In our modern world, so many people are aware of so many things now. The idea of making it a better world is why people like me have a blog. But when you think back to the days when I was a young boy in the 1970s, it was not always that way.
I have not been inside many high schools or middle schools to know how it has changed. This year I am receiving invitations to speak in schools. One of the things I viewed so often as a child was the bully in the schoolyard.
This past weekend I was reminded of some of that from my past. Yes, I had people bully me as a young child. No, I am not sorry it happened; yes, I learned valuable lessons about life.
But the tough part was not others who bullied me. I recall the one time that a young boy named Kenny turned on me. He was much smaller than I and he was the same age. That one time he turned on me and decided to point fingers and say, “Not fair,” I turned and punched and kicked him while he was down. That one time I was the bully and I got caught. The school and my parents punished me. Kenny, his sister and family were friends until that point. I was never able to heal the damage I had done.
In our lives many of us have been in these same shoes. We made that one mistake and never were able to recover from it. Now I have many friends all over the world. That incident was more than 30 years ago now. But that one friendship was lost forever by one bad action on my part.
When we look at mentoring others, the idea is to help those who cannot help themselves. We see it in movies now where the bully learns that the kid he is picking on is the one who can help him pass his science test. The person who cannot keep up in sports is the one who knows math and can teach it to others.
In your life and mine, we are going to face people who cannot help themselves in one place or another in life. A mentor is someone who reaches down, with a humble hand, and helps that person help himself or herself up.
The world is full of such mentors, from the Weight Watchers groups my wife, Gwynne, leads, to the entrepreneurs I spend time with who could never get out of the job or place they hate. We help them go to a place they cannot get to themselves.
This week I will share the many things about mentorship that have become the keys to my business success. These are things I’ve learned from my days of washing cars in driveways, to now, where I lead others to find the vision, get started one step at a time to living their dreams. Join us each day this week, share this page with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time for you to live your dream, love what you do. Are you ready to make the changes that will make 2013 rock?
