Mentoring

Mentoring. When I was young I hated rich people mostly because the poor and lower middle class people I grew up with hated rich people mostly out of ignorance more than anything else. As I grew up there were enough benevolent rich people in my church that I started to change my opinion of rich people. A good friend of mine, Richard, who passed away 1 1/2 years ago was 3 years older and from a very rich family and mentored me into desiring to go to college and to make something of myself. My father said, "You can do anything you want to. That wasn't the case with me, son. My father wouldn't let me go to college even though I got the highest score in math and penmanship in the state of Washington." When I heard this it sort of confused me.

Later as I grew up I found that rich people weren't at all what I had been told by my poor and lower middle class peers. By this time my parents had become full middle class and so new opportunities of intelligent and rich people came into my life. Slowly, through education and diligence I moved upward in life but not in the way I had expected.

What I am getting at is that if you are young and poor or middle class begin to look for someone who is good at mentoring you into success. School, even college is only theoretical at best. Unless you have someone who has been there and succeeded then college alone won't help much especially in the realm of being an entrepreneur. Really successful people like Bill Gates and others with luck after success also become philanthropists. The Gates Foundation is now the wealthiest and most efficiently run not for profit on earth at present that I'm aware of.

So if you are smart and young, find a mentor that you can trust to teach you the real ropes and not just the theoretical ones you will get in college. Only a mentor and the school of hard knocks will take you to success. After success remember all those who helped get you there, all the parents and friends and teachers etc. After that if you still have enough left over start a foundation just like Bill and Melinda Gates did and REALLY change the world in whatever way you think it needs to change!