My Grandfather Built Me 🧱 But...
My grandfather was my first mentor.
He used to tell me something when I was in college, especially when I wasn’t working much:
“The more you work, the more capable of working you become.”
At that time, I didn’t fully understand how deep that was.
But looking back, that sentence built a huge part of my work ethic.
It taught me that capacity is not something you magically have.
You build it.
By showing up.
By doing the work.
By not waiting until you “feel ready.”
And honestly, that lesson has followed me everywhere. In my job, in business, in content, in mortgages, in fatherhood, in everything.
But here’s the uncomfortable part.
When I wanted to grow in my job, my grandfather could not teach me everything I needed for that stage.
Not because he wasn’t wise. He was.
But because I needed a different kind of mentor.
I needed people who could teach me how to deal with clients, how to conduct myself professionally, how to get promoted, how to communicate better, and how to become valuable inside a workplace.
That was a different room.
And a different room needs a different teacher.
Then when I started my business, even those workplace mentors could not fully guide me anymore.
Because building a business is not the same as doing well in a job.
A job teaches you how to perform inside a system.
A business forces you to build the system. 🧱
So my mentors changed again.
When I was just trying to get started, I listened to people like Gary Vaynerchuk. I needed motivation. I needed urgency. I needed someone to shake me out of waiting for perfect conditions.
When it came to financial literacy, my first finance lessons came from my dad.
Before the 2008 sub-prime crisis, during that crazy bull market, he used to hand me financial statements of companies and ask me to read them, understand them, and summarize what I saw. And then I saw his portfolio crash by 60% in a week - and what did he do? He Invested More.
I was 19 and broke in 2008.
At the time, I didn’t realize how valuable that was.
He wasn’t just teaching me investing.
He was teaching me how to think.
How to look beyond headlines.
How to read numbers.
How to understand if a company was actually strong or just popular.
How to hold your nerve when there is extreme fear in the market.
That season of my life was about financial literacy.
And now, as I try to build and scale a bigger business, I find myself learning more from people like Alex Hormozi, Tony Robbins, Ryan Serhant — people who have built at a level I have not reached yet.
Not because my older mentors became useless.
But because my questions changed.
And this is the part I think a lot of people miss.
You don’t outgrow mentors because you’re better than them.
You outgrow mentors because your season changes.
Some mentors help you build discipline.
Some help you get your first job.
Some help you become better at your work.
Some help you start.
Some help you scale.
Some help you think bigger.
Some help you stop making the same mistakes.
And some mentors are only meant to take you to the door of the next room.
After that, you have to find someone who has already been inside that room.
That does not mean you stop respecting the people who helped you before.
I still respect my grandfather deeply.
I still respect the people who helped me in my early career.
I still respect the voices that helped me when I was starting out.
But respect does not mean I keep asking old questions to people who cannot answer my new ones.
That is how people stay stuck.
They ask business questions to people who only understand jobs.
They ask wealth questions to people who only understand income.
They ask growth questions to people who are secretly scared of change.
And then they wonder why they are not moving forward.
The truth The advice that got you here may not get you there.
And that is okay.
P.S. Hit reply and tell me this:
Who is one person you learned from in an old season of your life?
And are they still the right person for the season you are in now?
Until next time, Keep Growing