If you wanted to reach out to mentors and start communicating with them online, there are 2 resources I’ll recommend you use.  One is from an online course called “Experts Academy” by Brendon Burchard – https://brendon.mykajabi.com/p/expertsacademy and the other is from James Altucher -https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ultimate-guide-finding-mentor-james-altucher.  Both of which will give you the starting point needed to open up a relationship with someone you admire. 

Here is an email excerpt from Brendon Burchard’s course that will help you reach out to potential mentors;

“Dear _________, I'm writing to thank you for all you do to help people and to ask if I could help promote your message and business to my circle of influence.  Is there anything specific you're doing now that you're trying to promote?  I'm a big fan of your _______ (book, course, message, work, sales style, etc.) I particularly like your message about ______.  I thought I'd share your message to my audience even if it's not as big as yours.  I help people _______.  Thank you again for all you do.  Please let me know what you'd like me to tell my audience about and how I can help.”

I used this template as a guide, tweaked it a bit, and received responses from people I admire such as Duane Marino, Jay Samit, and Paul Cummings.  All of whom replied and I continue to support and communicate with to this day.  Have the confidence to put yourself out there, we all have value we can provide to others.

Here is a summary of James Alutcher’s article on finding Mentors;

• Try to learn from everyone
• James has mentors from age 20 to 80
• Learning never stops
• Do heavy research on Biographies and Articles on your potential mentors
• Provide them value through advice
• Quantity matters
• Make yourself available to them
• Have diversity in your mentorship portfolio
• If you can’t get mentored, read their books, watch their interviews
• Drive business their way
• Over-deliver on everything
• It’s ok to have a mentor for a day, one meeting can be enough to set you on the right path
• The best mentorships take a lot of time to cement
• Your legacy is not what you do, it’s what the people you teach do

Implementing new habits and behavior takes time, be patient with the results.  If you’re starting to emulate and put into practice the advice you receive from your mentors but don’t see results in the first month, don’t panic or quit on them, or on you.  Remember that this is a perpetual investment in yourself.  A pursuit to self-mastery requires patience and understanding that you may never actually accomplish mastering yourself.  But that’s ok, because when you’re time comes, you’ll know you didn’t leave anything on the table and lived to your fullest purpose.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was not taking mentorship seriously and leveraging the opportunity that we have now with the amount of free content that’s available to us.  For example, on my commute to work, which was 30 minutes one way, I would listen to music instead of podcasts and audiobooks.  I’m not saying you have to dedicate 100% of your time in the vehicle to listening education, but having said that, “you might as well be doing something while you’re doing nothing.” – Uncle Rico, Napoleon Dynamite.

 I took on the challenge of listening to the mammoth of a book “Money: Master the Game” by Tony Robbins which is a 21 hour listen on detailed financing and investment strategies.  It took even longer because anytime I would hear something of value or wanted to take note of, I would pause the audio book, listen to what Tony was saying again, and put that information into my Evernote.  But I wouldn’t suggest going this hardcore right away.  And if you’re not an avid book reader, but are open to listening to audiobooks, I’d recommend starting off with fun and easy non-fiction story-telling books like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight which is the Nike story and one of my personal favorites.