eMMissary and sales leader, speaker, coach, and author Evans Duren provides a hearty story about the mentoring he’s received in our latest article. He tells us about a specific mentor in his life, which should make us each want to reflect upon those mentors and leaders in our own lives.
Last fall, Military Mentors Executive Director and Co-Founder Chevy Cook presented to an organization where I sit on the Board of Directors. Among the many profound statements he made, two really struck me. The first was, “You cannot change yourself in thirty minutes to who you haven’t been in thirty years.” The second was taken from the Army Special Operations motto, “I protect the nation without fear, without fail, and without equal.”
You cannot change yourself in thirty minutes to who you haven’t been in thirty years.
When we seek out a mentor, we look for someone to help us grow and mature in a particular area of our lives. This person should have a level of experience we have not yet gained, a proven track record of success, must be trustworthy while being committed to our growth, and is willing to be an active participant in the mentor/mentee relationship.
I protect the nation without fear, without fail, and without equal.
As someone from the civilian world, I cannot pretend to understand what it means to says these words as a United States Servicemember. That said, I can tell you that hearing someone from that community recite these words makes me want to strive for a greater level of excellence in my life. To be more for my family, my company, my clients, and my community.
As I reflect on Chevy’s statements, I think back to the mentors of my life. Who are the people that have been advisors, champions, and visionaries instilling confidence and enabling me to push further because they know there is something greater ahead than what I can see from my vantage point?
The truth is I have been fortunate to have several people pour into my life, and when I think about great mentors there are a handful of people that immediately come to mind. At the top of the list is Mr. Norman Scarborough, a business professor from Presbyterian College. I had no idea the impact he would have on my life as a young man navigating the transitional years from college to career, and his mentorship continues to this day.
I first met Mr. Scarborough my sophomore year while attending his Business Law class. I knew who he was because my father had studied underneath him twenty years earlier, but we had not been introduced up to this point. As he called the role, I remember him getting to my name and taking off his glasses after I raised my hand. He looked at me and asked if I had any relatives who previously attended the school. I answered that my father had gone to Presbyterian. Without missing a beat, he began to laugh and said “It’s finally happened. You are my first second generation student.”
I did not know it at the time, but this was a pivotal moment in my life personally and professionally. Over the next few years, Mr. Scarborough was officially in my corner as a professor and mentor. I was not a great student, but he was there to push me to expect more from myself. My junior year, he tapped me on the shoulder to run a concession stand for the baseball team as my own business. I signed a contract with Pepsi and sold concessions out of a tow behind trailer that season making a nice profit for a college student. That was my first taste of being an entrepreneur, and I was hooked.
As much as those two years shifted my attitude towards school and personal accountability when given an opportunity to excel, my senior year opened a new door that lead to my first post graduate job. When a local surgery center asked the Business Department to recommend an intern for a management program, Mr. Scarborough and another professor approached me for the position. I quickly accepted, and that internship lead to a sales role that set the direction of my career. Fifteen years later, my daily work is an extension of that internship.
I spoke with Mr. Scarborough this afternoon before putting pen to paper. Nearly twenty years since that Business Law class and he still takes my call, is always willing to lend an ear, share a word of advice, and always asks about my wife and children. His teaching career spans forty years, no doubt teaching thousands of students. Countless hours in the classroom, prepping, writing award winning textbooks, and he somehow makes time to walk alongside his students and pour into their lives even decades into their “adult lives.”
Mr. Scarborough has proven to be an outstanding mentor and agent of change for my life and countless others. My hope is that I can take what I have learned as his mentee and share that experience with someone else as a mentor in their life.