Mentors

  What is a mentor?  In my mind, a mentor is someone who is an influence on your life and makes you better in whatever field you are in.  He or she catapults you into a place where you didn't think you could go and helps you along the way to achieve a desired goal.  They are your counselor and your motivator.  They teach you things from their own experiences and using those to get better at something you are trying to accomplish.  I have had several mentors who took the time to show me a new approach to an old concept.  Here are a few:

 John Brusack was the merchandise manager at Belk, when I became a buyer.  He showed me how to be creative in my buying items for our store.  He taught me about time management, because I was feeling overwhelmed by the work.  He taught me about how to supervise my employees in my departments and treat them as human beings.  He taught me how to manage my inventories and to fight for advertising space.  He also taught me how to sway customers toward our products subliminally.  Even though I had been in retail for about ten years before meeting him, and I thought I knew a lot of that, he was the guiding force to make me the best buyer in the store.

 Skelly Warren was my drama director during my senior year at Presbyterian College.  At the time, I didn't care for him very much.  He was filling in for Dr. Rains who was on sabbatical.  Skelly was much more of a disciplinarian which was hard for a bunch of free-spirited drama students.  The one thing I learned from him was concentrating on a role and not being distracted by what was going on around you.  During rehearsals, he would stand next to me and shout random things into my ear to try and make me break my character.  At first, he just would make me laugh at what he was saying.  It was almost like a drill sergeant yelling at me.  As time went on, I saw what he was doing.  He made me a better actor.

 Grady Nutt was a Christian comedian, who you might have seen on "Hee Haw".  I met him, when I was in high school at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly in North Carolina.  He was there to speak to the youth on prayer.  I had been taught to always bow your head and shut your eyes, when you pray.  He spoke about praying everywhere like in your car or walking down the street.  He said that you didn't have to close your eyes to talk to God.  He really changed my life in the way I looked at prayer and worship.  

 James Dickey was a well-known poet and novelist.  I first met him, when I was in high school.  My senior English teacher was a good friend of his, and she took us to meet him at the University of South Carolina, where he taught.  One of our mutual friends was a high school classmate of mine named David Havird.  He had seen some of my poetry and told me not to "force my rhymes".  Jim taught me to write poetry with imagery and word pictures.  He changed my outlook on my writing.  I would still rhyme, if I was writing a song, but it would make sense to do so.  My mother was a poet and writer, so it was in my blood. Jim encouraged me to write what I felt and tell a story along the way.

 There have been other mentors in my life like Catherine Eaker, Burt Lancaster, J. D. Grey, Phil Barrett, Tom Bolton, Everett Vivian, Paula Brooks, Paul Talmadge, Baxter Wynn, Nezza Howard, and others who have played a part in where I am now.  The two lessons I have learned from all of my mentors are:

 1.  You can't do things by yourself.  You need help.

 2.  You don't know everything.  Others know more than you.