Welcome to my journey

I recently watched a movie entitled "The Secret" that discussed methods to bring ones 'wants' into reality. I am one of the worlds biggest skeptics and thought to myself after watching the movie - "Yeah, whatever, some people put like a thousand things on a list; one or two of them came true; and all of a sudden, this is a proof-of-concept method to getting what you want out of life."

I'm not here to either prove or disprove the concept. I bring this up, because something in the movie inspired me to move into action in my life. For much of my life, I felt the need to receive because my thought was that I gave so much to life already, that it's my turn to get. Sounds strange from a man who's a young 36 years old, but after growing up in an abusive, alcoholic childhood, loosing my father at the age of 14, and fighting addiction for many years, I had good reason to 'want'.

When I was 23, my life's journey took a turn (not sure if it was left or right). Long story short, I'm sober for 14 years now, grew into my identity through self-discovery work, and am active in living a life of integrity, action, and mission.

I think back to the times in my youth that I was looking for mentorship. Sure I had no idea what that word was about, but I knew that I needed a friend, someone to say "you probably don't want to do that" or "when I was your age, I tried that and...". Who knows where I would be now, whether I'd be different or not...I'm here to tell you that I sure would have loved that chance.

I became a Big Brother (http://www.BigBrothersBigSisters.org) recently and was matched with a great boy named Leroy. We've been hanging out for a few months now and it's been a great experience.

Rather than going into the details of our experiences here, I'll just tell you that my intent with this blog is to share our growth and journey together so other men (and women) can see how easy, how joyful, and how vital it is to mentor a child into this world.

My hope is that others will invite the experience of mentorship into their lives.

- gt