Mentoring's STRONGEST Link... treat them like what they CAN BE.

FROM THE BOOK -

CHAPTER 4

As the snow continued its soft, swirling swarm to the ground you could almost watch the folds and drifts grow and spread. This was my first real snowstorm up here, and I was suddenly even more grateful for my campsite. I had chosen it mainly because of its remote beauty… and the seep (it was a good 600 yards off the main dirt Jeep path that led to Lost Lodge). But I had taken into consideration, however lightly, that the limestone overhang the tent and fire pit were tucked into could serve as a break from winds and rain… and thank God, snow.

The clearing that formed the rest of the knoll had been absorbed into the rumpled blanket of it all, right up to the overhang. But here, although a few large intruders sifted through the trees that clung to the upper edge of the cut, nothing lasted but a smattering of gold and blush painted leaves… a banked fire… and good company.

?

As we sat there, warm and free in this transforming oasis of the Wilds, the fire crackled and popped… the camp pot sighed and gurgled… and the rest of the world lay silent, blue, and frozen.

“Mr. Tuck.”

“Yes, son?”

“I saw your outfit.”

“Yessir.”

“Mr. Tuck; I ain’t never seen anything like that bow… or quiver”.

My eyes were fixed on him, my ears eager for the story. For a moment, he sat there on that stump with his coffee cup poised half way to another sip. Slowly, he lowered his arms back down to where they were resting on his knees. And as the steam lifted and rolled from the cup, his eyes seemed to be looking through it… into another world.

I noticed he did that a lot.

“Well, if you’re interested, and willing to go fetch it, I’ll tell you about that particular rig.”

I nearly tripped and fell… I got up so fast.

I came out of the tent with them both and headed over to hand them to him. “You hold it, son. This coffee cup’s feeling awfully comfortin’ right about now” he said with a grin. I didn’t mind that at all.

As I turned the bow over in my hands, marveling again at the story on the limbs and the exquisite features of the riser, he started.

“Early part of ‘34 was a perfect time for a sure-of-himself twenty year old to get out of these mountains and go see the world. Tweren’t no jobs, and with no real family to hold me it just seemed like the natural thing to do, to head out.”

“Used the last $2.80 I had to catch a bus out of Harrison down to OKC. From there, I followed that new ribbon of road they called “66” all the way to Barstow. Then I hitched a ride with a chicken truck to the Bay area.” He chuckled over that memory and added something about not being able to get too excited over fried chicken ever since.

“When I hit San Francisco, I was tired… I was hungry… and I was plumb broke. So, as I drifted down to the Embarcadero I was ready for whatever job a man might offer my hands and back. At Pier 5 I ran into a gentleman looking to add two more crewmembers to a vessel sailing for Seattle, then Alaska. I figured that’d do.”

?

“So, I worked that supply junk on up to Ketchikan and hauled my freight ashore… me and the captain didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on how a man pulling his weight ought to be treated. Safer for both of us that way.”

“Anyhow, I hit the docks with good wages and a strong desire to see more of this new wonderland I had discovered, while she was still shining in all her unfrozen glory. And that’s exactly what I did.”

“One evenin’ in a local establishment, I struck up a conversation and eventual friendship with the red-headed 1st mate of an “old style”-whaling vessel registered out of the Chukchi Sea area of Russia. By night’s end we had clasped hands… I was going aboard.”

As he continued, I sat enthralled and dumbfounded. His vivid, yet matter-of-fact recounting of tales of the rigors and terrors and joys of working those sapphire chasms of the Bering and Chukchi and Beaufort Seas were as surreal, and yet, just as palpably “real” as the surroundings in which I was hearing them. And as he spoke to me there, man to man, the realization that THAT is exactly what he was doing left me as warm and strengthened as the coffee on my lap… that I had totally forgotten about.

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QUESTIONS -

* As a MENTOR, in your hunger to share what you've seen, done, and learned in Life/business... do you build your relationships with those you seek to mentor, from day one, on the person they CAN/WILL be?

* If not... why not?

* As a SEARCHER, would being treated like the FUTURE YOU (knowledgeable, honorable, trustworthy, worthy of time and effort, just for BEING... not just for what people have used you for) - would that be something you'd value in a mentor?

For more than 30 years, I have entered every leadership role "seeing" those I served (isn't that what REAL. GOOD. leadership is - service?) for what they said they wanted to be - good, trustworthy, smart, caring, innovative, etc., etc., etc. From the second after I was announced ("Everyone, this is Mr. Green... our new blah-blah-blah) I have left the "title" on the floor, where nearly everyone standing there dropped it, even as it was being declared.

Why?

Because that 'title' had been worn by a myriad of other faces up to that moment. And sadly, I was standing there because, to varying degrees, too many of the other folks trotted out as the "new blah-blah-blah" had thought more of that title than the Treasures that title was created to SERVE.

So, from minute one, I always worked to treat EVERY person on the production floor, in the facility, on the team like they WERE good, trustworthy, smart, caring, innovative, etc.

Were all of them?

No.

Did everyone light up, improve, get on board?

Nope.

But, by God's rich Grace, in every case, those very same GOOD people who rolled their eyes the first time I was introduced by which ever 'title', in very short order picked it back up off the floor of their disgust, buffed it to a shine, and handed it back to me... with a "thanks" and a SMILE.

And by that same Grace - whatever metrics I was brought in to improve, did just that - exponentially. And it was all accomplished by a revitalized crew/team of SMART, INNOVATIVE, TRUSTWORTHY, GOOD people.

-CM Sackett-