Tag Archives: mentor

Still Feeling Lucky Decades Later

by Woody

It is hard to imagine anyone being luckier in Las Vegas than I was 40 years ago come next month. Freshly graduated from UCSB, but jobless, I got a phone call that proved to be like a Jackpot-Jackpot-Jackpot spin on a slot machine.

A newspaper editor had tracked me down on my honeymoon, no easy feat back before cellphones, to offer me an interview for a sportswriter position. That was the good news.

The bad news was the tiny twice-weekly publication, The Desert Trail, was in Twentynine Palms – a one-stoplight triple-digit-temperatures town that was not exactly where a young bride dreams of beginning her new wedded life. No matter, Lisa and I cut our honeymoon a couple days short and took a detour through the high desert on our drive back to Goleta.

Dave Stancliff, a top-dog newspaperman, mentor and friend.

I not only got the job, I got a great boss, life-changing mentor, and dear friend in the deal. The latter happened – nearly literally – overnight as Dave Stancliff, his wife Shirley and their three young sons, took me into their home for three weeks until Lisa could join me.

Under Dave, I received a hands-on journalism education that surpassed a master’s degree and made me a better writer. More importantly, he imparted life lessons that made me a better person. For example, instead of giving a homeless person a few bucks for a fast-food hamburger, Dave would buy him or her a restaurant meal. Sometimes he even surprised Shirley by bringing a hungry stranger home as a dinner guest.

Along with a heart of gold, Dave has mettle of steel. Straight from high school he went to fight in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Stories of his experiences as a soldier gave me nightmares, yet he didn’t even share the worst of the hell he saw.

Indeed, a decade before Tim O’Brien’s remarkable Vietnam War novel, “The Things We Carried” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, I learned about “The Things Dave Carried” home from that war: PTSD and physical health issues caused by Agent Orange. He bravely battled those foes – and still does – as if they were merely opponents in the ring when he was an Army boxing champion.

To say I admire Dave is a great understatement, so a recent “As It Stands” blog post he wrote headlined “The Two Most Inspirational People I’ve Ever Met” caught my eye. After all, to be worthy of Dave’s highest esteem would require someone quite special. Eugene “Red” McDaniel certainly measures up. He is a Vietnam vet who, after being shot down over Hanoi in 1967, spent six years as a POW before being freed.

“Red, who received the most brutal torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, showed me how indomitable the human spirit is in the worst of times,” Dave writes now, having first met McDaniel in the mid-1970s while writing for the campus newspaper at Humboldt State.

“His positive attitude about everything in life was actually therapeutic for me (and my PTSD),” Dave continues, happily concluding: “Red is 93 years-old and is still going strong.”

Reading further along, I was suddenly struck by twin lightning bolts of shock and disbelief: “The other really positive person in my life is Woody Woodburn…”

The flowery praise that follows is, with no false modesty, unmerited. Nonetheless, the kind words put birdsong in my heart and bring to mind something Chuck Thomas, another dear mentor of mine, liked to say: “Don’t wait until tomorrow to tell a friend how you feel about them today.”

Wise advice for us all.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

Mentoring: Take Baton, Pass It On

by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

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1StrawberriesCoverWooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upFor a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

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Mentoring is a Relay: Take Baton, Pass It On

For the longest time, I never quite understood why Jim Murray wrote me a return letter and later became my mentor.

After all, “Mr. Murray” – I never could call him “Jim” despite his request – was already on the Mount Rushmore of Sportswriters while I was a just college senior seeking career counsel.

That was 36 years ago, long before the ease of email, and Mr. Murray penned me a thoughtful page-long handwritten reply that included this gem: “If you are meant to be a writer, you will be. No one can stop a writer from writing. Not even Hitler could do that.”

This Thursday – Aug. 16 – marked the 20th anniversary of Murray’s death. My goodness, what a debt I will forever owe him. He not only helped me become a better writer, but a better person as well.

Woody_and_Jim_Murray

With my writing idol and mentor, Jim Murray

For example, my annual Holiday Ball Drive has his fingerprints all over it. Reading “The Best of Jim Murray” three decades past, I was deeply moved by a passage about his pre-sports days as a crime reporter. Specifically, he told of his heartache doing a story on a little girl who lost her leg after being run over by a truck.

“The thought of her going though life that way made me shrink,” Murray wrote.

My literary hero took $8 he had left from his paycheck – “which was only $38 to begin with in those days” – and bought the girl an armful of toys and took them to her in the hospital.

That next Christmas, I bought an armful of basketballs and donated them to the Special Olympics. Later, when I saw a young boy ruining a keepsake autographed basketball because he had no other basketball to play with, it was only natural to start an official ball drive.

Further emulating Murray, when I received a letter from a 13-year-old Thousand Oaks boy about 20 years ago, I responded. Fast forward: Jon Gold is now a gifted sportswriter proving he can make it anywhere by making it in New York City.

Three Februarys past, that boy-turned-man made me feel like a Pulitzer Prize winner by inviting me, out of the blue, to his wedding. More unbelievably, he told me I was his Jim Murray.

“I couldn’t wait to read your sports column,” Jon shared. His words that followed caressed my heart: “What you wrote back to me is something I carry with me to this day. You were a hero, are a hero, and more, a friend.”

My goodness, I hope my similar sentiments expressed to Mr. Murray made him feel half as wonderful.

Another wonderful feeling was mine when Camarillo resident Stephen Jester sent me a copy of his new book of poetry – with a surprising dedication page for all to see: “To Woody Woodburn, my friend, mentor and fellow author.”

I was floored. What had I done to deserve such an honor? It seems that after Stephen had been harshly told to give up his dream of becoming a writer, I simply sent him words of encouragement. Probably, I even quoted Mr. Murray’s Hitler line.

“Telling someone to continue to follow their dreams, and you’re proud of them, is a powerful message that goes right to the heart,” Stephen told me recently. “You inspire and encourage me to continue my writing journey. That’s why you’re on the dedication page.”

Mentoring is a relay event in life. Take the baton, run, pass it on. As John Wooden said: “I have lived my life to be a mentor, and to be mentored, constantly.”

I’m thankful Jim Murray felt likewise.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden & Me Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Magic in Being a Mentee or Mentor

by Woody

1StrawberriesCoverWooden&Me_cover_PRFor a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

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Magic in Being a Mentee or Mentor

An over-worn cliché has it that something really boring is “like watching paint dry.”

While I have never felt obliged to test the truth of this adage, I do know that watching someone paint can be quite the opposite. An artist working on a canvas, or a craftsman painting a wall with a hand so steady he doesn’t need painter’s tape to protect the ceiling, can be entertaining and even enthralling.

Indeed, if a person paints with passion and mastery, I can sit for a long spell watching. And if an experienced artist is teaching another person – showing and instructing and encouraging – I become spellbound. I feel vicariously like a lucky mentee myself. This is true viewing a master in any endeavor.1mentor

I once watched, totally engrossed for more than an hour, a master bricklayer and an apprentice build a wall. At first, the master did most of the work; by the end, the apprentice was working solo. As it should be.

So it was a great pleasure recently when I got to be a fly on the wall, so to speak, and eavesdrop on a grandly successful business owner enthusiastically sharing his knowledge with a college student.

The business owner, nearly three times the age of the student, is nearing the end of his career. The student, meanwhile, started his own business a year ago and it has become a growing success already.

“The Kid” is entering his senior year at Pepperdine majoring in Integrated Marketing and Communications. He reached out to “The Master” in hopes of gaining a dose of wisdom that is not readily offered in the classroom or lecture hall.

It seems to me The Kid is already on a winning path because few things are as instrumental to success as finding worthy mentors and role models. Eric Greitens, a former Rhodes Scholar and Navy Seal and humanitarian, agrees. In his best-selling book, “Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life”, he writes:

“If I sat down in your living room and placed a giant bag of a jigsaw puzzle pieces on a table in front of you and asked you to put all the pieces together, what’s the first thing you’d ask for?

“I’m guessing you’d ask for a picture. You’d want to know how all of the pieces fit together. You’d want to know what you’re trying to make. Here’s the thing: life only hands you pieces. You have to figure out how to put them together.

“Your life doesn’t come with a picture of what it’s supposed to look like on a box. You have to – you get to – choose that picture for yourself. And you choose it by looking for a model of a life well lived. That’s your picture.”

The Kid has chosen The Master as one of the pictures for how his own puzzle pieces might best fit together.

It is not important for me to share the specifics The Master shared with The Kid during their hour-and-a-half restaurant visit. Suffice to say, The Kid listened raptly, asked insightful questions, and listened some more.

Here is what really struck me: The Master also asked insightful questions and listened fully. The Master is a master, it seems to me, because he knows he doesn’t know it all and wants to learn what he can from the younger generation.

What began as a nervous ask-and-listen session quickly became a comfortable two-way conversation. Afterward, The Kid said it was one of the most informative experiences he has ever had.

I dare say The Master enjoyed it equally. He has kindly offered more of his time and wisdom since. A mentorship was born.

I guess the point of sharing this story is simply to encourage more people to knock down any metaphorical brick walls that are preventing them from reaching out to a potential mentor.

Also, to encourage more of us to be mentors.

After all, it is one thing to be the picture of a completed puzzle – it is even more rewarding to help someone learn how to actually put the pieces together.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden & Me Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

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