Tag: mentor

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artists Arts & Entertainment folk guitar music

Simple, Honest, Transparent, Beautiful


In a ten-year career tragically cut short by Leukemia, Kate Wolf wrote and performed over 200 songs. Her music is poignant, straightforward, honest, and beautiful. She performed at venues throughout her native state of California. Since her passing in 1986 at the age of 44, Kate’s audience has grown steadily as people like me discover her music. “September Song” (recorded on Kate’s 1979 album “Safe at Anchor”) is one of my favorites.

The song is replete with images. I particularly like the image conjured in the second verse illustrated below:

“The ghost of a frontier lady walks through the tall rooms/Of an old Ontario farmhouse under the full moon.”

Here’s my cover of “September Song.”

Categories
ebooks fiction humor Novels

The First Day of Forever

Hero of the novel Three Days to Darkness

This is the prologue to the new edition of “Three Days to Darkness.” I’ve extensively rewritten the original novel (first published in 2010) to bring it up to date. It’s amazing how the world has changed in eleven years, but some things never change, like the themes grounding the story. I’ve also added a paperback edition to the digital edition, along with a spiffy new interior design. Don’t miss this heartwarming, humorous, and action-packed saga available at major online retailers worldwide.

Darius McPherson never saw it coming. His thoughts were elsewhere. On the kids. The ones he could save. They weren’t kids, really. Some of them were older than him. They were all tough and uneven around the edges, but a few of them were diamonds in the rough. They were the ones he considered his kids. They had real potential. They just needed someone to care about them. They needed a role model and some inspiration. Darius was happy to provide both. Not a bad summer gig for a guy waiting for his first year of law school to begin.

He pressed the bell on the side of the barred wooden door. The royal blue paint under the ugly bars gleamed in the direct sunlight and looked completely out of place in the burned-out industrial neighborhood in midtown Detroit.

He waited patiently to be buzzed into the youth counseling center. “Be right with you, Darius,” his supervisor said through the intercom. He liked Allison Turner. In her late thirties and twice divorced, she had managed to stay kind-hearted despite rough circumstances. She was also extremely capable. Allison had taught him more about inner-city teenagers than he could have learned in a decade on his own.

The door opened and a group of youthful offenders burst into the street. Darius knew several of them. They were attending classes at the center as part of their plea bargains. Darius smiled at them, even though he knew most of them were as dangerous as plastic explosive wired to detonate at the slightest provocation.

“Hey La Vonn” Darius called to the tallest boy in the group. “I hope you learned something today.”

“Yeah. How to stay outta’ the crowbar hotel,” the slender boy replied.

“Do you mean learning how to game the system or how to stay out of jail?”

Darius noticed La Vonn’s eyes open wide. He turned around in time to see a gray Lincoln Navigator with shiny, twenty-inch wheels and dark tinted windows round a nearby corner. No rap music blared from inside the car, which made Darius suspicious. He heard the sound of footsteps running away from him. He thought it undignified to run. And why would anyone in the neighborhood want to harm him? When the windows came down in unison, a cold chill went through his body. Darius saw young men wearing ski masks inside the car. He had no time to react.

The first shots hit the cinderblock wall of the youth center. Not unlike fireworks on the Fourth of July, Darius remembered thinking before a bullet pierced his chest. At first, he felt like an ice pick had stabbed him in the heart. Then there was a burning sensation. He remembered seeing his body lying on the cracked sidewalk in a pool of blood. The last thoughts that went through his brain were of his parents, his older brother and younger sister, and of course, Rebecca. After that, he sensed his awareness swirling down a dark tunnel opening at the far away end into some kind of scintillating light.

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Categories
Essays inspiration issues life Making Changes motivation positive thinking profiles Success

Words From Afar Are Not Enough


Business team

Why One-On-One “You Specific” Mentoring Is Essential for Your Fulfillment and Success

I enjoy reading words of inspiration as much as you probably do.  I believe in the power of positive thinking.  I love practicing the art of creative visualization as much as the next guy or gal.  It’s all wonderful and good, but it takes more than arms-length words and solitary mental constructs to effect positive change and consistent success in any endeavor.  I’m a golf enthusiast, so I’ll use an example from the ranks of professional golf to make a few points.

Jason Day, a professional golfer from Australia, walked a crooked path to success.  Jason, unlike his super-successful contemporary, Jordan Spieth, did not have a strong connection with his parents while growing up. He had a troubled youth before meeting Colin Swatton at Kooralbyn, a golf-centric boarding school in southeast Queensland.  Jason’s mother had to borrow money to send her son to Kooralbyn in a desperate attempt to do something about his delinquent behavior after his father died of stomach cancer when Jason was 12.

Colin Swatton was a golf instructor at Kooralbyn when he first met the head-strong, rebellious Day. Swatton’s non-confrontational style won Jason over. When Swatton moved on to teach at Hills International College, Day followed him. From there, Swatton became Day’s golf coach, mentor, close friend, and full-time professional caddie.  In Jason Day, Swatton saw a diamond in the rough.  He gave his protégé the advice and encouragement needed to overcome the inner demons and soaring outer obstacles blocking Day’s path.  Swatton filled in the holes in Jason’s psyche and the gaps in his emotional development.  Jason Day possessed rare talent, but, by his own admission, he never would have become the man he is today without a whisperer like Colin Swatton in his life.  Despite the challenge of a bulging disc in his lower back, Jason is now one of the top-ranked golfers in the world.  He is a devoted father and husband, and he has earned the admiration and affection of his peers.

Enough of the super heroes of the world.  Let’s talk about you and me.  After I’ve read a self-help book, the inspiration and advice usually fade within forty-eight hours.  Formulaic self-help exercises quickly become dry practices that yield little or lasting benefits.  I picked up a self-help book by a famous author recently.  Two things became immediately clear: (1) the author had a lot of nice things to say, and (2) his precepts were so far over my head that I couldn’t practice them if I tried for a million years.

So, what does it take to move forward, achieve, and grow?

To amplify what I said earlier, it takes a special personal relationship.  It is a relationship that always accepts and honors who you are and where you are.  It can be a parental, mentoring, teaching, romantic, or friend-to-friend relationship.  In the case of the first three, the relationship begins with the child or student receiving more at first.  I’ve learned that, over time, the best of these relationships blossom into mutuality where both parties reap significant rewards. There’s an energy and information exchange in these relationships; call it love, call it caring and concern, call it chemistry. Whatever it is, it’s a radiant, magic elixir.  It produces extraordinary human beings, some famous and others who live and work quietly outside of the limelight.