My Mentor and Mate Kevin!

I met him at a time in my life where I'd been getting down and being really serious about being a trainer. I'd emerged some time before from a journey through a dark forest where my career and personal life was going through some major change.

I had a friend Robert Moses, who asked me what I'd wanted (there's that question again!) in my career - I told him I wanted to be a full time trainer doing really great work - he told me to write down my goal, then write about how I'm going to achieve it and then to write down why I deserve to achieve it and what my learning program would be.

I wrote it all down on an A4 sheet and showed it to Robert. "Good!" he said "Now give this to all the people who can help you get there.

One of the people I gave it to worked as a training manager in a professional development institute that I'd done work for before.

She noted that I wanted to do about $10,000 worth of training courses that just happened to be delivered by the institute. I'd written it down, knowing that this is what I needed to do, but I didn't know how I could afford to do it. I didn't tell her that though.

She said to me that she wanted to support me in what I wanted and that the Institute liked to support their training contractors especially if they were so focused and clear about what they wanted to do. She immediately booked me into all the courses I needed to do and told me - this is on the institute - we'll pick up the bill.

I couldn't believe it!

So time went on, my career goals were coming along nicely and I had one more training course to do - an advanced train the trainer course. The only problem was my personal life was taking a walk back through the dark forest. I'd gotten involved with a woman who I was trying to rescue from her demons and was getting dragged down with it all. Ah me - the rewards of rescuing!

By the time I got to the course, I'd been given a ultimatum to give up the training and start a real job. I had resigned myself to giving up my dreams and passion when I first met Kevin.

He was the trainer for the course. He was passionate, enthusiastic and he demonstrated the basics and the advanced skills of training with every breath - he even told stories about how he tried training methods on his kids!

It was a three day course and I was in heaven! I knew that after the course I would move to the country and start managing a restaurant and that really wasn't my passion at all. Being a trainer was and I had three last days to study and practice something I loved with Kevin encouraging me. I breathed in every moment like it was my last!

I shared my situation with him and the class. Kevin took care of me and told me to catch up with him after the course. I even asked him to be my mentor and he said yes.

Now for me a mentor is a structured relationship with heaps of boundaries that you just don't want to abuse. You fit in wherever the mentor can squeeze you in - you let them call the shots and you be thankful for the time they can give. A mentor to me is a precious relationship, one to be treated with great care.

But that was my view and Kevin was more open to a friendship than a formal relationship. This took me some time to get used to.

I finished the course, excelling in the things I loved and said goodbye to Kevin and the class.

Off I went to kick start a restaurant in the country. In the process of getting the restaurant going, I heard of a training company and scored a job training a bunch of lost souls to get back into the workforce.

It was meaningful work and we created miracles in this little country town course. All the guys got work, including a 68 year old man who was scooped up and highly valued by the local department store. All they needed was to start to believe in themselves again.

After corporate work, this stuff was amazing to me - I got to throw really amazing and out there training techniques and resources at these guys and they responded big time. It was a high point in my career.

It was also a low point in my marriage. The strain of running a restaurant and being a step dad and a husband finally snapped and I was in the dark forest again for a very simple and subsistence winter in the country.

My belief in myself was empty.

Spring came, my belief grew and I shook off the dust and headed back to the city - I wanted to be a trainer and I was going to do it by working with these people who desperately needed someone to believe in them.

I quickly got hired part time by three companies doing this kind of work and I also started a course to help me set up a business.

My tutor one day talked about the importance of having a mentor. They are the people who are successfully doing what you want to do. They give you advice, they help you with your planning and they give you introductions and contacts to help you move forward.

I remembered Kevin.

I called Kevin. He remembered me.

He invited me up to where he lived, a couple of hours North of Sydney. The only time he could see me was the day after my birthday and I jumped at the opportunity.

He welcomed me into his home, fed me and over a coffee, asked me what I really wanted to do (that great question again!! Lucky me!). I shared my dream and the things that I was wanting to do. He listened more than he spoke. He went really quiet and thoughtful...I thought he was going to say something profound but he just got up, went to the kitchen and brought out a half eaten birthday cake. "We have cake!" he announced.

"Whose birthday was it?" I asked politely.

"It was my birthday yesterday!" he said, intent on carving a slice of his birthday cake.

"It was my birthday yesterday too!" I said quietly.

It was like something went clunk! We looked at each other amazed.

It shouldn't have meant anything, but it did. Every year since we both wish each other happy birthday on the day!

We sat down and did some planning and he lent me a couple of books and then took me around his district to show me the sights and just hang out. It didn't fit my picture of the highly structured Mentor/Mentor-ee relationship and I was concerned that I was wasting our time.

He took me to the railway station and waved me off - I was full of hopes and fears on that journey, but was full of Kevin's respect and belief in me. He knew I could do what I wanted to do and that meant a lot to me.

What happened after that was Kevin did introduce me to people who helped me a lot, who hired me and introduced me to even more people. I grew stronger and got regular work and shared my work with him and he mentored me faithfully - but all the time insisting that it was a friendship not a mentor relationship. He invited me to sit in and support him in his seminars and I met him in many different industries training rooms over the years.

I watched him, his family and his wife Bronwyn all grow and develop. He saw me finally meet up with Rose, find my own happiness and when our son finally was born, I finally found my place in the sun.

When he came out to New Zealand, I caught up with him and tried to explain to him the culture of this country, very different from Australia. He has traveller eyes - he always looks at things as if it was for the first time - I felt that in all the people I have tried to describe my experiences in New Zealand, that he understands it most of all.

Last week was a good week for me. I was invited to speak at a conference in Christchurch, where many of my coaching clients live. Because I work mostly on the phone or on Skype, I had never met most of them face to face. Rose booked them in to have coffee with me in a cafe, not to be coached, just to meet in person.

I met these amazing people for two days in a row - mostly back to back. The conversations were amazing. However, something unexpected happened with each meeting. My client would eyeball me and thank me for what I had done for them. Every time this thanks would go straight into my eyes, right down the cortical tube, right down deep in my belly....and would just sit there. It was a week ago and I can still feel this body of thanks in my belly.

Hearing people thank me has built my belief in my ability to add value and also in my commitment to make a huge difference in people's lives - to everyone I meet!

Then came a talk at a client's work which was amazing and then the conference itself. Both of these involved more speaking than listening and both went off really well.

I now believe in myself more than I have ever done in my life. Between the lovely people I work with thanking me and the buzz of watching people's eyes pop when they have insights and realisations in my training room - I now believe in my self - I even walk differently.

The funny thing though, on my return home as I sank into a comfy chair, was a parcel from Kevin. He sent me a book. Not just any book, but a book that he was inspired to read after reading on my blog about the three recent deaths in our lives.

He told me that when he read it he was thinking of me - he told me that he felt he wanted me to have it - not just a copy of the book, but his copy. He told me that I would know the pages that really touched him because his tears had stained the pages. How many guys can talk like this???

So I read it - Tuesdays with Morrie - a story about a student going back to visit his college professor who was dying of Lou Garret's disease. The professor had chosen to experience his dying as his last thesis and he wanted to share it with his student..and this book was the thesis.

Kevin is a mentor to many, a trainer to thousands - both him and I are both of that - maybe it's because we are born on the same date!

I think he finally has admitted to himself that he is my mentor and that he has listened to my my dreams, my successes, my failures and my heartbeat. And I think he knows how grateful I am for that....as well as the friendship we have had over the years.

This story is about Kevin. It's also about me.

But it could be about you.

About you finding a special person to listen to your dreams, your successes, your failures and your heartbeat.

You see, I've discovered that most people have never had someone like this in their life. And that most of the people that have people like this around them, don't recognise or appreciate what that relationship is all about - they are unconscious about that.

If you can get from this story how valuable a relationship like this is, and from seeing that value, go out and work with the mentors in your life, in your field of endeavor....and get the insights, the direction and the belief in yourself, that you just can't get by yourself......then the time you took to read this story has been well spent.

- Go for it!
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