Scott D. Clary
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I watched my friend Sarah spend $47,000 on mentorship programs last year while ignoring the most valuable mentor she already had… her own results.
"I just need someone who's been there before," she told me last week, scrolling through another expensive coaching program on her laptop. That's when I noticed something fascinating on her open analytics dashboard.
Her highest-converting offer? Never discussed in any mastermind.
Her best marketing channel? Not recommended by any mentor.
Her most profitable customer segment? Discovered by accident, not advice.
Sarah was sitting on a goldmine of personalized wisdom, but she was too busy searching for external guidance to notice. Like so many successful people, she'd fallen into what I call the mentor trap – believing that someone else's experience would be more valuable than her own evidence.
We're living in the golden age of advice. Every morning, your phone lights up with:
Gurus promising proven shortcuts
Experts selling perfect roadmaps
Thought leaders sharing their "secret" frameworks
Influencers declaring the "only way" to succeed
And yet, something strange is happening. The more access we have to advice, the more paralyzed we become.
Here's what nobody tells you about mentorship: The same drive that pushes us to seek wisdom often blinds us to the wisdom we've already earned.
I discovered this the hard way. For years, I collected mentors like Pokemon cards, always convinced the next one would finally unlock that elusive next level. Then one day, while reviewing my company's data, I noticed something that changed everything.
The strategies that actually moved the needle? They rarely came from external advice. Our biggest breakthroughs almost always emerged from paying attention to what our results were already telling us.
This isn't just my experience. Last month, I interviewed thirty founders for my research. Want to know something fascinating? The ones most obsessed with finding mentors were sitting on mountains of unused insights from their own businesses.
In the next few minutes, I'm going to show you:
Why your results are the most honest mentor you'll ever have
How to read the signals your success is already sending
The simple framework for turning your data into direction
Why most people ignore their clearest path to growth
But first, you need to understand something crucial about mentorship that nobody talks about...
Let me tell you about two types of truth in business and life.
There's borrowed truth – what worked for someone else, somewhere else, sometime else. This is what we usually chase. It's comfortable. It's packaged. It comes with case studies and testimonials.
Then there's earned truth – what's actually working for you, right now, in your specific context. This is harder to face. It's messy. It doesn't come with a pretty bow. But it's infinitely more valuable.
The problem? We're drowning in borrowed truth while ignoring our earned wisdom.
Last week, I watched a founder implement advice from a famous tech CEO. Their churn rate doubled. Why? Because what works for a B2B SaaS company selling to enterprises might destroy a B2C business selling to consumers.
Your results, however, are perfectly calibrated to your reality.
They know:
Your market dynamics
Your actual audience behavior
Your true capabilities
Your perfect timing
They're like a mentor who's been following you around 24/7, taking meticulous notes on everything that works and doesn't work specifically for you.
But here's the part that messes with people's heads when they first hear it:
The better you get at something, the more you might feel the need for external guidance. It's like a cosmic joke – the further you progress, the more aware you become of what you don't know, and the stronger the urge to seek outside wisdom.
I saw this perfectly illustrated last month when I helped a friend audit her business data. She was about to spend $25,000 on a high-end mastermind program. But when we really dug into her numbers, we found something fascinating:
Her "failing" product line was actually her most profitable – once we looked at lifetime value
Her "best" marketing channel was secretly losing money when we factored in time cost
Her "ideal" customer persona was completely wrong according to actual purchase data
The gap between what we think is working and what's actually working? That's where most businesses die. But it's also where the biggest opportunities hide.
Think about it like archaeological layers of truth in your own results:
Surface Layer: The obvious metrics everyone sees
Pattern Layer: The subtle correlations between actions and outcomes
Principle Layer: The underlying truths driving your success
But this raises an important question: If our results are such great teachers, why do we keep ignoring them?
There's something nobody talks about in the personal development world:
Looking at your own results is emotionally expensive.
When we reach out to mentors, we're not just avoiding our results – we're protecting ourselves from what those results might say about us.
The Ego Protection Game
Here's what makes external advice so seductive.
When it doesn't work, we never have to blame ourselves.
Think about it:
If a mentor's strategy fails, it's their framework that was flawed
If your own data shows a problem, it's your execution that needs work
It's like we're all playing this sophisticated game of emotional dodge ball, and external advice is our favorite shield.
The Mirror Effect
Your results are like a mirror – they reflect back the unfiltered truth about:
Your actual priorities (not your intended ones)
Your real strengths (not your imagined ones)
Your true patterns (not your planned ones)
And sometimes, that reflection is too clear for comfort.
I recently helped a client audit their business data. Instead of buying another course, we spent one hour daily studying their actual results. No gurus. No frameworks. Just pure, unfiltered data.
Three months later, their revenue doubled.
Not because they learned new strategies. Not because they found better mentors. But because they finally started listening to the mentor that was there all along: their own results.
This raises an important question though: How exactly do you turn your results into reliable guidance without getting lost in the emotional maze?
Let me share something that transformed how I make decisions – a simple system for turning your results into reliable guidance.
The Result Reading Protocol, and it's designed to do one thing: make your progress impossible to ignore.
Here's the story of how I discovered it:
Three years ago, I was drowning in podcast data but starving for insights. Every morning, I'd open my analytics dashboard, stare at the numbers, and feel completely lost. I was doing what everyone told me to do – "track everything" – but I wasn't actually learning anything.
Then one day, I noticed something fascinating: The days I felt most confident about my decisions weren't the days I had the most data. They were the days I had the most clarity about what my data was telling me.
This observation led to a simple but powerful realization.
We don't need more data. We need better conversations with the data we already have.
The Three Conversations
Think of reading your results like having three different types of conversations:
The first is what I call the Daily Dialogue. It's quick, it's simple, and it's transformative. Every morning, with my first cup of coffee, I ask my results three questions:
"What worked yesterday that surprised me?"
“What didn't work that I thought would?"
"What patterns am I starting to notice?"
This isn't about profound insights. It's about building a relationship with your results. Like any relationship, it's the daily small talks that build trust, not the occasional deep discussions.
Then there's the Weekly Deep Dive. Every Sunday evening, I spend 30 minutes having a deeper conversation with my data. But here's the key – I'm not just looking at numbers. I'm looking for stories.
Last week, this practice helped me spot something I'd been missing for months: Our most successful clients weren't the ones with the biggest budgets (what everyone told us to focus on). They were the ones with the most engaged teams. That insight changed our entire sales strategy.
Finally, there's the Monthly Conversation. This is where the magic happens. One day each month, I step back and look wisdom – the subtle patterns and quiet truths that are easy to miss in the day-to-day rush.
The Pattern Recognition Game
But here's what makes this system really powerful: It turns result-reading from a chore into a game of pattern recognition.
Instead of asking "What do these numbers mean?" I started asking "What's trying to emerge here?"
The shift is subtle but profound. It's like switching from trying to force a conversation to simply listening with curiosity.
For example, a founder I work with noticed something fascinating when she started this practice: Her "worst" clients – the ones who paid the least – were actually leading to her best referrals. Why? Because they were small companies doing interesting work, and they talked about her services more than her enterprise clients.
That insight was worth more than any marketing advice she could have bought.
The Documentation Difference
Here's the part most people miss, your insights are only as good as your ability to find them again when you need them.
I learned this the hard way. I used to have amazing insights during my review sessions, only to forget them a week later. Now I keep a Results Journal. It's not fancy – just a simple note in my phone where I capture insights.
Every insight gets three simple tags:
What Happened - The actual result or observation
Why It Matters - The potential implications
What's Next - The action or experiment to try
But here's what makes this practice truly powerful. It's not just about collecting insights. It's about building your pattern recognition muscle.
The more you document, the better you get at spotting patterns. The better you get at spotting patterns, the faster you make decisions. The faster you make decisions, the more results you create to learn from.
It's a virtuous cycle that compounds over time.
Now, I know what you're thinking…"This sounds great, but I barely have time to check my email, let alone journal about my results."
But in all reality… the time you spend understanding your results pays for itself in avoided mistakes.
Think about it:
How much time do you spend consuming advice that doesn't fit your context?
How often do you repeat mistakes because you never documented the lesson?
How many decisions do you second-guess because you don't trust your own data?
Remember… the time you spend understanding your results pays for itself in avoided mistakes. That’s the Real ROI.
But this raises an important question, how do you balance this self-study with the valuable insights that can come from outside?
Let me be clear about something, I'm not suggesting you should never seek external advice.
What I am suggesting is your results should be your primary mentor, and external advice should be your secondary source of wisdom.
Let me tell you a story that perfectly illustrates why this matters.
Last year, I watched two founders take radically different approaches to solving the same problem. Both were trying to improve their customer retention rates.
Founder A did what most people do. She:
Bought three courses on customer retention
Joined two masterminds
Hired a high-end consultant
Implemented their "proven" strategies
Founder B took a different approach. Before seeking any external advice, she spent two weeks doing something seemingly simple: studying her existing customers.
She discovered her longest-staying customers weren't the ones spending the most money (what every expert told her to focus on). They were the ones who engaged with her support team in the first 48 hours.
That insight was worth more than all the expert advice in the world.
Why? Because it was perfectly calibrated to her business, her customers, and her context.
The Hierarchy of Wisdom
Think of growing your business like building a house:
Your foundation should be earned wisdom – what you've proven works in your specific context. This comes from reading your results like we discussed earlier.
The walls can be borrowed wisdom – external advice that you've filtered through your own experience and tested in your environment.
The roof? That's what I call synthesized wisdom – the unique combination of your insights and external knowledge that becomes your competitive advantage.
When to Seek External Guidance
Here's what I've learned about timing external advice perfectly:
The best time to seek external guidance is when your results have clearly identified the gap.
Your results will tell you:
Where you're actually stuck (not where you think you're stuck)
What kind of help you really need
When you're ready for the next level
What advice to ignore completely
The best advice in the world is useless if it contradicts what's actually working in your business.
So look inside first, then when you seek external advice, look for context compatibility:
Does this external advice align with my proven patterns?
Can I test it small-scale first?
Does it solve a real problem my results have identified?
Will it work with my resources and constraints?
But here's the most important question I ask: "Am I seeking this external advice because I need it, or because I'm avoiding looking at my own results?"
Here's what I want you to do right now.
Pull up your results from the last quarter.
Look at what's actually working, not what you think should be working.
Look at where your real successes are coming from, not where the experts say they should come from.
Your data is trying to tell you something.
In those numbers, patterns, and outcomes lies your most valuable mentor – one that's been watching every move you make, recording every success and failure, noting every correlation and causation.
Start asking your results the right questions:
What channels are actually bringing in your best customers?
Which products are truly resonating, beyond just surface metrics?
What patterns keep showing up in your successes?
The answers might surprise you. They might contradict what every guru is telling you. They might challenge your assumptions about what you think you should be doing.
Good.
Because here's the truth about mentorship.
The best advice in the world is useless if it contradicts what's actually working in your specific context. And the only way to know what's working is to start treating your results as your primary mentor.
Your results are speaking.
Your data is teaching.
Your patterns are guiding.
Are you ready to listen?
Until next week,
Scott
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