Tell us about a mentor that made a difference in your life?

I feel that finding a mentor is one of the most important steps anyone can take, especially during the beginnings of a career. I went to college for Comp Sci but I was also (and still am) a musician, so I made most of my money from playing shows. One day a guy called me looking for a drummer."Can you come out and jam with us?

We want to do something new and the music store said you were the best around. " I followed the directions they gave me and ended up at a beautiful, towering colonial house and saw BMWs in the driveway. I knew these weren't typical musicians.

I went there and jammed out, and they thought I was a great player and hilarious. At the end of the night, I asked them, "What do you guys do?" And they both said the name of the company where they worked and said they were IT folks.

I don't know if any of you can identify with this, but I had an unhealthy obsession with this company since I was in high school. It was a company that was universally respected, and to work there, one had to be the best of the best - the elite. I told them that I was in Comp Sci and my dream was to work at the company.

Shortly after I began playing with them, my father died of cancer and I was a wreck. I was in school and playing gigs, and I was certain that I would have to drop out of college and get a job to help my mother survive. I played a gig about a week after his death, and the band leader took me around the block, and we had a smoke and talked about life.

He pumped me up and told me that I had all the skills necessary to be successful, but that I just needed to get in the door. He also told me that he didn't think I was quite ready yet, that I didn't have the drive necessary, and to finish my degree at all costs.So I finished college, and I immediately went to Korea on a tour with a band for half a year as "relief" from the horrible events that were happening. When I got back, I got a phone call.

"Dude, we have a new band but we really want you to play drums. Are you game? " It was the same guy.

I accepted. We started playing, and then I started feeling "it" - the feeling that he described that I would have when I was "ready" to embark on a real career. "When you see your friends start having kids and moving into their own houses, your entire value system will change and you will re-evaluate what is "cool" and what is "important.

" He was right. I felt like a loser. So he gave me some books and said, "Your full time job is now to read these books and look for a job.

All day, just learn and start looking." I did this for 4 months and I just kept turning up dead ends and I was running out of cash and gigs. I called my mentor up and said, "I have to do something.

I am broke, and I cannot find a job." He said, "Hold on..." and conference called someone else. I heard him talking.

" yeah I got my buddy on the line... yeah, he's a great tech, and he's looking for some work. He's the real deal. OK, cool.

" Somehow, with one phone call, I had a job.No interview. Nothing. Just the sound of one guy's voice.

He spilled the beans to me. "Man, your job was just a phone call away the whole time. I just wanted to see if you'd actually put forth the effort to find a job, and I wanted to make sure you knew SOMETHING so you didn't go in cold.

Also, I wanted to see you sweat a little bit. " Yep. This is when I learned the most important lesson in life - "It's 100% who you know."

You can imagine his name alone continued to get me into doors, and my next job was at the company I always wanted to work at. And it was everything I thought it would be. Now, I am one level below him, and (as long as I get to keep it), I have the greatest job in the world, all thanks to a chance phone call and a whole lot of drumming.

I suggest you all find your mentor. My usual advice is to find out what you want to do in life (if you don't know, pick something that pays the best) and start asking everyone you know if they know anyone in that industry. Find a common interest with the person, spend a lot of time with them, and if they are cool and successful at what they do (generally you want a mentor that is successful at EVERYTHING they do), you're in the right boat.

One of the greatest mentors I have had in my life was when I was 18 and lived abroad for a year. My mentor was also my EMT instructor and taught me more about how to help people on a personal level than any else. He taught by example by caring for every person in the class not just on an academic level, but on a personal level where you felt that he was genuinely interested in your life.

Being 18 and in another country was hard enough, but he even helped me deal with my girlfriend (now wife) after class one day. My mentor was there with me when llary Clinton gave me my EMT license and was gone exactly a week later when he was killed by a sniper trying to save someone. In life and in death this mentor demonstrated how selfless a person can be and how many lives just one person can change.

In 1964 my seventh grade teacher taught me to question whether or not my beliefs about the races were true or just something that I had memorized. This was one of the most crucial lessons of my life and her example led me to realize that I needed to judge a person by the character of his or her heart rather than by the color of their skin.

Mentors are so important. A good mentor can put you on a path toward realizing your goals - not an easy thing to figure out sometimes. My mentor was a director of a play I was in.

I was quite lost, didn't know exactly where I was headed in my career or life. I was stuck in my thinking that there was only one way to succeed. He made me see the possibilities in theatre, that there's more than one path, one way to succeed.

A good mentor is someone who isn't there to talk endlessly about themselves, about what they do or did. They don't succeed through ruthless means - that's a short term answer to obtaining goals. They share, they question, they make you think.

Who talks to you, questions you and makes you think about your life?

I went to school to pursue my dream of becoming a rich architect. One of my professors saw in me the ability to do something unrelated to the architectural field, and told me I should follow that road instead. I eventually took his advice, dropped out of the curriculum and followed my new destiny.

I'm now very successful in a non-architecture related field. I am thankful that my professor and mentor had the courage to tell me what I wanted to pursue for money wasn't the way it was done. I should follow the path that life has chosen for me.

He told me, "Do what you love, and the money will follow.

I went to college to fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher. Putting myself thru school, I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Elementary Ed several years later. After some work experience I went to Grad school for Special Education.It was a lot of work, but I got thru almost all of my classwork, when life took over and I had to leave grad school.

Several more years passed, then I emailed a few professors at my college about coming back. I had all but given up when I made contact with a professor who not only talked me into coming back, but also got me into the classes I needed. Thanks to his support and encouragement, I will be FINALLY graduating with a MASTER's degree this May!

I'm a bit of an oddball. I didn't really have a mentor until I was an adult. Oh, I had good teachers, but no one that I really worked with one-on-one until I was married and had a couple of small kids.

I drove across the country and spent several long weekends at my mentor's house. She had kids slightly older than mine (her youngest was the same age as my oldest); similar interests and lifestyle. What she had that I didn't was she'd figured out a way to make it all work: working from home; educating gifted children herself; a parenting system.

Over those visits, we spent lots of time talking, and I watched her in action. And in between, we talked weekly, as friends, but also in a mentoring relationship. She helped me see that what I was trying to do was possible, and she gave me multiple ideas for how to do those things.

Some worked for me and some didn't; but then I found things that did. I became pretty successful in that business; my kids to this day are doing quite well; our house became peaceful.

I have had several great mentor in my life, I guess I didn't realize they were mentoring me and they were great mentor until our path separated, but I see there influences on me till this day.

I've had allot of mentors in my life, my grandfather probably the most influential. Allot of our grandfathers and old people are influential, it may sound like I am "preaching" but it's from the bible that says "from the mouth of babes" So.. I'll give you this. Not really a mentor but some words I have always taken with me wherever I ended up."Don't try and be like me, try and be better than me, this way you can be better and the game can be a better game" ~ Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal The 7'1" center for the Phoenix Suns.

Reserve State Police officer in FL. Guess you could call him a mentor. Just a small note as well: I actually believe shaq was quoting his father when he said this.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.