How a Mentor Changed His Life – EA Csolkovits

Are you a giver or a taker? And how about the people in your life? If you don’t feel you’re surrounded by the right group of people or you feel you need to distance yourself from some of them, this episode is for you! Our today’s guest has written a book on Givers, and I mean that quite literally.

E.A. Csolkovits is an entrepreneur, business consultant, writer, and Founder of Givers University. The Givers community is made of like-minded Givers who want to help others discover the Givers mindset and transform their lives. E.A. has a lot of wisdom and experience to share. He’s had some incredible personal accomplishments from being a business radio talk show host and interviewing 1,000 millionaires, to becoming a published author, and founding the Givers University.

In this episode of the Think Business With Tyler podcast, you’ll get to hear about E.A.’s mentor and how he helped him thrive at a very young age. We also talk about the value of failure and the differences between givers and takers.

If you want to learn how to develop the Givers mindset, tune in to this episode for some first-hand tips from E.A.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: E.A. Csolkovits

💡 What he does: He’s the Founder of Givers University.

💡 Noteworthy: E.A. started working already at the age of 16 as a janitor which led him to meet his first mentor Sam Robbins. At age 21, E.A. became the Chairman of House of Holland Jewellers, and then at the age of 23, he became a millionaire.

💡 Key Quote: “Be aware, be observant of those things that happen in your life, that at the moment, are on the edge of a dime and seem so insignificant, that will be among the most significant events you will ever happen in your life. Because that’s just the way it happens.”

💡 Where to find E.A.: Website | LinkedIn

Key Insights

Mentors can play a crucial role in a person’s professional or personal development. E.A. is proof that having a mentor can truly skyrocket your career even at a very young age. He crossed paths with his mentor Sam Robbins very early on in his career. A millionaire at that time, Sam went on to become E.A.’s first mentor and a key figure in his life. Looking back on those initial moments, E.A. describes them as monumental, yet seemingly insignificant at the time.

“Be observant of those things that happen in your life, that at the moment, are on the edge of a dime and seem so insignificant, that will be among the most significant events you will ever happen in your life. Because that’s just the way it happens. And that’s how I met my mentor. And that’s and he became the father I never had even though I had a father.”

Every adversity in life carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. One of the key lessons that E.A.’s mentor has installed in him and that E.A. now wants to share with others is the value of adversity in life. We should shift our mindset to look at failure as a temporary defeat. It’s what you do after you fail that matters. “It is up to us to find out what that benefit is when that temporary adversity or temporary defeat hits us. And he said when you get tackled, and you will, he said when you get tackled, when you stand up, you’re going to realize you just got a first down, you’re still in the game. He said don’t throw yourself out of the game.”

It’s not a failure, it’s a temporary defeat. E.A. says we should eliminate the word ‘failure’ from our vocabulary altogether. It sounds eternal. Instead, refer to it as a temporary defeat, because that’s what it really is. “So each one of those major temporary defeats I use those as a story and they get to be great courses. I’m almost brutally transparent because I want people to learn, not only will these things happen to you, and they’re not going to hold you back, but you can build on these temporary defeats when they do, no matter how big they are. And some of them are whoppers.”

Takers vs Givers – What is the difference? There are givers and takers everywhere. So how do you recognize them? At Givers University, E.A. teaches people what deeds and habits to look for in people in order to identify whether they’re takers or givers. “When someone’s a taker, by the way, I won’t let you know we don’t. When we say giver, we’re not labeling a person, we’re labeling their deeds. When we say taker, we’re not labeling a person, we’re labeling their deeds. And when someone’s taker ish, they’re not there eternally unless they choose to be.”

Top Quotes

• “We’re taught in life, you grow up, you get a good education, you get married, you have a family, you get a career and you live happily ever after. That’s backwards. We’re supposed to live happily ever after first.” 
• “He rewired me to say, isn’t it great that that happened, and there’s something in there that I need to find, that’s going to be something I can build on that will make it better than it was before. ” 
• “We teach people to separate the person who we love from their deeds, which we may not love. And as a result of that, we begin to show people and we’ve sifted it all the way down, literally funneled it to where you can no longer say how do I do it. And I’ve identified the actual deeds a person does. […] When they see these deeds, they begin to discern, ‘You know what, I wonder now should I bring that person in closer into my life.’” 
• “Those times when we need to grow, when we need to reach down deep inside where something is asleep inside of us and we need to help awaken that thing, that seldom wakens up unless forced to by a challenge. Those things are the things that help us really succeed.”

Links

Your Givers & Takers Awareness Quiz
Givers University