I’d like to tell you about someone who was very special in my life.
People ask me a lot why we do mentoring for free. They want to know what my angle is. Some of them really put time into figuring out how I’m going to take advantage of them.
Let me tell you a story.
I was a kid. Maybe 10 years old. My dad heard about a basketball court in a local churchyard where the old backboard & basket were in really bad shape.
Dad couldn’t buy a backboard. So he went to the lumberyard and bought a 3/4? piece of plywood. He bolted it together, made a nice big, thick backboard, painted it white, put a basketball hoop on it, backed up his pick-up truck.
And he’s standing there up in the bed of the pick-up, on a Saturday, putting this backboard up – when the preacher drives up.
The preacher asks, “What are you doing?”
Dad says, “I’m putting up a backboard.”
Preacher: “Well, I don’t know YOU!”
Dad: “No.”
Preacher: “Well, why’re you doing it?”
I’ll never forget that. Now here’s a man, a pastor, a man who leads a congregation, and he couldn’t understand why my dad was doing that. Wow! I sure wouldn’t want that pastor leading ME!
He couldn’t figure that one out.
That’s The Kind of Stuff My Dad Did All The Time!
I’m so thankful that I learned from him and just took it right over to network marketing.
My father had a garage in Cleveland, Ohio. He had a customer who used to come in, to buy gasoline from my dad. Dad serviced his car, a ë57 Chevy. It had about 200,000 miles on it, had a bad motor, needed a valve job.
The guy’s name was Ernie. He came into the shop one day and told my dad, “My wife and I & our 2 kids are moving to Florida. Can you check out my car, see if it’ll make it?”
Dad said, “That car won’t make it around the block.”
Ernie says, “I don’t have any money.”
And all Dad knew was, this man bought gas from him. Didn’t know him from Adam.
At the time, my Dad was feeding 5 children, 5 boys. Anyway, Dad did a valve job on that 6-cylinder Chevrolet engine. He put in new belts & hoses, got it in perfect shape, so it would make it to Florida.
And Ernie told my father, “Frank, when I get to Florida, and I get some money ahead, I’ll send it to you.”
And he did. It was about a year, but Ernie sent Dad the money. He had moved to Florida, and he started building homes. That was back in what they called the “5990s”. You got a lot, a new home with a garage for $5,995. They were called the “5990s”. And Ernie became one of the biggest homebuilders in Florida.
My mother had bad health, a bad heart. The doctor said the best thing for her would be to get out of Ohio and move to a warmer climate. Dad said, “How about Florida?”
Well, Ernie Russaw had invited my dad to come down there. Dad & mom went down for a vacation, and when I was 6, in 1959, we moved to Florida.
Diaster – Then a Miracle – In Ohio –
My father used to race stock cars. Work was tough to get in Florida, and after a few years there, my dad went back to Ohio to work in a garage he had. His old stock car buddies convinced him to build them some engines.
My dad built the engines, and his buddy went to the track. He set a new track record with the motor my dad built. My dad was setting the timing on the race car, and you have to rev the engine up to do it. You can’t use the timing light, because it has a big cam in it.
So the car was idling, and Dad revved the engine a couple times. This was a standard shift with a pressure plate, and the pressure plate had a crack in it. It exploded, came out through the bell housing, hit my dad in the left leg. And it cut his left leg almost completely off.¬
It severed the bone, crushed the bone. Five inches of the bone was missing. Only thing holding his leg on was the muscle in the back.
So they got him on a stretcher and took him to the hospital. The doctor decided to snip the muscle in the back, amputate the leg.
And my father said, “No. You can’t do that. I’ve got 5 children to support. If you cut my leg off, you may as well shoot me.”
The doctor said, “Frank, there’s no other way.”
And Dad said, “Go to the track, find the bone, find the pieces, put that leg together, and it will heal. I believe it will heal.”
So they got all those crushed pieces of bone, all the fragments they could find. They put the leg together, and they worked to make it the same length as the other one. they put the bone fragments in, sewed it up, put it in a cast – and it healed perfectly.
My father wore a brace for about 3 years. He could still dance with the brace on. He never walked with a limp. You never would have known he had a bad leg.
And Then, a Miracle In Florida!
We made a trip up to Ohio to stay with Dad. I worked several months on a farm to support the family. The labor I did paid for the rent and groceries.
And when we finally got moved back to Florida, my dad needed a garage. He had no money to put down for it, no way to pay. But Ernie built my dad a garage, fully equipped, and my dad ran that garage the rest of his life. Ernie paid my dad back for getting him started on his own trip to Florida.
Was that a stretch for my dad to do a valve job on that ’57 Chevy? Yeah. We kids probably all ate beans for a few days. But he did it, because that’s who my dad was.
People wonder why Linda & I do mentoring for free. I get asked all the time why I spend 15 hours a week doing conference calls for any network marketer, no matter what company they’re in, for free.
And the answer is simple. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what my dad would have done. I loved that man, and he was a shining example of how to live your life. He would have been GREAT in network marketing!
To Your Success,
Ben Drake
“Be A Mentor With A Servant’s Heart!”
From mentoring for free email tips by Michael Dlouhy.
Download our free eBook at
http://bdrake.successin10steps.com/?mad=52669
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