THE BENCH: Mentors

The BENCH is by default a mentor as it reminds me to be humble and respect the discipline of the daily work I must do to achieve any result. The years of Duct tape that is wrapped around it , reminds me to respect the wisdom that comes from years of experience and to always know that being either "smart" from books or "wealthy" from generations handing down that wealth , is NOT the same as the years of doing, working, failing, falling, getting up, dusting off and learning. RESPECT is taught by MENTORS. If you truly want to be successful, you MUST and I mean this must be able to have mentors, know who they are, know exactly what they bring to you for the learning and in the end WANT to be mentored.

This weak was my father's birthday, he passed away 8 years ago at the age of 89, a life well lived but if you had said to him, "You were a great mentor", he would have looked at you and said, ME? Well, this week I wrote to my children and family, why he was a great mentor. He taught me,

1. Work hard, expect nothing
2. Look to help others , always no matter what and expect nothing in return
3. Love and honor your family, they are the center of your life , your spouse is your partner in all things and your children are your legacy honor that.
4. It is not about what you have but rather what you represent in the world, I loved when we walked the streets of our small one red light town and people would yell, Hey Fern, good to see you, people respect good people
5. When you borrow something always return it in better condition than when you borrowed it, the next time you need something, they will never hesitate to loan it.
6. Time with your family is above all else a gift, we camped, we did driving day trips or week end trips and sat around a camp fire and just talked or just sat and watched the flames flicker,

As he came to that final time in life, all my children were able to sit and talk with him, one of my greatest mentor moments was to experience the gift he gave me, to see it is never about the money, the cars, the house or the expensive trips, it is seeing how much he loved his grandchildren and how much they loved him.

Mentor's come in all shapes and sizes, the lesons learned are what YOU want to learn so find them open your heart to them and you, I promise will benefit from that forever BUT never forget that finding a mentor means YOU must become one for someone else as well.