we got, we got two choices now I'll do for you. But if I do it, we're going straight to the house. I'm gonna drop you off right now. However, if you do it, we're gonna go get ice cream. Yo, he starts fighting with me and like, I can't do it in the, I can't.Can you change the deal? He's a smart kid. He can change. And I'm like, I ain't changing the deal. I said, you got two choices. Make the choice. I'll put a hood for you. We're going to the house. you put it on the ice cream. He says, I want the ice cream, but I can't put it in. I said, Marty, yes, andy put the seat Bumble coincide.And he goes, it takes a seat belt buckle. Turns over. I can't do it. He throws a fit attention and stops crying, kicking, and screaming. I can't do it. You understand? Eyes eye bloodshot, red tears coming down. I just looked at him. I just looked at him straight in the face. Look straight. Definitely. And then I said, grab the buckle and focus on one thing.Marty, put the buckle inside, put the seat belt buckle inside the buckle holder. He grabbed her. He grabbed her seat belt buckle. It turns a body, puts it in and then he turns his face and he's looking outside, he's looking outside the window. I'm just looking right at him from the driver's seat. and I'm waiting for him to turn.He never turns it doesn't turn. And I said, Marty, you said, he looks at me and he starts giggling laughing. I'm like, all right, man, I did it. I did it. I did it. And I'm like, Marty, you can do anything. You put your mind to. You just got to focus. And I had an awakening moment in my life. There've been a lot of challenges ongoing to the next level, because going to the next level, it's just that much harder.You made a comment earlier about, about climbing up the ladder. Yeah. Coming up the ladder, all that means is, is progressing. So when I. Russian conference. When I use this word progression, my first company is called wireless progression of wireless. My marketing firm is called a progression marketing group. My fitness apparel line is called progression fitness.The reason I use it for progression is because you have to make a conscious decision to get better on a daily basis. So although the mighty has done something in the past, it's you still have to literally, you still have to, he still literally has to focus. And do it again with all his mic. So in order for you to progress to the next level, I don't know what your question was, but in order for you to progress to the next level, you have to literally focus on where it is that you're going.
Yeah. At the end of the day, if you don't progress what's going to happen is that the world is continually moving forward and you're stagnant by you being stagnant. You're essentially literally your burst deteriorating as we speak. Unless you get better. If they're in your health and your fitness or your finances, your faith, somehow every single day, you must get better as a human being towards your ideal goal, which is that potential, that vision that you have for this, otherwise you're going backwards.
Reyna Pacheco
Yeah, definitely. So I guess the potential, like what you were just saying, like the potential of the goal, that's definitely, you always have to have that. You always have to have something to look forward to and people are always so quick to dwell on the past. So how do you feel about that? About dwelling on the past and why we shouldn't do that?
Andy Audate
I mean, I only, if you're acknowledging yourself, if you're just acknowledging yourself, Man. And I'm a victim to it tool where I'm not a victim to anything, but I took responsibility for that too, where, essentially like, but I think about the past and how things could have been, or things should have been.And so I'm sorry, but all those processes is what got me to where I'm at too, to really, yeah. I really do my life's purpose, you know, so, you know, I look at, for example, at 21, I made the decision. It was a radical decision. I have a successful business. I'm making a million dollars a year. I have a successful business.And one day I'm frustrated. This is back in the, this was back in the cell phone cell phone later. So I don't know, probably this is the cell phone times period was between 19 and 21 or 18 and a half and 21. And one day I leave one of the stores and I literally have, I think, five or 10 or $15,000 in the bag.Cause that's how I moved through all the money. Like I didn't, I couldn't fold money cause you don't have that much money. You don't fold, you can't fold it. So we would have, I would have these bags from bank of America. And I remember I walked out, I came out of a store and I had this money in my glove. I took the money from the store and I put it into the glove compartment box.And then I draw, I'm driving different cars. At this time. I had an Audi every week. I had a new car. I had a company that I worked with that was able to get a new car every single week. So I'm driving an Audi. Now I have, I have 5, 10, $15,000 in, in the glove compartment box and I'm not fulfilled.I'm not happy. I get to my house and. My mom's house. Actually, I take the money. I go into my bedroom that I was raising when I was four and so forth. I took the cash through to the job. I laid down on the bed and I let Pandora play. I'm screaming in my pillow. What do you want me to do to God? Like, I'm confused.Like I'm confused. I feel stuck. How do I have so much money? I have a business that's operating. Amazing. I have influence. I'm like the King of my neighborhood. I'm the King of my area. I'm hiring my friend's parents. I'm giving my old high school friends jobs. Like, like I'm a dope dude, but I don't feel fulfilled.Like I don't get it. And a song plate. I know it was a song that goes once I was seven years old, my story was told it's a song about this guy, about a guy who goes from seven to 21 to 30 to six years old in a four minute time span. And then at the end, they pretty much made a comment about how his dad died.
And I listened to this four minute song and I'm like, wow, life is short, literally four minutes short. And at this moment that should be a book. But at this moment, I'm like I got to do something radically different. I gotta change my life. And it was that moment where I decided to move to California, literally in one split second.So I moved to California. I moved to California. I closed down the business, closed out a business, 14 employees. It took me three months to get everybody out, finish off all the contracts and sell off all the inventory. 86 days to be exact. And I'm in California a year into living in California. I go with, I go dead, bro.I had $19 in my, in 73 cents in my bank account. So I guess I'm having all this much money to have the $19 and 73 cents within, I don't know, a year and a half. I did not work for that year and a half. I did not work. I literally retired and I rested on my laurels. I rested on my success. I'm driving past McDonald's and I realized I don't even have enough money to order a big Mac.If I want it to. I got 1973 in my bank account. I just tried to do it. I just tried to do a transaction. And when I was, when I was trying to do a deal with a client. I had to pay for parking for now. I got $9 and 73 cents and that's when I passed it. And I was thinking back in my past, I was like, man, I was like, man, I was so I was doing so well back in the day I was, everything was amazing.I had all these different cars. I had all this money and I was just constantly reminiscing in the past. But as I look back now, two years later from that two and a half years later, from that experience, I am far from that type of position. I employ people now. and I realized that experience was for my growth, that experience with Bolingbroke was for my growth. So my advice for people that are looking back now, or, or thinking back to a time where whatever they know with life was better or thinking about the past, recognize that the position that you're in right now is for your growth in the future and stay present growing in the future.
Reyna Pacheco
That's really good.Definitely because I think growing, yeah, I mean, we all go through stages. Like we all go through those phases in our lives and those seasons where it's hard or something happens or volunteer there, like depression or anxiety or things just, you know, we feel like our whole life is falling apart, but it all happens for a reason.It all happens for a purpose because at the end of the day, we are still powerful. We are still strong and. Yeah, we are made to be successful and strong and powerful.
Andy Audate
Exactly. Very true. I believe that wholeheartedly.
