Launching Into Life

My mentorship experience began very early in life – actually, the day I was born. Dad and Mom were my first mentors, and they took mentorship very seriously. My earliest training involved learning some of life’s most important lessons: “Suck, don’t bite;” “Cry, don’t scream;” and “Swallow, don’t spit.”

Before long, I graduated to much higher levels of training and development in areas like Organizational Hierarchy (obedience to parents), Process Efficiency (diligence), Interpersonal Communication (taming my tongue), and Public Relations (“Hi, my name is Danny, and I’m four-and-a-half years old. How old are you…I mean…how are you?”).

I’m not sure I always appreciated this sometimes intense mentorship process, but 20 years later, I realize mentorship is exactly what Mom and Dad were doing, and I’m extremely grateful – both to my parents and to the Lord for those lessons.

Over time, the Lord brought other mentors into my life in areas like upholstery, apologetics, sales, theology, and business.

Particularly significant was my mentorship in sales with Steve Riddell, Chief Sales Officer at Blinds.com – at that time, the largest online retailer of custom blinds.

At the age of 20, I landed my first “real” job: a sales position with CollegePlus. My sales experience up to that point amounted to selling about $150 worth of silver bullion on Craigslist, earning a net profit of $10. That’s it.

Once I had surmounted the first hurdle of landing a sales job with virtually no sales experience, I faced another challenge: surviving a sales position with virtually no sales experience.

I’d recently met Mr. Riddell, and I knew he had valuable insights about sales. I called him up and asked, “When do we start?” He replied, “Start what?” I said, “I just landed this sales job. I know next to nothing about sales. I need you to mentor me!”

He agreed, and that day began one of the best learning experiences of my life.

We would talk periodically, and little by little, he taught me the sales techniques it had taken him years to develop and master.

After each conversation with Steve, I would get on the next sales call eager to apply what I had just learned. To ensure I was doing it right, I recorded my sales calls and sent them to Steve for review. Once he’d listened to one of my calls, we’d talk again. Ten minutes after his loving but extensive critique, I’d be back on the phones with a clearer understanding of what I had done wrong and how to improve. Steve mentored me intensively for about three years.

Within just a year of taking the position with CollegePlus, I was the youngest member on the sales team, and also the highest converter, not because I was a great salesman but because I had a great mentor and the perfect opportunity to practice what he taught me.

A few months after I started selling for CollegePlus, my parents and I decided it was time for me to receive additional musical training in composing, conducting, music theory, and vocal pedagogy. As we considered our options, the only choice we could wrap our minds around was taking classes locally at Eastern Washington University.

After testing out of first-year music theory, I enrolled in a full load of music classes. Nine months later, I had earned 60 credits between on-site classes (with a 3.9 GPA) and additional credits earned through prior learning assessment. I also won the university solo voice performance competition and performed with the university symphony.

By all accounts, it was an exceptional learning experience.
Except it really wasn’t.

As I stepped back and contrasted my college experience with the life-integrated mentorship experiences I had enjoyed, I realized I could have learned far more in a few months of private lessons with a local conductor than I did in a full school year of conducting classes waving my arms at a professor. It’s not that I didn’t learn anything; it’s that a mentorship-based approach would have been far more effective.

At the outset, we had considered a mentorship approach to musical studies but didn’t know how to piece it together. I didn’t know how to find a mentor or structure a mentorship. However, those experiences inspired me to create a solution for others.

After completing my degree, I spent several years traveling, speaking, and recruiting for CollegePlus. Interacting with thousands of families, I saw many facing similar questions:

1. Is a traditional college education the best option when many graduates show no significant cognitive gains after four years and struggle to find full-time employment?
2. How can students gain real-life experience and application needed for their vocations?
3. Most importantly, who will shape their sense of calling: their parents, a godly mentor, or a secular professor?

Eventually, I realized families needed a plan – a step-by-step approach to mentor-driven, life-integrated skill development like I had experienced with Steve Riddell. That’s why I helped create the Kickstart program: an in-depth training program designed to help students launch into life with clear vision through one-on-one mentoring and real-life application.

Kickstart guides students through defining life goals, finding mentors in their community, and engaging in meaningful hands-on learning experiences. 

It would be difficult to overstate
the impact that mentorship has had on my life.

Mentoring relationships – both with my parents and other men – have been the essential influence in developing my character, knowledge, and abilities.

These relationships have also been a primary source of opportunities for real-life application, training, and pursuing my vocation. Most importantly, mentoring relationships have shaped my vision for life.

So is mentorship a good idea? Fundamentally, mentorship is how Jesus prepared 12 men who changed the world 2,000 years ago, and I believe it’s still the most powerful method for launching young men and young women into life today.