I mentored a seventh-grader who had moved to Oregon from Eritrea, next to Ethiopia. He was polite, hardworking, and focused. The only thing he lacked was confidence, but what thirteen-year-old has confidence?  I definitely have my strengths (writing) and weaknesses (math), and after working together for a couple of years, he knew both. My role in math was to passively watch him effortlessly breeze through every exercise. One day, as he pulled out his homework assignments, I asked him if he had any writing projects. “No, not today, but I do have your favorite subject: math,” he said. Great, I thought, I‘ve taught him to be sarcastic. “Hey, you need to grow as a mentor,” he quipped. “Thanks,” I replied. “You’re welcome. That’s what I’m here for,” he said with a knowing smirk.

Help people grow.

I preach that marketing is really just about relationships. It took a golf outing with one client to really drive it home for me personally. On the third tee box, he called out, “L-MAC, you’re up.” We had a good working relationship to this point, but it hit me that the moment you get a nickname, the relationship has jumped to a new level. For the rest of the round, we joked about creating the “L-MAC5000” golf brand, “for those golfers ready to take their game to the next level.” I had a graphic designer create this logo, which I put on golf balls as giveaways and a personal reminder. As Vice President Product Development of L-MAC 5000, my client got the first sleeve.

It’s all about relationships.

When I started consulting, a friend told me to always say yes to projects and then figure out how to do it. It was upon taking her advice that I found myself in the Arlington Club one afternoon facilitating the second strategic planning session of my life with a prominent architectural firm. I thought it was going well, until one of the senior partners took the marker from me and took over the process. I was totally deflated by being upstaged and even felt guilty cashing the check. But they hadn’t seen it that way. I ended up doing the market research and putting together the plan, which created an unassailable niche in the market. The end product was much better than I could have come up with by myself and still stands as some of my best work.

Let people solve their own problems.

The owner of a financial services firm worried that their systems to track clients’ businesses weren’t adequate. “Facilitate a staff meeting and find the problems,” he said. That wouldn’t do much for morale. Maybe staff had their individual systems but hadn’t shared it with each other. I made the retreat a show-and-tell rather than an inquisition and helped the staff clearly present their systems in a way that made sense to everyone. Not only was the owner happily reassured, the staff felt validated by being acknowledged. One team member, who had dreaded this meeting, scribbled this smiley face on my notepad during the session.

Give people credit.

My son’s third-grade teacher asked me if I would work with a student who really struggled with reading. The girl’s parents were both professional writers, and I could see the determination on her face as she struggled with each word. My mother was an elementary reading teacher, and I remembered helping her make flash cards at the kitchen table. But nothing I did now seemed to help this girl. We worked every week for a year, and I was discouraged by the lack of progress. We stopped when the school year ended. When school started again in the fall, I ran into her mother in the hall. “My daughter jumped two reading grade levels over the summer!” she beamed.

We can’t always see progress.

I was charged with turning all the project managers at a construction company into salespeople. The training and coaching were going fairly well until the most senior project manager stonewalled me in front of twenty people. “I’m not going to do it.” He was a big guy with beefy arms stuffed uncomfortably into a dress shirt. Because of his stature, I knew I needed his support or all was lost. I said, “Marketing does kind of suck, but because of your building background, you’re the person owners really want to talk to, not a sales guy, like me.” After a long pause, he said, “I’ll go on a call if someone else wants to open the door.”

Let people find their own path.

I had been recommended for what looked like a great project: creating a strategic marketing plan for a high-profile organization. My first meeting with the manager went very well, but that changed when I met his manager. I’m not sure if he had ever worked with a consultant before, but part of the deal is that you have to let the consultant do their job. Dismissive and condescending, he began to micromanage the project before it had even started. I didn’t want to turn down the money, but I couldn’t work for someone who didn’t respect me. I politely declined the project, even though I didn’t have anything on the horizon. Two hours later, I received an email from another friend for a huge market research project that paid ten times more.

Respect yourself first.

Our values drive the bus.

A good friend asked if I wanted to speak at a trade conference on networking. It was a presentation I had done many times before, but I put extra work into this because I wanted to impress him. The presentation went well, but when I asked for his feedback, he handed me a list of things I should work on. I immediately went to a place of self-loathing, critical of myself and convinced I had no place telling others how to present. But I quickly righted myself and looked more carefully at his notes. A month later, I stood before another group and incorporated his pointers. It was the best presentation I had done to date, and I didn’t need feedback to know that. When I relayed this story to my friend, he felt awful. “You were great. I was just trying to give you some tips to improve.”

Be kind to yourself.

I volunteered at an Alzheimer’s care clinic and showed up a few years ago excited to teach my first drawing class. My dad had Alzheimer’s, and I witnessed firsthand how he may not remember my name but he could remember the words to “O Holy Night.” I was convinced that the Alzheimer’s residents were just sleeping Michelangelos who only needed my coaching to unlock their creative talents. The first day was tough and discouraging. I didn’t count on how much Alzheimer’s affects fine motor skills and even simple decision-making. But when I was packing up my supplies, I asked an eighty-two-year old resident if he had fun. “Yeah,” he said, “I surprised myself.”

Surprise yourself every day.