From Mop Factories to Mentorship: Absorbing Life's Lessons

Lifelong learning starts with being a sponge – absorbing knowledge from every experience, job, and interaction around you. This mindset transforms everyday moments into valuable lessons that compound over time and fuel meaningful personal and professional growth.

• Asheville Business Summit coming in September with early bird tickets available July 4th
• Consider purchasing tickets for clients and prospects as a relationship-building opportunity
• Career advice to be a "learning sponge" in every job, even temporary positions
• Story about working at Greenwood Mop Factory at age 16 and learning about management styles
• Henry Bonds' memorable desk sign: "Let's compromise and do it my way"
• Daily habit recommendation: document what you learned each day to make lessons stick
• Observation of different management styles and employee engagement as a teenager
• Invitation to chat about scaling your business with no obligation

Reach out if you're interested in scaling your business – my contact info is available online, and I'd be happy to sit down for coffee to share a few growth ideas with no obligation.

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!

Bill

Chapters

• 0:00 Asheville Business Summit Announcement
• 1:54 The Importance of Being a Sponge
• 2:56 Learning From Every Experience
• 4:38 Business Scaling Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

Hey there, hope you're having a fantastic week. Just want to remind you that the Asheville Business Summit is coming up in September. There are a lot of ways to get involved. First of all, you can get a ticket. They're going on sale. You can get an early bird ticket. They're going on sale July the 4th. You get plenty, you can come, you can attend. You can become a sponsor. You get plenty, you can come, you can attend, you can become a sponsor. I tell you, a great way to take advantage of the summit that a lot of people don't think about is buy a bunch of tickets and invite your customers, invite your prospects, make it a day of it, make an event of it, give them something different than what you're looking for. So there's my take on that. Hey, today I want to talk to you about learning a little bit.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Now, when I was about 16 or 17, a friend of my dad's he's also a friend of mine, you know somewhere sort of between our ages, so he was closer to my age than my dad's, but because he had worked for my dad at one point and then he had gone off and he was able to buy another business and he was running that and I was talking to him about careers and jobs and I don't even know how it came up, and he said, bill, it doesn't matter whatever job you get, even a summer job, you want to be a sponge, you want to learn as much as you can. You want to take in everything around you so that you can use that later in your career. And I can't tell you how, how right he was about those things. So I worked when I was 16, I worked at a Greenwood Mop Factory. A man named Henry Bonds owned it and he was a little bit of a mentor to me. I only worked there one summer, but I have many memories of things that he said. I mean one of the things he had this sign on his desk. It was hilarious. It said let's compromise and do it my way. So he was a tough negotiator. He wanted to. You know, you just put that out there in front of him. But there were a lot of things I learned about having people and supervising people. I never had to supervise a person when I was 16, but I could see how some supervisors were better at others. Some were good at it, some people were enthusiastic employees. Some people were not enthusiastic and why that was and what it took to actually grow and run a business. And when I was 16, I was learning that.

Speaker 1: 3:10

So teach your kids to be a sponge, and you be a sponge too. Wherever you go, wherever you look, you're going to learn something. There's always something to learn. One of the things I challenge my clients on quite often is what did you learn on vacation, when they take a vacation, what did you learn? So you know, let me know what you've learned recently. Let me know what you've learned. In fact, I'll give you a good habit.

Speaker 1: 3:37

A good habit is at the end of every day, sit down with a paper and pen or a notebook or your phone, or however. You take notes and just write down what is it that you've learned? What is it that you learned today? What are your learnings? Make a note of it and you'll be surprised at how well those will stick in your brain and you'll be able to use them from time to time.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Hey, I'd love to have a chat with you about scaling your business. If you're interested in taking your business to the next level and want to grab a cup of coffee, then just hit me up. Let me know in the comments, or we're all over the Internet. You know where. You know how to find me. My phone number's out there, my email. Just let us know somehow and we'll be glad to sit down, no obligation. Just have a chat and find out if we can give you a couple ideas to grow your business. If it makes sense for us to work together, great. If it doesn't, of course, we'll still be friends. Hey, until next time, all the best.