Rock Star the Nerds: Why a Great Mentor Is the #1 Predictor of Success

But first, two stories.

When I was fourteen years old, I was a raging nerd. Bright-eyed, gullible, undersized, and bullied with remarkable consistency. There were days when I spent more time stuffed in a trash can or hanging from a coat rack than I did wandering the halls of our high school. I was not exactly sitting at the cool kids’ table.

About that time, I went to work one summer at a gas station for one of my Young Men leaders, Ray Alan Yardley. Ray Alan was a big, burly, bearded mountain man. He was also a wonderful man who occasionally used language that was quite incongruent with his position as a leader in our religion.

One day, some of the local “studs” were giving me a hard time. I was nearby, but Ray Alan didn’t know I could hear him. He lit those boys up like a firecracker. The language was colorful, to say the least.

But it wasn’t his defense of me that changed something inside me. It was what he said next.

“You better f#%$^&% be nice to that kid. He’s going to be a millionaire!”

I froze. A millionaire? Me?

Ray Alan had absolutely no idea I was listening. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good or giving me a motivational speech. He simply believed it. And somehow, because he believed it, I believed it.

I had never really considered that possibility before. But standing there in that gas station, hearing this big mountain man declare that I was going to become something, something shifted inside me. Maybe I could. Maybe I would. And from that moment forward, somewhere deep inside that nerdy kid, I think I knew I would.

Now let me give you the opposite story.

I know another individual with a deep, booming, authoritative voice. He’s a master of virtue signaling. In casual conversation, he makes sure EVERYONE knows about his righteousness, his good deeds, and the wonderful things he does for others. And inevitably, somewhere in that conversation, he points out his adult daughter who “still lives with us” or references the unwed mother they’re helping and how deeply “she struggles.” I don’t need to provide commentary on the tragic surroundings of this young woman’s life. You already know what it looks like.

Do you see the contrast in the two engagements?

One person looks at someone who is struggling and announces their weakness. The other looks at a nerd hanging from a coat rack and announces his possibility.

We tend to rise toward the expectations of the people we respect. Most of us already know our mistakes, shortcomings, and failures. In fact, most of us are considerably better at beating ourselves up than anyone around us could ever be.

What we desperately need are people willing to stand beside us, see something bigger in us, believe in us, and then lovingly challenge us to become a little better.

That brings me to what matters most.

After decades of building companies, mentoring entrepreneurs, raising children, working with families, and watching people succeed and fail, I have become convinced that one of the greatest predictors of a successful outcome is remarkably simple: a great mentor.

I can point directly to people who altered the trajectory of my life. My first real business mentor was Alan Hall. Without Alan, there is a reasonably good chance I would have spent considerably more years pumping gas instead of building companies. He saw things in me I could not yet see in myself. He challenged me, opened doors, raised my expectations, and helped me understand what was possible.

That is what extraordinary mentors do.

And parents, this matters enormously with your children. One of the greatest gifts you can give a young person is helping them find vibrant, good, interesting adults who see something in them and believe in who they can become. Most of the time, that person cannot be you. Your role as a parent is different from the role of a mentor.

There is something extraordinarily powerful about another respected adult looking at your child and saying: “I see you. I believe in you. And I think you are capable of something remarkable.” Sometimes they will hear it from that person in a way they simply cannot hear it from you.

And by the way, this doesn’t end when you turn eighteen. If you don’t have mentors in your life, go get some.

You don’t need to awkwardly walk up to someone and formally announce, “Will you please be my mentor?” Just get around extraordinary people. Help them. Serve them. Do kindnesses for them. Ask thoughtful questions. Watch how they operate. Learn how they think. Walk beside them. Model what works. For crying out loud, they don’t even have to know they’re mentoring you.

Find people who are living portions of the life you want to live, and learn from them.

So look around you. Find the awkward kid. Find the struggling entrepreneur. Find the young adult who hasn’t quite found their footing. Find the person who is doubting themselves. Find the nerd.

And instead of reminding them of where they’re falling short, tell them what you can see in them that perhaps they cannot yet see in themselves. Then stand beside them long enough that they begin to believe it too.

Go forward. Live a big, glorious, fancy pants dance life. Don’t dream small. Make a difference. Believe outrageously in good people and challenge them to rise into their potential.

And every once in a while, when you find one hanging from the proverbial coat rack, rock star that nerd.

Rich Christiansen