If you don’t have a mentor now, you’ll hate yourself later | Diet and Exercise | Real Life Fitness | PhitZone

A guiding light

A couple weeks ago I was reading a blog post at Thoughts from The Organizer regarding the mentor/protégé relationship.

The post got me to thinking about some of the great mentors that I’ve had in my life. My dad taught me how to be a man. My football coach taught me to apply skills to my life. These are only a couple of examples. Today, one stood out to me.

Towards the end of my college career, I had the opportunity to go to work for a company while earning school credits. This type of work co-op is pretty common, especially for technical fields.

The company was only a couple of years old, and was using some very cool technology to read barcodes. I worked for a manager, Jim, who had a good grip on what he was doing. I learned a lot from Jim.

There was also a guy named John in our group. John was an old gruff Marine that saw action in Korea. He had seen a lot in his life, and he experienced way more than he could ever tell me.

I shared an office with John. He showed me the ropes on how to put a proper drawing together, and how to work in an office. In exchange, I didn’t wake him when he nodded off after lunch. Did I mention that he was in his late 60′s?

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction. – John Crosby

After a few years, I was promoted to do more design work, and moved to another office. John remained somebody that I could bounce things off of though. When I would put together a drawing package, it was inevitable that I would think “What would John do”.

I remember one morning overhearing somebody talking in another cubicle. Frankly I wasn’t paying attention, but my ears perked up when I learned that John had passed away during the night. It was a sad day – I had lost my mentor.

No matter where we are in life, having somebody to look up to – somebody to help guide us, is such a valuable tool.

Do you have a mentor?