Gratitude for Mentors
Christmas is a natural time to count our blessings, and most of all to reflect on the people who have helped give our lives meaning. Strange as it sounds, I met one of the most important people in my life, my mentor John Moniz, because of a free chicken sandwich.
Like many kids, growing up in a poor single-parent home was tough for me. By the time I was in ninth grade I was flunking out of high school, with no plans for the future except being a pro football player or some kind of entertainer.
But that all changed when I was 15 and I got a job working at the movie theater in the Northwoods Mall in Charleston, right next door to the Chick-fil-A franchise John owned. His two boys, ages ten and two, loved to play in the movie theater and I lived on John’s waffle fries, so maybe it was fated we would meet.
One day John asked me why I only got the fries and never ordered a chicken sandwich, and I answered honestly that I couldn’t afford it. Not long after he came by the theater and slid a sandwich across the desk — a surefire strategy for winning over a hungry teenager.
Starting with that free sandwich, over the next few years I would become an honorary member of the family. The more time I spent with the Moniz family, the hungrier I became for John’s knowledge. I was excited to learn how to become successful like him.
John, who was a conservative, completely changed my worldview and the future course of my life. He taught me that giving always comes before receiving: first you work and show your worth, then you get the rewards, not the other way around.
He taught me that success has less to do with talent than grit. Most of all he taught me to recognize and embrace my own value, and to let that new appreciation of my own worth flow into every part of my life.
I only came to fully grasp many of his lessons after his untimely death from a heart attack just four years after he gave me that chicken sandwich.
But over time, as John’s mentoring took hold, I came to see my own hidden potential, not just my obvious shortcomings. I found myself working harder, my grades improved, and I finally understood the incredible effort my mother was making to provide for us.
John never got to see the difference he made in my life, or hear my gratitude for what he did. But that was the whole point: he wasn’t doing it for him, he was doing it for me.
Fittingly, every lesson that John taught was also a lesson about the importance of mentorship itself, of passing on your knowledge and giving a kind hand up to the next generation, even if this kindness might not bear fruit for years or even decades.
