Happy Friday!

If you’re reading this you are probably in the 1% because the bar is literally so damn low.

If you haven’t been following me on Instagram (@chrismeade), I just had our first interview for somebody to become the new assistant for the Founders Club.

We are 15 seconds into the interview and she is off camera. I shrug and say whatever.

The first question I ask is - “Tell me what you know about The Founders Club?”

Her response - “I don’t know anything. Tell me.”

Literally 30 seconds in and the interview was ruined. Safe to say I am still looking for somebody and the more I think about it, the majority of the job can be replaced for pennies on the dollar with AI.

Besides that fun encounter yesterday, this morning has been amazing!

I’ve been working with a new functional blood doctor that I found through the Founders Club and he is amazing. For the past six months or so I have just felt off. Can’t burn fat like I used to. Sluggish without downing energy drinks. Poor sleep. Just going through the motions.

I got set up with this doctor and we meet every few weeks remotely and he’s been incredible. We’ve been getting ahead of things like slightly high cholesterol, why I’m not sleeping well, and changing even habits.

It might be TMI, but I got the BEST NEWS EVER TODAY and found out that I was indeed fertile and able to have kids! I don’t know why I was so scared but I’ve heard so many horror stories about couples taking years to get pregnant and I’ve wanted to be a dad more than anything. Lets just say its a big sigh of relief going into the weekend.

Anyways less on my incredible swimmer count and more into the reason you guys read this every week hahahah

How TF Did I Get Here?

Last night I was having dinner with one of my friends Chris, who is starting a new healthy for you snack company. He’s new to the CPG world and been trying to launch is company for almost two years now. Its just really hard and takes a million things to get right.

He was telling me that he felt like he lost almost all of his old friends when becoming an entrepreneur because he had to go all in on the business in order to make it. He makes the time now to network and mingle and come out to our events because he sees the magic is with the people you surround yourself with.

When I got to think about it, back to my early days in Miami working at the Starbucks all day, I thought mentorship was something you “got.”

I thought there was some mythical founder, a few years ahead of me, who was supposed to take me under their wing and hand me the cheat codes. Someone who had all the answers, who could look at my deck and instantly fix it, and honestly, someone who could validate every one of my ideas and tell me I was on the right path.

I kept looking for that person, but I never found them. What I’ve learned since: the right kind of mentorship rarely looks like what you think you want.

And more often, it looks exactly like what you don’t want to hear.

Early Days: Looking For Permission Instead of Perspective

Back in the beginning, I didn’t want mentorship, I wanted permission. I wanted someone to say, “You’re onto something. Keep going.” And when things got hard, I wanted someone to say, “It’s okay. You’re doing enough.”

That’s not mentorship, that’s coddling that, to be honest, helps nobody. And listen, there’s nothing wrong with comfort. We all need it. But don’t mistake it for strategy. Don’t confuse reassurance with direction.

The worst advice I ever got came from people trying to support me. They’d say things like:

“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“You’ve already made it so far.”

“Don’t overthink it. Trust yourself.”

All well-meaning. All incredibly dangerous. The truth is, when you’re building something that hasn’t existed before, you need people who can zoom out. You need people who will question your assumptions. The kind of people who’ve built real companies, made real mistakes, and paid real prices. That’s when I started shifting how I thought about mentorship.

What Real Mentorship Actually Looks Like

Real mentorship is not someone giving you a formula. It’s someone asking you sharper questions than you’re asking yourself.

It’s someone who’s been where you are and is willing to challenge your thinking, not cosign your ego.

For me, that looked like…

• Getting ripped apart on unit economics when I was still romanticizing “scale.”

• Being called out for not firing fast enough because I was “too nice.”

• Hearing that my pitch made sense, but my story had no emotion.

• Learning that playing to my strengths wasn't enough. I had to build a team around my weaknesses.
  

None of that was easy to hear, but every time, I left those conversations sharper. Less reactive. More aware. More dangerous (in a good way).

That’s mentorship.

Not someone walking you through step-by-step execution, but someone holding up a mirror and helping you see the blind spots you’re too close to recognize.

Why Mentorship Gets Better The Further You Go

Here’s the part no one talks about: The more you grow as a founder, the better mentorship becomes.

Why? Because you stop taking everything so personally. You stop defending your decisions as if they define your identity. You stop thinking your business is you and finally start to realize that tough feedback doesn’t threaten your potential.

Today, when I get around the right people, I want the truth. I want them to tell me when I’m thinking too small, or avoiding something hard. Because trust me, that happens more often than I’d like to admit.

Or sometimes I need to be hit upside the head when I’m clinging to a strategy that’s not serving the next chapter. I don’t need to be “coached” through every move. But I do need to hear: 

“You’re missing the bigger opportunity.”

And let me tell you: that kind of feedback is addicting once you’re ready for it.

The Best Mentorship Isn’t One Way

This is the part of the story where I wish I could give you a clean solution. A list of 5 mentors who changed my life forever. Some structured, scheduled, quarterly Zooms that unlocked a new level of clarity.

But that’s not how this works.

The most valuable mentorship in my life right now happens in 20-minute hallway convos. In long dinners with founders who’ve been through the war. Sometimes even in the DMs from people I respect, calling out my blind spots. On the fly, rapid-fire voice notes where someone helps me zoom out build me up and correct my course more than anything.

It’s messy, it’s non-linear, and it’s always reciprocal. That’s what no one told me early on: you don’t need one mentor, you need a community of them.

A group of people who’ve earned their stripes and who will go deep with you, not just nod along. The best kind of people want nothing from you, just to see you win. That’s what mentorship looks like when you’re truly in the game.

TFC: Our Greatest Mentorship Hack

When Aaron and I first dreamed up The Founders Club, we had no idea if it was going to work. All we knew was that there was not a single place where young entrepreneurs could meet outside of a loud nightclub or an awkward WeWork.

We were tired of surface-level groups and generic advice, and we wanted to build the room we wished existed: where founders could be vulnerable, honest, and actually helpful to each other.

And let me tell you something, there’s nothing better than when you’re building something and other people feel the same exact way. I guess we call that proof of concept or product market fit. If I can give you anything, once of you have it do anything you can to keep the momentum alive.

Because if I’ll leave you with any advice: If you’re company is not working now or not making you money, what is more time working on the same dead end project going to change?

If You Want Better Mentorship, Positioning is Everything

Mentorship isn’t about finding a guru, it’s about choosing your environment. So here’s my challenge to you:

Audit your circle.

Are you being stretched, or coddled? Are you surrounded by people who challenge your thinking, or just validate your current level? And if you’re looking for the kind of mentorship that actually moves the needle,

Founders Forum in NYC is where you need to be.

If you missed it last week we are hosting a 250 person conference in NYC on September 19th. The speakers are CRAZY. Legit still in shock I got these people to come out.

As of writing this, there are 29 tickets left. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

If you want to be in a place that will change the way you operate, this is it.

Let’s make it happen:

The right people are out there, you just got to put yourself out there.

Have an epic weekend,

Chris