Go and Mentor Somebody with Colin Christensen

Go and Mentor Somebody with Colin Christensen

Kelly Kennedy: ​Welcome to episode 66 of the business development podcast. And today we are chatting all about mentorship and mentors with none other than Colin Christensen, a man who needs no introduction, a man who himself has mentored over a thousand companies. Stay tuned. You're going to love this one.

Intro: Great. Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get. Expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by Capital Business Development. Capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 66 of the Business Development Podcast, and I'm really, really, really excited today to have a friend of the podcast as always, one of our first interviews, Colin Christensen.

You guys love him. He's back again. And today, you know, we wanted to chat about mentorship. I was talking with Colin a while ago and I said, look, I want to have you back on another show. What's a great topic that we can touch on. He's like, Kelly. I've mentored like a thousand companies. Why, why have we not had a show on mentorship yet?

And I was like, you know what? A hundred percent, let's do it. So today we're chatting, mentorship, and Colin has absolutely a ton of experience in this space, and we're gonna try to tackle every aspect of it. And we're also gonna talk about an, an initiative that he has going as well. So, Colin, you know, you're always welcome on this show.

It's a pleasure to have you. Thanks for coming back.

Colin Christensen: Kelly, always a pleasure. It's great to be here. And you've had a lot of great stuff happen, a new office space. I see, and a different technology in the backend. That's exciting. Lots of cool things going on. And I'm sure you've now mentioned this on other news, but cool things coming up for you in the next little while too, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, to be honest, I haven't talked too much about it, but we're going to get into there. I have a little one on the way very soon that I've kept a little secret, but I guess we can expose it a little bit because they're going to have to know because. I'm sure there might be a show or two missed when that comes along.

But yes, there is a little, a little Kennedy coming to the world. this November, December. So very excited about that myself.

Colin Christensen: Very cool. Congratulations.

Kelly Kennedy: Thanks, man. No, I really appreciate that. And you know, just thank you. Thank you, Colin. You know, like, you know, I said it when we had our show together the first time, but this show does not grow without experts such as yourself coming on the show and your show in particular.

For those of you that are hearing this for the first time, maybe you're a newcomer to the business development podcast. Colin Christensen did two episodes with us. Episode 16 and episode 18 respectively. I believe they were titled, Exceptional Success, Crushing Pain, and Back Again. Your story is unbelievable.

I, I think. You know, that was one of the words that we used at the time. And I think it's just as fitting today, but if you have not heard those episodes, stop this episode, go back, listen to episodes 16 and 18, and then come back to this one, and you'll really understand the caliber of entrepreneur that we are working with today.

And I'm excited about it. So, you know, take me back to the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, Colin, not specifically we've, we've touched on that, but mentorship specifically, when was the first time that you had a mentor come into your life?

Colin Christensen: It's interesting. I mean, through venture, what is it?

Venture mentoring services. VMS is a common name for it. That's fairly common in. Edmonton, although there's one in Calgary at the university, and they're kind of scattered around the world, but they use a methodology out of M. I. T. That's really good. And they also use a methodology called from the Roy group, which is an incredible training association that.

Works with mentors and they train mentors on how to be a mentor, but more from relationship standpoint, not necessarily a suite of tools, which will differentiate later, but to me the Roy group does a really good job because they talk about mentor mentor was a Greek a name for a character that looked, you know helped out a younger person and it was the person's name was mentor.

Oh, interesting. So like, and that's where the name comes from. And so it's really different. It's, you know, you can define the difference between coaching and mentoring and training and you know, those kinds of things. And I've ebbed and flowed through different versions of that. But to say when was the first time I was mentored, I would say, you know, let's go birth, right?

You know, I mean, everything from that point forward is mentoring if you want to be global about it. Right. But. I don't know if I can remember some, I, I mean, I have, I have several mentors now, right? So, and it's just something that I find very important in my life. So it's not necessarily, I can pick different people for a time.

One of my English teachers in high school was one of the most amazing people that pops to mind. I was a cub and a scout. So having leaders in cubs and scouts were amazing for mentoring. It's pretty diverse, right? In all areas of my life.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, like I think back to even like, I've never had per se, formal mentoring, right?

Like I've never went out and said, I need a mentor. Although, you know, my career is definitely getting to that point where it's probably time to start thinking about it. I have had the, I have had the good luck and the good fortune to have successful entrepreneurs that I have worked directly under through basically all of my, all of my business career.

who have been helpful and sat down with me and said, Kelly, you know, you get to learn these lessons for free. I'm paying for them, but you get to learn all these lessons for free. And I recognize that very early on, that working underneath, you know, business experts, entrepreneurs, some of the bosses I've had in my life have truly.

have truly taught me lessons on their dime, and I was smart enough to recognize that and took advantage of it. And I learned an absolute ton over the last, you know, 10 years of working underneath some of these amazing entrepreneurs. I would say that like some of the most meaningful mentorship that I have actually experienced has happened when I first started capital business development, I was introduced to a person in Edmonton, he knows who he is, and I know he listens to this show.

And Yeah, he had done something very similar and was just, you know, he held his hand out and said, you know what? I'm an open book, whatever you need. I don't mind helping you. You know, you're the younger generation. You're coming up into this space. And my gosh, I don't know if I would have been successful at capital without his help.

I really do owe the success of my business to those two mentors very specifically that, like I said, never had paid mentorship, but Was definitely helped and recognize that my world, my life would not be what it is today without their input.

Colin Christensen: You mentioned something really interesting or an interesting distinction because you said, you know, I've never really had formal mentoring and yet you've had formal mentoring, right?

So, but I think what I'm hearing from you is you're saying formal mentoring being a, I asked somebody and said, will you mentor me? And B, you also mentioned paid, which is an interesting element. So. Because I think there's there's a really interesting crunchy bits in there to talk about I do a lot of mentoring for free right.

And, and it's, and I think just like the people that you've worked with that reached out their hand and said, I'm an open book. How can I help? That's where I think a lot of it comes from. I think the heart of a mentor is to just give information out for free. I happen to be a professional mentor as well, but then there's, then you get into this coaching realm and then there's a different way to divide it up.

Like, are you mentoring? Like I used to say. A mentor would be somebody that's been there, done that. And a coach would be somebody that maybe, you know, follows a program or things like that. I don't know if that's that simple. And I don't know if I do that. And the coach could be a paid role that you hire as a business coach, but you can have a paid business mentor as well.

So there's all these different layers to it. And I don't know if it matters. I think the core of it all to me is. Well, actually my current, one of my current mentors, an amazing guy, I'll name him because he's incredible. And you should all, he'd be a fun guy to have on the show. Actually, his name is Dan Dockering.

And so it used to be Dockering transport was, yeah, I'm familiar with that incredible guy. He runs rodeos. He's a horse trainer. He's got multiple businesses at funny as all get out, you know, funny guy. But one of the things I attribute to his lessons to me was. He says you should always have a hand up, a hand across and a hand down.

And he's, he likened it to tennis, right? You should always have somebody that when you play tennis with them, you can't even return a serve, right? They're so fast. They're so blinding. You can't even see it. Then you should have a person that you can go back and forth with. Constantly. And it's sometimes they win, sometimes you win, but it's really just neck and neck and you're learning from each other in the moment, in the, in the opportunity.

And then you should always have somebody where you can hit a serve and probably blow it by them. Yeah. Right. And so that way you have a hand down to somebody you're lifting up a hand across where you're learning and peer experiencing, and then somebody that you're learning from. Right. And so how you define that and how you get it and how you do it, it doesn't really matter.

So your point. With your background, you've got somebody or you've got a couple of people, at least in your life, who come in and speak to you and give you clarity on that road forward. And that's what I think is important.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, and I think it's also like important to recognize that like, Especially when you are an employee in a business, you know, like, there's a lot to be learned there, you know, especially if, if, if the owner of that business, if you're close with them, and you kind of work hand in hand, there's a lot of lessons that you get for free.

And it's very important that you recognize that they're paying. For you, for your learning, and thankfully I recognize that pretty early on, but I remember once upon a time, my boss pulled me aside and he's like, you know, these lessons cost me a fortune and they're costing you nothing. So you best be learning them.

Colin Christensen: You know, it's so true. And I'm, and again, that just kind of sprung up an idea for me because even though I have mentors in my life and I'm fortunate enough not to have to pay for them. You bring up a brilliant point, which is how much do you respect and are grateful for the people who are mentors in your life because what you, we don't know, I mean, if you're sitting there and just take them, like I hear it all the time, you know, a guy didn't show up for an appointment.

You know, are you respecting your mentor's time and the lessons that he's learned or she's learned because they're valuable to you and you need to look at that as going, Oh my goodness, I'm so grateful for your time, even if you're not paying for it. I mean, maybe you can even devalue the relationship if you're paying for it.

I don't know if I want to go there necessarily either, but, you know, it's like, Oh, I paid the guy. He's my, you know, he answers to me. So, you know, you're taking the wrong attitude into mentoring, like mentoring. There's a famous or famous saying I like, which is, you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Yeah. Yeah. And so you can, you can have a mentor, but it's really going to be your heart that affects how great of a you know, the mentor is going to be for you.

Kelly Kennedy: You have to be open to it and you have to be humble too. Right? Like, you know, I talked to you, we talked to a lot of experts on the show. The reality is, you know, you're an expert, I'm an expert.

There's probably a lot of listeners that are experts in whatever field that they're in and entrepreneurship. But remember that. You know, I'm humble enough to recognize that I was only an expert until yesterday, and tomorrow is a whole new day with whole new challenges and whole new problems that I have never faced before.

And so, even though, you know, I consider myself an expert in business development, I am always looking for You know, what's new, what's coming up, please let me know because I need to make sure that I'm up to speed on it and I can't do it all on my own.

Colin Christensen: Exactly. I mean, I, so I'm an entrepreneur and I've, you know, taken 15 ventures to market if you want to call it that over the last 40 years and I would still consider myself a humble student because I sit down with guys, I sat down with a guy yesterday and I was working or yesterday, two days ago Autism right?

High on the spectrum wants to be an entrepreneur learning lots. I'm just sitting at his feet, listening to this stuff he's talking about and going, wow, like I'm just learning so much from how he's approaching things and the way he looks at things. And I can never, like, it's just, that's my. Fingers to the world to get an idea of what's going on out there, because I'm an old stodgy guy.

And so if I can sit and learn from and listen to what's going on and how people are feeling and what's happening in the world around me, I don't listen to news, can't stand it, you know, the only way I get feedback is by interacting with people. And so I think we're always learning. It's just a matter of whether you're humble enough to admit it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, don't feel bad. I'm turning 35 this year, and I still feel like I can't keep up with the world the way it's going, so don't feel bad, man. Don't feel bad. I know, I look at my boys, and they'll be talking about the latest and greatest craze, and I'll be like, man, like, I don't know. I don't know if I can keep up with this world.

I'm becoming my parents.

Colin Christensen: We always do, whether you like it or not.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, so take me back, Colin, to your first professional experience. Like, you know, what led you there? Not even necessarily take me there. What led you to wanting to become a professional mentor?

Colin Christensen: Whoa. I, you know, okay. So, I mean, we go back to, it was before my big disaster, but I think there's just, you know, you mentioned it earlier, you said, you know, I'm an expert, you're an expert, there's lots of experts listening and stuff like, and then I wholeheartedly agree there, my kids can teach me stuff.

Yeah. Right. And so in. Aspects of wisdom in certain areas, they are greater than I am and I can learn from them. And there are things I've learned. My, my middle son comes to me all the time and says, dad, let's go hang out and have a beer. You know, I just want to listen to some of your stories because.

You know, I've got some colorful ones. So he's like, I, I just, I can't believe that you've been through some of the things you've been through. I want to hear about it. So this is our opportunity to get together and pass along information. And so that value of being able to take, even though I don't, I would never could at 15, maybe when I was first even doing some mentoring, who am I like?

I'm a nobody, but. I know a couple of things that might be a little bit more than what, you know, in a certain area. So am I willing to help a hundred percent? So one of the ways, one of the times when I don't think at my real first formal mentoring, if you want to call it like a formalized in a program where I was doing stuff would be way back in the tech venture prize.

And that's, I'm, and I'm probably, you know, six lifetimes before that I was doing it formally too, but I just. My brain doesn't work that far back anymore, but in about 2001, 2002 tech Edmonton at the time collaboration between economic development Edmonton and the university had started a third entity called tech Edmonton, and they ended up.

Creating a program called venture prize, and it ran for 15 years, and it had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs that have gone through there. And it is a pitch competition to a degree, but there was some training and some working with business plans and. All that kind of stuff. And so, and mentoring was part of it.

And so I got to sit down with hundreds of, you know, entrepreneurs over the years and just talk with them about their business and ask them questions. I'm not an expert in necessarily anything. I'm a generalist. And so being able to just ask different questions and knowing how to ask questions, that was it.

So. It's not about being, I'm the best in the world, come and ask me questions. It's about, you know what, have you considered this? And I think that's the whole point of it is a good mentor is not about what I know. It's about how do you, I draw out what you know and how you can, you know, learn forward on that to, to become better at your own thing.

Kelly Kennedy: I see. It's basically giving them, it's, it's bringing out the tools they already have.

Colin Christensen: That's a good way to put it. Yeah. It's, it's kind of what's it called? I think there's a, there's an animated show called invincible. I think it's called invincible. Okay. It's, it's it's superhero, like, you know, and it's an anime, but it's, it's what's scary about it is the truth underlying what happens when, you know, cities get destroyed, right? Like people die, like it's dark, it's, it's quite a dark show, but his, his dad's like, Chief big, you know, superhero in the world, and he hasn't got his superpowers yet.

Okay. The superpowers and, and it's learning how to deal with them. And so they're there, they're part of you, but you don't know how to use them yet. And I we've seen it in X Men too, with Cyclops, right? Before he puts the glasses on his eyes. And all of a sudden it just destroys the world as soon as he opens his eyes.

Then he learns to focus it with the glasses and control it. And so that's what I think it is, is that there's these powers and these, this wisdom that's in us, but we have to be guided on how to best use it and implement it into the world. And I think a mentor, a good mentor is very good at that understanding and drawing out and refining the skills and the wisdom that's already in the person.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. What, like, what do you think the difference is? Because, like, you know, I feel like we live in a time where, like, Everyone's calling themselves a mentor or a coach or whatever else. What is it, how do you, how do you, what, what, what makes a good mentor, a good mentor or a good coach, a good coach, you know, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff in this, in this area?

Colin Christensen: Well, I may lose some friends over this, but and I, and I think that that's part of the problem is, you know, in the Instagram days or, you know, the LinkedIn days that we're in there's a lot of people that, you know, It's, it's ironic. Nothing against Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is an amazing guy, right?

But there's, I call it this, the Tony Ron Tony Robbins syndrome to a degree where I'm a coach, I've made a lot of money from helping coach people. I'm going to teach you how to make money coaching people. Like I did coaching people, right? Or whatever. And so there's this thing it's, what are you an expert in?

Nothing. I'm good at teaching people how to coach other people. Yeah. And it's like, okay, so the proliferate of that in, in, you know, I'm a coach. You're 21. Like, I appreciate your, you know, that you paid for some great training and you're doing some amazing things and, and you've probably accomplished more in your life than I have in certain areas, but to call yourself a business coach and go and sell yourself to a.

You know, a hundred million dollar company might not be the best way at the use of your skills because you are taking a bunch of things that you've learned and you're applying them to something that you don't really know because you haven't done it yet. Yeah. So, so there's, that's why I say I might not make some friends.

I do not want to judge anybody and say just, you know, wholeheartedly, I'm a judgmental bugger as it is, but, but, you know, I, I'm not trying to label somebody and just say, dude, you're 21. You can't possibly be a coach. I'm sure there there's value there, but I think what makes the wheat from the chat is some of that experience, right?

I would much rather have a gray haired, you know, mentor, maybe because I'm gray haired myself now, but. You know, because I I'm looking for some of that, the richness, not the, when this do this, right, which is pretty easy to train for the most part, if this happens to this, but the actually, well, here's what happened, you know, and this is where it came from.

And what I think led up to it, and this is the learnings and the findings that happened because of it, right? That's what I'm looking for the richness of it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes, like the, the story behind the lesson.

Colin Christensen: In EO, Entrepreneurs Organization, right, a famous and incredible organization around the world, they have they're one of the core tenements of what they do is called the the forum, right?

And a forum is 7 to 10 people that get together pretty much you know, every month and I say that because, you know, if you're not at a couple, you might. Not be allowed to go again or whatever, right? Like they're, they're really, it's intense for them because they get to build relationship and a thing, but they have a methodology in there called gestalt.

Right. And, and what it is, is when somebody shares their ideas their challenge, right. They, one person gets to share a challenge and everybody else takes a few minutes and thinks about it. Right. And these are all seasoned business guys. You have to make over a million dollars in revenue and have at least 10 employees before you can get into EO, which is awesome.

But it's, it's, it's it means it's also a group of people that have been around the block a few times. So imagine you've got a room of deeply experienced and well versed entrepreneurs. You could share your problem and every single one of them tell you what to do. The problem is we don't want that. And so they have this Gestalt methodology that says, okay, take a few minutes, think about the situation, and then you're welcome to pass or share a story of your own that's similar.

You're not allowed to tell them, this is what you should do, or this is what I think you should do, or this is what I would do if I were you, do any of that. You only say, here's my story. And it was similar. And this is what I learned from it. And this is where it came from. And it's trusted that the person you're talking to is wise enough and intelligent enough to go, Oh, I see how that could apply for me.

I'm going to take some notes on that. Right? Yeah. So it's not even a direct telling what to do. So this goes back to the, again, how do you tell a week from the chaff? And I think that's part of it is you're not just learning from experience. You're learning. Almost osmosis by, by listening and, and, and being in depth and in, in, in tune with all the stuff that's happening when this conversation is going on.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I do think that we live in a world where there's a lot of people that are just, I'm a coach, I'm a mentor and it's like no, no, you're not. But the problem is that there's, you know, we live in a world where that can happen. That can happen and people will pay for those services. And so I don't want anybody getting screwed.

I think that's kind of like the ultimate goal here in this conversation is I would like to give people maybe some guidelines that they can follow when they are qualifying a coach, when they are qualifying a mentor to say, you know what, this one is worth. The time worth my money, and he has the experience that I need to learn from.

Colin Christensen: And I think that that's, that's a great point. I had a very encouraging compliment. Once I sat down with a guy and we had a good half hour coffee together, an hour coffee together and just chat, he was a quite an experienced business guy had been around and started a bunch of businesses and then we'd sat down.

And so we went through the whole process and I hate. Doing this kind of stuff because it sounds like it's all about me, but I'm trying to illustrate a point. So it happened to me. So that's why I use it. I'm not trying to say, you know, look how great I am at the end of the conversation. He caught up and he says, holy crap.

He says, I learned more in this time with you than I've learned in an entire year with my paid coach. Right. And I think what that is, is it's not me. It's, it's, yeah. Depth of stories, but you know how maybe part of it is this it's funny because you know, how Wayne Gretzky was a terrible coach, but he was an amazing player.

Right. And I don't know. I mean, I didn't get to see how great he was in the locker room with as a coach. Yeah, we're going by stories that were told to us. But the whole, I think part of it is there's this word that comes up called, I think it's called agility. And it's the ability to take what you learn and turn it into lessons that you can apply to other people.

And that's a big difference. There's people that are deeply, deeply, deeply experienced in business, but not able to coach.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. It's one thing to be able to perform the task. Teaching it in a way that people are receptive to and understand is a skill.

Colin Christensen: So, going back to what you had just said, it's like, how do you...

What are some qualifications to figure out if this is the right person? One, do you relate? Can you, can you feel like you could sit down and have a beer with this person and, and, you know, enjoy their company, right? If you're going to pay for it, sure. Then you can take all kinds of beatings if that's what you want.

Right. But if you're looking for somebody, you want to be able to first be able to relate to them because. Guess what? Most of it's going to be relational stories, not just do this, do this, do this, and here's your accountability, which, you know, kind of thing. Right. So relation is first, second of all would be, you know, just their methodology of.

Doing it like, are they, are they listening? Are they drawing you out or are they telling you what to do, right? If, if it's just somebody telling you what to do, my question is, is that really what you want? Because you're not going to learn the lessons quite the same as if you're just being told what to do.

Are they talking on a do this or are they talking about this is why this is important. Do it this way. And then you've got a couple of options that you might be able to select.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know what? I intrinsically think that most people. And I know this from the business development side. I get an absolute ton of questions now through the LinkedIn about business development, right?

And I would argue that 90 percent of the time they know the right thing to do. They know the answer. What they're wanting me to do is confirm it for them.

Colin Christensen: I mean, if you, I'm sure you've read lots of books like I have. And, and it's always, Oh, I would hate to say that there's nothing new. Cause that's just, you know, arrogant and stupid and it's not really true, but you know, it's so often, it's just like, Oh my goodness, that makes so much sense.

You finally put a label and a word and a kind of cohesiveness to that, right? We are. Really interesting beings, right? As humans and, and being able to see how all these pieces fit together. And sometimes it's just the clarity. There's six choices and I'm like, well, I could do that. And I could see that. And I could do that.

Help me think through it. And I think that that's where the the mentors come in is they can help us clarify because what might be right for me might not be right for you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And okay. I can't remember whether it's you or Dale, you touched on the right advice could maybe not be the right advice at that time.

Colin Christensen: Right. It was probably Dale.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it was a very specific, he was talking about advice and people giving you advice and taking advice from like expert entrepreneurs and stuff and while it's like critical and important it may not be the right advice at the right time and it can still hurt you even if it is the right advice.

Colin Christensen: 100%. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well I mean Even those people, and again, going back to maybe what is a good coach and a bad coach, if, if they've had one thing and it was successful and it happened pretty easily without a lot of rough spots, then did they learn anything? Right. And don't get me wrong again, I'm not unvalidating, you know lessons learned in all kinds of places, but sometimes when people trip into or fall into success pretty easily, it, it takes away from the learning opportunities.

Yeah. And, and so No, you got to do it this way or this is the right way to do it. And it's like, well, that's true, but it's not going to work for me in this time. And so luck and timing always is a factor is where I guess I'm going with it. And even you could be do all the stuff right and still have luck and timing, you know, kick your butt,

Kelly Kennedy: right?

Yes, I agree. I agree. There is there is a lot of luck and timing in entrepreneurship. And it's like, well, I wish I could just say that you if you do all of these things in the right order, you're going to find success. You're absolutely right. There's going to be things working against you. And the timing is either going to be right or The cards are going to fall the right way and there's definitely some, you know you should probably be doing a few prayers to the higher power because you're going to need all the help you can get.

Colin Christensen: Been there, done that.

Kelly Kennedy: I was going to say, you know, and, and even then it's the other side of it too, is the synchronicities. And I know that we talked about synchronicities before, but there's this weird synchronicities that tend to happen when you make a choice to take a path. And what I've noticed, especially with the launch of this show and, and the launch of my business.

That things that needed to fall into place or needed to happen, even when I was, you know, praying to Jesus because I needed help because I was afraid, or I was having one of those nights that I just could not sleep, the things would just fall into place right when they needed to, to make this successful.

I'm not saying that that happens every time, but I will say that it does happen more often. Then some people may like to admit

Colin Christensen: where my wife and I went out to lunch today and we were talking about this specifically, you know, we've had our share of disasters and, and and it's funny because my wife and I are.

Opposite in the sense of optimistic, pessimistic to a degree. And I just finished reading an amazing book called originals by Adam Grant, which is incredible, but he talks about this one guy who went swimming, you know, across the North pole and it was. You know, the water was, you know, 28 degrees Fahrenheit or whatever.

So below freezing and only because it's salt water, was it not frozen? And when his tests run, he, his cells in his hands were dying and bursting because of the cold. And so it took him months to recover because the water was so cold. Killing his flesh. And yet after a while, he decided to still dive in and swim a kilometer, something across the North pole.

And, you know, a month later after training and any survived and not one piece of damage was done to him. And so physical reality says that when water and your environment is that bad for you, you're going to die. And there's not much you can, you know, nobody can walk on the surface of the sun or kind of thing, but, and yet here he is swimming across, you know, the most frozen part of the world and he is fine.

He survives and not even a burst cell or anything, whereas he did it 2 weeks earlier and same temperature, warmer water, even, and he did so there's something to do with the. Mental elements of it. So I could sit there and say, oh, yeah, if I do this, this and this, it's all going to work out perfect. Or if I pray to Jesus, it's all going to be fine.

I don't think it's that simple. And I don't think optimism is necessarily better than pessimism. And that was actually what the discussion in the book was about, because he went from. A generally an optimistic guy to, because of that disaster became healthfully pessimistic about this particular thing.

And so we took extra precautions. He did extra things. He did extra thinking to manage through the risks around that potential opportunity and it worked. So it's interesting because if we are just constantly running through life, like I was up until the time I hit. My face against the very hard wall. I was probably what do you call it?

Ignorantly, you know, blissful, ignorantly optimistic. And now I've been crushed and I'm still optimistic, but I'm a lot more pragmatic.

Kelly Kennedy: You're a prepared optimist. Yes. I think that that's a good way of putting it, right? Like, I, I think. In entrepreneurship, we're all a little probably too optimistic, but that on the flip side, I don't know if we would take the leaps and bounds that we do if we weren't a hair on the optimistic side.

Colin Christensen: You know, so it's interesting that you say that because I agree, but it's not always as cut and dried as that, which is really fascinating to me, I get asked all the time about entrepreneurship, you know, is it, is it what is it?

Nurtured or natured, right? Like, and I'm like, well, a little bit of both and it has to be, I mean, everything is an end, I think there's a lot more ends than there are oars in the world. But what's interesting is I had a really good talk with Jocelyn Jocelyn Jacek, right? So from Jacek Chocolates, and we were talking because I've got a friend who's got some cacao in Africa, and I'm trying to do some cool stuff with that.

And who am I going to talk to about chocolate other than Jacek, right? She's amazing. And so we had this incredible conversation. She's like, You know, I don't think I'm an entrepreneur and, you know, clearly she is, she's got an incredible chocolate empire and all that kind of stuff, but she is like hyper cautious, hyper pessimistic about things like not pessimistic.

That's not the right word, but she's very cautious about things and almost wanted to prove herself wrong. And I love that. It's like, you know, we, we can look at entrepreneurs as very optimistic a lot of the time, but it's actually okay to be completely pessimistic and then prove yourself wrong with your ambition or your drive or whatever it is, because you have a burning passion in your life that you want to.

Kelly Kennedy: I think that's so contradictory, though.

Colin Christensen: I know. That's because you're an optimist.

Kelly Kennedy: I know. I know. But I look at it and I'm like, well, if I was pessimistic, I wouldn't feel optimistic about the outcome. So I probably wouldn't pursue the outcome that I want.

Colin Christensen: But then the other people are like, sometimes if that driving passion is inside of you, you want to do it in such a way that you can either prove yourself wrong, because it's going to drive you insane if you don't do it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. I ended up, I ended up getting that, that bug, that bug that I just have to keep going. Like, I don't know if that's just a Kelly thing or if that's an entrepreneur thing in general, but I feel like I got this bug and when I have an idea, I have to chase it.

Colin Christensen: Perfect. You know what you need? A mentor.

No, seriously though. I mean, it's, it's funny. I mean, that was good to draw it back to it, but, but that's the point, right? Yeah. I get so I can think things through, you know, and I've been around business for a long time. I've heard thousands of business models. It's easy for me to go, Oh yeah, I got this right.

And that would be really stupid because there's so much context. As we mentioned, there's so much there's, there's. A thing I draw when I, when I present to kids about entrepreneurship, but it's kind of cited about wisdom as well. I said, okay, so all the things are hard to know in the world out of all the things we could possibly know in the world.

How much do you know? Yeah. Like, and I draw a little line on the, on the circle because it's like, I got to put something, otherwise we wouldn't see it. Right. Out of all the things in the world I could know, I know like a sliver. Now, okay, but now I know those are the things I know that I, I know right now, there's a bunch of things that I know that I don't know.

I don't know how to do brain surgery. Right. Don't ask me to do brain surgery. It's going to be a mess. Right. So I know that I don't know how to do that, but then there's everything else, which is what I don't know. I don't know. And those are blind spots. Those are the things that take us out. And so even in all of our wisdom and all of our understanding and all of our expertise and all of our you know a genius in whatever space we're in.

If we don't have added perspective from a mentor or another voice into our head, it's looking at something. Face on. And that means you have no perspective. You don't have the ability to see it from different angles because you can only see things through your perspective. So it's valuable to no end to have somebody else to speak into that and give you more color, more flavor, more shape to what it is.

Kelly Kennedy: How does somebody know that they? They need a mentor. Like, let's say we're talking to entrepreneurs. We're talking to me. How do we, you know, how does somebody know when it's time, when it's time, when they need help?

Colin Christensen: As you're asking that my brain's racing ahead in a couple of things. First thing that popped into my mind was, do you have a pulse?

Okay. Yes. You need a mentor. Okay. That's the first thing. Now that's the highest level. Next is, you know, do you think you're always right? Then yes, you need a mentor. So, you know, I mean, so like, there's some, there's some boundaries to it. I mean, yes, I think we all need a mentor, but honestly, if you consider yourself, like there's a thing you can actually look it up in Wikipedia called founderitis, okay.

Kelly Kennedy: I was going to say. Sorry, Colin. I was going to say, you just have to ask my fiance how many times I think I'm right. And then I recognize very quickly I'm not right.

Colin Christensen: Oh, yeah. Oh, there's a saying it says, you know, everybody has at least two opinions or opinions are like armpits. They all and they all stink, right?

Everybody's got two of them and they all stink. But that's that's that's the thing. You know, I'm a very opinionated guy. But interestingly enough, the more I know that I'm convinced about a certain thing, what's made it. Better every single time is by asking advice, asking advice of my wife, my kids, my peers, my friends, the people in that space, you know, I'm, I'm that weird guy that would always stop for directions because I'm time based, right?

So I'm not going to drive around in circles, wasting my time. I want to figure out the navigation as soon as I can drop into a town because I want to know everything I can and what's the experts know so they can get through it faster. Right. And so I think that's actually a good illustration of mentoring.

I think the people that are pretty convinced that they know everything. And I, I know you have an opinion about everything. And I know I have an opinion about everything and they're probably fairly right, but to say that you would not go and get advice. That's probably the that's if you're doing that and you probably need a mentor.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, there's definitely yeah, like I guess I should say I definitely seek advice. I just haven't gone that formal paid mentorship route.

Colin Christensen: But again, I don't know if you need it. Okay, so like. Because I, going back to the whole paid thing again. Sure. Okay. You, there's a bunch of methodologies in around that.

Like, okay. E o s is one of the best. I'll, I'll give it to that. And there's a great guy locally, Ted Bradshaw, brilliant guy when it comes to e o s. He's one of the main guys for training all guys in e s I love the guy. He is a fascinating guy. He is got his own book out now and doing some really, really cool stuff.

E o s is a methodology for and you can go and pay to get. Trained and become a certified EOS implementer, or you can go and pay an implementer to help you with your business. So it's like a paid coaching. The guys that do that typically are very experienced in entrepreneurship already. And so they're good qualified guys that you can pay a good chunk of money for, and it's worth it.

Hey, I don't need that right now. Cause I don't have this big formal engine that I'm running. It's, you know, me and a bunch of ideas and trying to, you know, and I hire people as I need them and blah, blah, blah. Right. Yeah. So I don't necessarily need an EOS thing, but I definitely need a mentor. And I always am going to need a mentor.

So I, right now, I don't know if I have what I would call a formal mentoring relationship, but for a while I have, Dan was a guy that I formally asked and said, listen, can I take you for lunch once a month and ask you questions? And he's like, hell yeah. Right. Why not? Let's go have a drink and some lunch and just chat and we'd get into spiritual stuff and life stuff.

He's got nine kids, right? Like, so, you know, and we'd go off on, on, on just life in general. He's all that and like not half my age, but he's certainly a lot younger than me. So it's, it's just, you know, but that's mentoring. That was a formal mentoring relationship. And I even had a reporting structure that I would bring him because he would hold me accountable to certain things.

I never paid him other than lunch. And that was fine. And I was very, very grateful for that. And so I've had a lot more of those relationships than I've ever had a paid formal thing, but formal. Doesn't necessarily need to be paid.

Kelly Kennedy: No, for sure. And you know, I'm so fortunate. Like with this show, my gosh, like the people that I get on that I get to have conversations with and learn lessons from and kind of spit all these ideas has been such a blessing to my life.

Like, I can't even tell you I had no, like, I didn't know the benefit that I would get from this show when I started it. But like, that's some of the some of the best relationships that that's what this show has brought me is amazing relationships. Through these, through these expert interviews, being able to have these conversations with experts like yourself, who've just been through it and have that, that whole life of expertise behind them.

Colin Christensen: Which is a brilliant thing.

Like there's few people that would have that opportunity. Totally. And I think that in general, entrepreneurship can be fairly lonely. So my advice would be absolutely go and get a formalized relationship because it's important. But here's the other thing, especially for a guy like you, because you have all of these voices that you can.

Have into your life and ask questions about all these different things. There's nothing wrong with that, but what would be more enriching than that even is somebody that knows you on a long term basis, right? I've known, geez. I don't want to say it's not 20 years, but certainly I've worked with Dan for, you know, at least 10, I'd say, and, you know, and, and he knows a lot of the ups and downs.

He's knows my biggest failures. He's knows the best part. See, you know, and, and he can talk to me a lot more personally because he's like, you know what? Colin, you're joking, like you're kidding yourself right now, you know, you're, you're, cause if you have a bunch of different people, you can blow the smoke over everybody's eyes, right?

And especially as a optimistic entrepreneur, who's pretty convinced that this is the best way to go, you're going to tell all the great stories and sales pitches to get them to be convinced that you're right. Probably have somebody that can slap you upside the head and tell you you're full of crap. And, and, and, and, right.

That's what I think. That's why I think there's more value to a long term formalized relationship because they get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Kelly Kennedy: That definitely makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So, okay. So we've gotten into it. We figured out who needs mentorship. What do they do now?

Colin Christensen: Set up a regular time, like just, you know, pick it, get it in your calendar and make it happen. Right. And, and, and be respectful of the mentor as well. I think it's got to be both sides. Yeah. I'd like to meet, you know, three hours once a week, every Friday afternoon, like, come on, you know, that's not respecting.

Even if I paid you, I wouldn't want to be trying to force you into a Friday afternoon meeting three hours every week. Right. Sure. Sure. So. Work back and forth and find out the best way and listen again, be humble. I said this before too, the two greatest strengths of an entrepreneur in my mind are humility and curiosity.

And so, you know, listen and open yourself up to what's possible and then figure out a good regular time to get together.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. What if they just don't know where to go though? What if they don't have that resource or that person? Now, what?

Colin Christensen: Okay, that, that's a good question.

So, you know, even from an entrepreneur's entrepreneur's perspective, what do you need? Like, what things do you think you're missing? I mean, hopefully the other aspect of an entrepreneur is self awareness, which isn't always there. I mean, again, that comes with age and gray hair sometimes more too, but what are the aspects that you're missing?

Like, is it a sales problem? Is it a financial problem? Is it a, you know, like, what are the things you're missing? I don't know how to manage or lead people, blah, blah, blah. These are all fine, but start to look around and find somebody that might have, who do you know, who, who would you look to even on LinkedIn or in the people that you don't know in your circle, who would you say, Oh my goodness, I would love to learn at that people's person's feet, that's one good way you can reach out cold to somebody, the ecosystem in Alberta is.

Phenomenal. And being able to just go to events and meet people, but also same thing, just as if you're looking for a customer, sometimes you'd say, Hey, do you know anybody that is looking for this kind of a thing? And they'll say, Oh yeah, yeah. You should talk to Joe and Sue and whoever mentoring will do the same thing.

Right? Hey, I'm looking for somebody who knows really a whole bunch about, you know, raising capital. Yes. Who, who do you think I should talk to and get introductions that way? Right.

Kelly Kennedy: I know when we kind of, we got into it very briefly on the last show. But very briefly. Bring us, tell me about Fuse 42.

Colin Christensen: So, well it's interesting because between the last show and this show, Fuse 42 had changed, has changed a little.

Okay, so Fuse 42 is fun, and I really had to work to make sure I kept the name because it's my name and I like it. So, 42, if you're, I don't know what you know about this, but 42 is sometimes seen in a Venn diagram of three things. Life, the universe, and everything. And it's a Douglas Adams thing. From from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, they put it in a supercomputer and the supercomputer took, you know, years to spit out an answer.

What is the answer to life universe and everything? And it just spits out 42. Now, what, what is ironic about that is Douglas Adams is. A bit of a mathematician and a total nerd. So it actually is true. 42 is like so many things. It's not even funny. It's, it's just, it's such an important number. You can go look it up on Wikipedia and 42 will give you pages of information about stuff that's fascinating.

So fuse 42 is just to bring together or to ignite maybe everything. All right, that's fuse 42. So to bring together everything, that's what fuse 42 means. So it was first labeled on an accelerator, right? We had run a hemp and cannabis accelerator for a number of years, more just bringing in companies, working with them, training them, helping them through a cohort based, you know, curriculum for a period of time and then presenting them to the world and, you know, new and improved.

And Getting investments and stuff like that, right. But I had started to take that into McEwen as an introduction to, you know, creating some space for that in the McEwen world. And it didn't quite go quite as expected, but I had got so absorbed and excited about things like McEwen Venture Lab and the work that we were doing at McEwen as an EIR and all of these things were fantastic.

And I really enjoyed them. So fuse 42 kind of sat in the back shelf and it just didn't do much. And then what we started noticing as I talked with more and more entrepreneurs, that there was a hole, a big fat hole missing. And that was, you know, to put dimensions on it. You know, when people get going, I would hear more and more entrepreneurs going, okay, we started with three of us.

We built a company and now we're all of a sudden we're 35. People, and I have no idea what we're doing anymore, right? And it's like, wait a second, why is that happening? I mean, I understand scaling is a big deal and it's hard when you're a founder. And then all of a sudden you're a founder responsible for people's lives and paychecks and things like that.

So there's a lot of complexity in there. The problem that happens is there's a space between zero and a million, let's call it, and just picking not a completely arbitrary number, but that million is where EO kicks in. If you have 10 employees in EO 10 employees and a million dollars in revenue, you can get into EO, EO has an accelerator program and that's very important and it draws people up into that environment.

They're working with them, trying to help them to scale to that million dollars. That could take a year or two years. It could not happen, but it's still, there's this big empty space below that, that nobody is necessarily, they could benefit probably more than the other guys arguably one way or the other.

But They need peers, they need lessons, they need collaboration, they need support and training to kind of get up there. So what are we doing for them? And we have a lot of cohort based training in Alberta. You know, I work with 500 global, as you know, and you know, I've worked with a growth X and there's a number of programs the startup programs through EU and certainly catalyzer and all the pre accelerators.

And most of the schools have some form of. Incubation type thing, and there's no shortage of that, but what they are is those short stories getting you from point A to point B, and you do a dotted line. You're going to, you know, hopefully eventually get to where you want to go, but who's creating a long form story.

Who's working with you on a long peer to peer basis. That's what I want Fuse 42 to do. So it's a community based peer to peer trust circle of seven to 10 entrepreneurs have revenue, have probably somebody reporting to them, typically the owner of the company, but there's no limits outside of that. If they're just small hundred thousand dollars in revenue, and they're just looking for support and they're looking for a peer group, that's what we want.

Right. We want those guys that are just trying to learn from one another and they want a group in a long format. It's expected that it's going to be roughly a year. And that you would join up and you'd get that a month, month over month kind of training together, peer to peer building relationships, helping and supporting one another for that long term.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. And like you started this in 2019 was when it, when you came up with the idea?

Colin Christensen: Well, Fuse42, I mean, it's funny going back to that massive disaster that we talked about the last podcast, I remember right in the middle of it. Reaching out to EO because that's where I went, I mean, EO is the, the, you know, the, the de facto, you know, place to be as an entrepreneur to get this help and support and they have forums and working with these guys.

And I knew a bunch of the guys, but they're like, well, you don't have a million dollars and you don't have 10 employees. And I was super disappointed, like super discouraged. Like, I'm like. Who needs more help than me at this point? Like I am, my wheels are coming off. My hair is on fire. Everything around me is burning to the ground.

I've got death threats happening. You know, can somebody please help me? And, you know, and I had mentors still guys like Dan and things like that. And they'd talk me down and help me through things, but I needed. Kind of a regular thing that I, I wanted to have around me and that wasn't available at the time.

And so that's actually when the concept of it started is, you know, let's call it EO for everyone else and, and, and nothing against the, Oh, I, like I said, I'm, I'm trying to imitate them because it's. Frigging genius, right? To me, I just want to create space for those early stage entrepreneurs. Something I've been passionate about for 20 years is how do we create space?

And some of those things that are available for these bigger companies, but not available for the little guys. So now fuse 42, the brand, the name started in about 2019 when we actually officially labeled our accelerator, that name. But then we. Then I plugged that I unplugged associated with the accelerator.

And I just re what do you call it? Incorporated the name into a new thing. I own both names. So it didn't really matter. And you know, you do a nuance search. It's like, Hey, I know that name. That's mine. So nobody's going to sue me over the name because it's my name. Right. So, so we just changed the name of it into a new brand, which is fuse 42 communities.

I see. So fuse42.ca, you can go there and you can kind of read up a little bit about what it is, but that's, yeah. So it's been around for a while, but in this entity, our first cohort is probably going to start in January. So we're doing applications now we're doing interviews now, cause it's an interviewed role.

We want, we don't want people to talk too much like me. We don't want people that don't talk enough, not like you. We want somebody that's going to contribute to the conversation on an ongoing basis. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So. Is this happening only in Edmonton? What are the requirements? Who can join?

Colin Christensen: Yeah, for now, it's, it's just in Edmonton. And, and you're going to do it in Edmonton because it is a face to face thing. Like, I don't think you're going to, if somebody's out of town and they have to join in once, you know, a year remotely, that's fine. I'm not going to argue with that, but yes, it's definitely, we have a few folks that are already interested in driving up from Calgary once a month just to join.

Is it It's one for now, but I have capacity to do more, but it's all going to come down to how many I get, right? If I get 20, 30 people that are really great for it, of course I'll start multiple, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Gotcha. Gotcha. Is it when do you host, when would you host it? Is it like a weekend thing?

Colin Christensen: No, it would be I'm thinking the first one I think might be like a.

The first Thursday of the month from nine to 12. See, like I see it's gonna, it's a three hour thing, kind of a, you know, and I do, it's a bit of a commitment and it's cost. There's a cost associated with it. It's $252 a month. Yeah. Now we are talking to a few bigger parties that may sponsor a third to two thirds of it.

You know, just to, because it's a good entrepreneurs to pay something. But it's $252 a month, which is very reasonable. $30 82 a year, I think is what it is. And it's all a tax right off, but it's gonna be very, very valuable for that peer-to-peer relationship.

Kelly Kennedy: Very cool. Very cool. So one of the things that I wanted to do before we closed off our, our interview today was talk to me about some of the some of the companies that you, that you are really proud of.

What are some of the companies that you've had a chance to work with that you're meant that you are incredibly proud of?

Colin Christensen: Wow. Lots of trying to narrow them down or isolate one that I can think of. Sometimes it's, you know, it's even, I don't know if I talked about this before. So this is, you know, potentially embarrassing if it's the same story that I used before, but it was one that I really liked.

Sometimes it's just a mind shift and I really love what happens when that mind shift happens. Okay. So it's not necessarily a company or a situation or something that's so cool about the technology. Well, we had a, a young student who was a developer, which is dangerous by the way, because a developer can sit down and start pounding out code with no reason and, and push out something to market that nobody wants.

Right. But I talked to this young student and, and they had this brilliant idea for an app and they were going to start developing this app to help people. You know, and he, he, he fit the bill of course, a hundred percent. And so I'm like, okay. Awesome. Great idea. Very cool. Congratulations. So cool.

Okay. Go and find out if anybody cares. Yeah. Right. And go and find your target market and see if they would actually pay for something. And he went out and talked to 20 people and found out that every single one of them said, that's the stupidest idea ever. I'm trying to get rid of all my apps that do that.

Don't want to have anything to do with it. And so a. He sweated and was nervous and so uncomfortable trying to, you know, a developer, cause they're social beings and you know, get out and talk to people and, but he was so grateful. Like when he came back, he's like, Oh my goodness. That was the, one of the most fruitful exercises I've ever done.

And it was so hard, but in that he had a conversation with somebody that gave him a new idea that validated it. And, and just, he totally ran in that direction with it. And it was a really great little story. So I love that.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Yeah. I was going to say, like, by the time you've mentored thousands of companies, it must be kind of hard to just pick one that.

Colin Christensen: Yeah, it is sometimes.

And it is sometimes just situations. I mean, we've had well, one group we had was you know, grew really rapidly and went from three people to 20 40 people in two years, which is really, really fast. Five branch offices all in that time. Wow. So really quick that way. Yeah. Award winning teams for, you know, size and speed products that they've put out that have won, you know, international awards.

I, you know, it's hard, right? I'm trying to think. I mean, there's some, I'm trying to think right off the top of my head of proud companies. Some of my fun ones that I just love telling stories about is, a young, young girl that came in. She, I think she was nine when I met her, but 10 by the time she came into the program, right.

And she's got this idea for mittens that don't come off small hands because every kid ever, you know, first thing you do. Take the gloves off, stick them in the snow and then complain about it. Right. Yeah. So she made, took an idea from dog mitts and, you know, and how dog mitts stay on. Cause dogs have such narrow hands.

Right. And so brilliant. Like I just, where do these people come up with this stuff? It's so cool. Oh, okay. One story I'm really proud of in my lead hope stories. Cause there's lots of really cool ones in there. Cause these are freedom businesses, people just creating a, an opportunity to live. But there was a guy, he a dad, husband and wife.

And their daughter had to have 12 surgeries before she was five years old. Wow. And on her heart, like just to survive. Right. And so what he'd do, this is down in South Central America, and he would work for a number of months, quit his job, save up enough money, quit his job, drive to Guatemala from Honduras and get a heart surgery for his daughter.

You know, come back, find another job, work for another three, four months, do it again. Quit his job, go there. I mean, in a place that's very difficult to get a job in the first place here he is taking whatever job and it, this really goes to show the na human nature, right? Yeah. We're gonna work our butts off to save our family and do everything we can.

So he came and, and it was really cool because I hope to see a famous brand someday, but his name's Omar Zamboni. Okay. And of course me being a Canadian guy, I go down there and I'm like, I'm like, Zamboni, this is awesome. And he does really good chili spots, spicy, spicy salsa. Yeah. It's so good. It's so good.

And so I was like smuggling it back and not really smuggling it, but I did get caught with more than I probably should have. And the guy kind of let me go, which was,

you know, you're always supposed to I totally forgot. Anyways. But I'd bring it up here in my boys. And I just love this stuff anyway. So Zamboni's chili, right? And it was his mom's recipe. And he came to our, our Lend Hope program and said, you know, I really want to get this thing going. I want to start a salsa company.

So he, we gave him a small loan, crowdfunded loan, and he started this company and grew 16 percent month over month and just got his freedom. Like he was able to achieve his freedom just by making some salsa. But I remember in his, you know, thick Spanish, very bad English, you know, I showed him a picture of Zamboni and he was like, am I going to get in trouble?

You know, and I'm like, dude, unless you start making ice cleaning equipment, you're going to be fine. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: So that's awesome. That's awesome. No, no, it's. Yeah. You guys get to do such cool things. You know how, you know, I always say that about you and Tash. You guys do some pretty amazing stuff. You know, briefly you're, you're going on a trip.

Where are you going? Very, very shortly.

Colin Christensen: Yeah, I'm heading to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So that should be an interesting thing. What I'm excited about going, I am not excited about coming back, going from plus 40 to minus 40, you know, that's going to be a bit of a shock to the system, but it should be a lot of fun.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no kidding, because you're going for a few months, right?

Colin Christensen: Yeah, I'll be, I'll be overseas for three months, but I'm going to be like I'm in Riyadh for the first two weeks and the last two, three weeks for Demo Day and all the stuff that's going to be going. This is through 500 Global, right? Yeah.

And I get to be resident mentor, which is frigging awesome. That's so cool. And so in that time, and then there's some time in the middle where it's kind of remote, I'll still be working full time, but I'm not on site. So I'm going to, I've got family in Copenhagen and some friends up in Sweden and, and down in Dubai and stuff.

So I'm probably going to visit around, you know. Coat surf a little bit and then my my wife will probably join me for some of it, you know, it's going to be our 25th anniversary. So, you know, it'll be a nice little working vacation too.

Kelly Kennedy: That's awesome. Well, congratulations on all of it. Frankly, that's absolutely amazing.

I know Tash has been in Egypt. I don't know if she's back yet, but. Yeah, you guys get to do some pretty cool trips.

Colin Christensen: She was in Riyadh before me and and then doing a resident mentor role. And then she came here and was working and then she helped, you know, train me in the 500 ways. And then she got to go to Japan just recently.

And so, and then she's back. And so I want to go to Japan. That's my next hope. But I was talking to Egypt. I got accepted for some Egypt work as well. But I couldn't go because it was right in the middle of the same time as the Riyadh one.

Kelly Kennedy: I see. How, like, what is it like being thrown into a new culture?

Like, I get it that, like, business is business is business. However, it's not because when you're in a new culture, you have to learn how to do business in their way. Yeah. What is that like as a Westerner, just kind of being thrown into it?

Colin Christensen: Well, I mean, okay, you may be asking the wrong person. I mean, you know, like I said, I think up into this trip, the furthest I've been is Honduras.

Okay. So, you know, and I can drive there if I want to. It's the same island, right? Yeah. So but. There's a, there's a couple of things, and again, I mean, I say this never being completely confident that I know anything or everything. Right. But even when I was in Honduras, I'm dealing with a culture that's very, very different.

And, and, and I've worked with indigenous women entrepreneurs and that this is a completely, some of the times the biggest thing that you're having to deal with, and it probably isn't the same quite in say a Riyadh or any kind of a growth scaling enterprise kind of. Market, but when you're dealing with freedom businesses a lot, or, you know businesses where people, they want to start something, but they just don't have the confidence or the, you know, the know how or the, anything about it.

And they're just, they, it's almost their only alternative. That's an interesting one because a lot of it is meant to help them build up and build the confidence that yes, they can do it. And some of that is just here, do this, this, this, and this. And I think it's, you'll really see that it'll work for you.

Like that guy going out and suddenly talking to 20 some odd people, finding out big fat nose from everybody, but he learned amazing lessons and I feel way more confident about them going and starting something. So, but in other places, I mean, there are lessons around the culture, like how. You know, I, I gotta wear pants.

It's my, it's 40 degrees and it's, you know, it's, you know, I didn't want to wear pants. Like I gotta, you know, and so there's things like that. Right. I gotta get used to that. No alcohol. I'm wearing an Albeerta.

Kelly Kennedy: Albeerta shirt.

Colin Christensen: They might have a special place for Canadians where you can go and get a beer.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It probably won't be Canadian beer though.

Colin Christensen: Well, that's okay. I can, I can live with good, but my point is like the language of business and investment is fairly narrow. The way of doing business might be like, I mean the middle East is known for its hospitality.

Like they are incredible hosts a lot of the time. So I'm very looking at much looking forward to that. Whereas. You know, if you go to different markets, it's, it's, it's a lot more independent, right? And so I think there's cultural differences and I'm going to find out a lot about it, but when it comes to the ways of business, you still need a customer.

You still need to understand your basic budgets. You need to hire well and treat people well. So there's a lot of those core elements that should stay the same.

Kelly Kennedy: It's like business is its own international language.

Colin Christensen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's driven around an economic engine, but you know, whether you're trading, you know, mushrooms or, you know, horseshoes or, you know, vegetables, it's, you're still doing commerce.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Colin, it's been amazing. If you could give one piece of advice to, to our listenership about entrepreneurship and mentorship specifically, what piece of advice might you give them?

Colin Christensen: Absolutely. That thing that we kind of started with find a mentor, find great peers and go and mentor somebody.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. This has been episode 66 of the business development podcast. We have been graced by calling Christiansen. I hope you have an amazing trip and until next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.

Colin Christensen: Thanks Kelly.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020, his passion and his specialization.

Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.