The Right Person at the Right Time Changes Everything

Being mentored makes your life bigger.

Becoming makes your life better.

I finally jumped the fence to my first professional job.

I graduated from the University of Miami with a BBA in Accounting. It took me a few weeks to land that first job with a CPA firm. The market was tight, and my grades weren't the best, but my persistence paid off.

I finally left the ranks of the hourly worker. I became a salaried employee, and I was now an accountant.

Jack Goldstein hired me. He was an incredible CPA. He made accounting look so easy. It just made sense to him. He tried his best to pass these skills on to me, but it was a tough task.

To this day, I have great respect for Jack. He taught me to be an accountant.

In fact, he taught me the basics of accounting, from transactions to journals, ledgers, trial balances, adjusting journal entries, and balance sheets and income statements.

Jack was my first mentor. I wanted to learn from Jack, but I never really wanted to be Jack. Looking back, I realized Jack was a mentor. This next step in my life introduced me to becoming.

Moving from Being Mentored to Becoming

Then I met Richard Brock. Richard was flown from Mobile, Alabama to Miami by IBM. He wrote a software package to manage and automate CPA firms. He was there to help IBM sell our CPA firm IBM’s first affordable small business computer, the System/32. Richard came to present his software product to the founder of our CPA firm, his executive assistant, and me, outlining how we could utilize it on our new computer to increase the firm’s revenue and profitability.

From the moment I saw Richard in action, I knew I wanted to be him.

Richard was both a CPA and a businessman. His focus wasn’t accounting. It was the business of public accounting. His vision was to change the CPA industry.

He was the first entrepreneur I ever met. Over the next three months, we worked together in a vendor-client relationship. In month four, he asked me to join him and his company.

I was excited and scared at the same time. Joining Richard meant moving to Mobile, Alabama, and leaving my newly developing career as a public accountant and soon-to-be CPA. It meant leaving my friends and family. And Mobile, Alabama? I told him I’ve never been west of I-95 in my life.

And what was the offer?

There was no title and no job description for the job he offered me. He told me I would do whatever needed to be done. But I knew, having spent so much time with him, that all he ever cared about was growing his business by selling lots of software. He promised me a steep learning curve, crazy challenges, ridiculous hours, and, one day, lots of money.

I was excited to hear this.

I liked the promise of lots of money as I was scraping by on $883 per month at the time. And now he offered me a forty-four percent raise to $1,200 per month. But what was most exciting to me was Richard. I wanted to work for Richard, to work side by side with him, to learn from him.

In my first, and only, performance review as an employee, Richard asked me, “What do you want to achieve in the next three years?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, I told him, “I want to be you.” And from that moment on, that’s what I did. I wanted to become Richard.

I experienced this same moment multiple times over my lifetime.

At each crossroad of my life, another leader appeared who would show me what I was to become.

I was to become that person. This included their occupation, their skill set, their methods, even their very life. I would work diligently for each of these people, learning all I could as I progressed in my career.

My life-career progression included:

Jack Goldstein —---->Accountant (Being mentored)

Richard Brock—----->Entrepreneur and startup businessman (Becoming)

Jim Porter—--------->General Manager of a fast-growth business (Becoming)

Sterling Williams—--->Executive of an enterprise (Becoming)

Sig Mosley—-------->Angel investor and community developer (Becoming)

Emma Morris—----->Faith-based business leader and teacher (Being mentored)

Bill Leonard—------->Christian non-profit leader (Becoming)

Gregg Hinthorn—--->Writer and Podcaster (Being mentored)

Bruce Cook—------->Last season of life leader (Being mentored)

I hear a lot about menteeing these days. What happened in my life, what changed my life, goes far beyond being mentored. That was all about learning new skills, so I might be more effective in my job or my life.

The big life change happened when I discovered a man I wanted to become. These men helped me become someone I could not have even imagined. To achieve far beyond any personal expectations. To be prepared to influence larger and larger groups of people, I had yet to meet. These people showed me my next big step in life, my next significant learning experience, and my new and expanded role.

Looking back, I believe God brought each of these people into my life at just the right time. He used them as his servants to make me into the man God originally designed me to become.

These people were far more than mentors. These people were role models for the next stage of my life.

I wanted to be them. I wanted more from them than to learn their skills. I wanted to become them. I wanted to lead like them, even in some cases, to behave like them. I wanted to please them. I wanted them to be proud of me as I became more and more like them.

How to use this in your business

If you are looking to hire someone, I am the person you want to hire. I am the person who can help you achieve your goals and transform your business. I am the person who respects you and the life and career you’ve built. I not only want what you have and all you achieved, but I want to be you.

Find me, this person who wants to be you, and you’ve struck gold. I am the person who is the right man and just the right time to learn from you and see around corners for you. I am someone you can trust and depend on. I am the person who will do what needs to be done, long before you realize it needs doing.

I am the next leader of your company. I am your replacement. I don’t threaten your leadership, I give you freedom to grow and allow you to find the person who can help you get there. I give you the freedom to become the man God designed you to be at this stage in your life.

This is not about being mentored.

This is about becoming.

God has a plan for your life. And what is great about God is that He puts just the right people in your life at just the right time, so you become who He wants you to be. You will recognize them because you want to become them.