Top Tips For Finding a Mentor: Observing and Grabbing Opportunity

(Photo: Martin “DrGiggy” Fournier Giguere)When you step out into the unknown, it is always a nice feeling to have somebody by your side. If you can accomplish that feat then you will put yourself in a much better position to succeed. If you are able to find somebody who has already ventured into the unknown, and knows the way like the back of there hand – now that is something completely different – what you have done there is struck gold!

The word mentor may be unfamiliar to some people, but without doubt we have all undergone some form of mentoring during our lifetime. Your early mentors will be your parents, followed by your schoolteachers and later the people paid handsomely to look after your welfare at work. In between those three you will have an array of friends and relatives who will also step into your world and mentor you in one way or another. A mentor is simply a wise and trusted soul who will teach you how to improve your life one way or another.

So how do you find yourself a mentor?

The first thing to do is to tell your mind that you are looking for one. This may seem obvious but it is one of the differences between Sleepwalkers and Daydreamers. Once you step up to the plate and start becoming a Daydreamer then your mind will start sub-consciously searching for mentors. It really does start off that simply and I will try to explain by giving you an example of my own.

I had set a Breakthrough Goal to earn $45,000 through poker and set about creating a Brainstorm of how I was going to do that. I used a Mind Map and I thought of every possible way I could earn money through the game. When I stopped thinking and looked at my creation I thought the best way of earning the biggest chunk of the goal was through playing poker.

The brainstorm produced a list of actions and one of them was to learn more about the game, and so I decided to join an online training site. I did some research and found a site called BluefirePoker and their lead coach at the time was Phil Galfond who was (and still is) one of the biggest cash game winners in the online game. I decided to join and scheduled time to watch a few videos per week.

Playing poker is just like printing money – Dr Giggy

I started by watching Galfond’s videos and then one day watched a video by a coach called Martin “Dr Giggy” Fournier Giguere. Although he sounded like Stephen Hawking on acid, I loved the way that he injected humour into his videos and that was the hook that sunk into my lip. From that moment onwards I watched videos only created by Dr Giggy and was an avid follower of his blog. Then one day Martin wrote a blog post telling the members that he had won $271k over 179k hands of poker and I saw an opportunity to find myself a mentor. I wasn’t particularly looking for it but my mind told me to move and move quickly.

(Photo: A table of Dr Giggy’s winnings over the 179,277 hand sample)Every time you play a hand in poker the data is stored on your computer. Dr Giggy was offering to give away 179k hands to some of the members on the site and all they had to do was ask? This was the equivalent of climbing into his mind and reading his thoughts on poker. The information was priceless. 83 people asked for those hand histories and 20 people each received 20k each. Only two people received all 179k of them, one person drawn at random and…yes you’ve guessed it…me!

I learned an important lesson that day and also made contact with one of the first mentors who would guide me through my Breakthrough Goal. In my next blog post I will share that important lesson with you.

In the meantime who have been the key mentors in your life?

Inspiration

I can still remember the excitement that raced through my body after Dr Giggy had handed me those 179k hands. It wasn’t just the hands that got my juices flowing; it was the fact that I was in personal contact with one of the very best online cash game players in the world. I instinctively knew that I needed him to be a part of my life and my mind set about evaluating the best way to make this happen.

Despite earning obscene amounts of money playing online poker, Dr Giggy is a very modest man. He often tells me that he has no clue why I believe he has been such an important influence in my life because he cannot see what he has done. When you set off on an incredible life-changing journey, like I did, it is very difficult to express the importance of getting off on the right foot. Dr Giggy answered my e-mail at just the right time and that was so important in the grander scheme of things. It gave me confidence, made me feel special and also secure that what I was doing was right.

Last year, as I worked in the Rio Casino at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas I was star struck only twice. The first time was when I met the former Manchester United and England striker Teddy Sheringham and the second time was when I was walking through the poker room and someone called out, “Ching.” Not many people call me by my nickname on the circuit. I turned around and there was Dr Giggy in the photograph at the top of this blog. I was genuinely star struck to meet someone who, without realising, gave me the confidence to believe that anything was possible, including earning $45,000 through poker in a twelve-month period.