How to be a Champion: Part 1

This article is an excerpt from our mentoring book, The Lionheart Letters. For a more in-depth guide, we recommend picking up our book here (and because, you know, our fabulous mentors wrote it).

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Chapter Two

The Eyes Of A Champion

 Dear Champion,

Can you believe how easy it is to spark transformation in a hero?

I am pleased to hear your account of the event you were at Saturday night. The 15-year-old girl you talked to will likely remember this day as a pivotal, and hopeful moment for the rest of her life. All you did for your new friend was tell her about the greatness you saw in her; I don’t know how often she runs into champions like you, but I’m willing to bet that it has been a long time since someone reminded her of how important, beautiful, and powerful she is. It wasn’t hard for me to believe you when you said she smiled the whole rest of the evening!

In asking me why heroes open up and respond so dramatically to moments like that, you’ve knocked at the door of the number one most important (and most powerful) attribute of a mentor. I have personally seen it change hundreds of lives! If you’re in doubt as to its power, I challenge you to find a single incredible mentor figure in your life who doesn’t use it.

Back in the early spring of 2016, I was trying to find my place in Lionheart. That was rather hard for me to do, because neither Dallin Shumway, Quiana Chase nor I had a solid idea of what Lionheart was supposed to become. We knew that we needed to change the world of youth, and that would involve speaking and mentoring. Aside from that, we really didn’t have a core philosophy, plan, or system. At this point, Quiana was excited about everything, but was mainly focused on developing her own abilities on stage. Dallin was overbooked with school and didn’t have much brain space for assessing the underlying mess that our efforts were chained by. 

Being the entrepreneurial system seeker that I am, I put my brain to work. I obsessed over our question of direction and roles for days and days, occupying it with every spare neuron in my brain. Eventually I became discouraged, realized that I wasn’t going anywhere, and called my mentor (Note: I recommend doing that first, rather than as a last resort. But I didn’t know what I was doing at this point, so back to the story). 

At 8:30pm one evening I drove across town to the home of Aneladee Milne, one of my most important mentors throughout my teenage years, and a champion that Lionheart is deeply indebted to. As we sat at her kitchen table, I laid out all of my thoughts, frustrations, and questions. After a three-hour conversation, I distinctly remember driving home on fire about the opportunities ahead. I called up Quiana as I drove and ecstatically ranted to her about the bright future that was in the palms of our hands!

This was a tipping point for my growth as a mentor, and for Lionheart. Within two weeks we had created a core philosophy and a plan of growth that we believe will take Lionheart international in 5-7 years. We were united, and on fire! The question is, what did my mentor do for me that was so impactful? I remember her teaching me a few principles and pointing me to some powerful resources. She asked me some powerful questions and prompted me with a few suggestions.

But above all, I remember that she believed in me. Much of my frustration was rooted in doubt—I was treading unfamiliar ground and pushing my limits. What Aneladee did that made the biggest difference for me was that every word she said to me expressed an assumption that I was a powerful hero. She knew what I was capable of and told me all about it.

She saw me with the eyes of a champion. 

The reason that girl transformed Saturday night was that you did likewise. The Achilles Heel of all heroes is the doubt they have of themselves; when they lose faith, they begin to sink. If you want to continue along the path of a mentor, you must learn and never forget to see with the eyes of a champion. If you do, you will see heroes transform under the expectation you hold them to. 

See heroes as heroes, and heroes they shall become.

Commander, a letter to Champion

To help you continue to see the best in heroes, I’m going to share with you the perspective that Aneladee has taught me over the years. As a mentor, you must train yourself to see the following attributes in ALL heroes:

ETERNALLY EXISTENT – your impact won’t disappear in a few decades but will live forever.

INHERENTLY INNOCENT – your hero has a soul of goodness, no matter how buried it may be.

INFINITELY PERFECTIBLE – no matter the past, your hero always has the honest potential to achieve perfect transformation.

BOUNDLESSLY FREE – your hero always has a choice; freedom is their birthright.

To the wise teachings of my mentor, I add a final critical attribute you must see:

SOLELY HEROIC – your hero’s entire life hinges on one and only one person; he has the ultimate power to choose his own story, and no one (not even you, my well intentioned Champion) can take that from him, do it for him, or play a more important role than he.

One of my second-hand mentors (meaning I haven’t met him yet) is Benjamin Zander, conductor and music director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, author of “The Art of Possibility”, and one of the most sought after speakers in the world.  In many of his speeches and leadership trainings, he shares this story:

“I had an amazing discovery; this is a really big deal for me. I was forty five, I’d been conducting for over twenty years, and suddenly one day, I had this kind of  ‘road to Damascus’ event.  Eureka!  I realized the conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound.  My picture appears on the front of the CD, but the conductor doesn’t make a sound. He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful.  And when that happened it changed everything.  People in my orchestra said, ‘what happened to you Ben, what happened?’  That was what happened.  I realized my job, was to awaken possibility in other people.”

As a mentor, you’re not a one-man-army. Being a one-man-army is the hero’s job, if anything. The best mentors are only conductors, and a conductor is powerful only when he makes the heroes around her powerful by leading, directing, and inspiring them to embody their divine identities.

Being the faithful champion that you are, you’re probably wondering if you’re being the mentor that you should be! In the words of Benjamin Zander, “look at their eyes: if their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it.” The greatness of a leader can be determined by the number of shining eyes that surround him: by the number of heroes in whom he has awaken freedom. 

Remember that as a mentor, you rely for your power on your ability to make other heroes powerful. And if you want them to make them powerful, you need to see them as they truly are. If you want to see the light shining in their eyes, you must see it shining in their hearts first. See heroes as heroes, and heroes they shall become.

 IS IT HARD?

I don’t expect you to find it easy to see heroes as eternally existent, inherently innocent, infinitely perfectible, boundlessly free and solely heroic every minute of every day. I promise you, however, that developing the eyes of a champion will be a foundational key to your success and fulfillment as a mentor.

 I recently had a personal experience with a hero in which his entire life was transformed because I chose to see him as the hero that he was. I was on week two of mentoring a young man named Mike. Mike was fighting        hard to overcome a severe addiction that had bound him for the last nine years and had started to make small steps of progress. Then one day, out of nowhere, I got word that he had given up. He had lost all but a tiny spark of will to fight, and it looked to everyone else like he was about to surrender to the darkness of bondage forever. He told me that he was going to quit mentorship, find new friends who would validate his actions, and willfully dive as deep as he could into his addiction. 

Some people would become angry, or afraid, or like a failed mentor in this situation. We met again two days later, and I have never seen a person so empty of light and love as Mike was. It was one of the lowest points I have ever seen a hero in. The situation felt to me as fragile as a china plate hanging by a thread from the top of a Manhattan skyscraper; all it would take was a gust of wind for Mike’s life to shatter. 

But there was still a thread. I remember deliberately choosing to see Mike as the incredibly powerful hero that he is. I chose to focus on his divinity and imagine and express the amazing transformation that he could so quickly have in his life. I believed in him so clearly that I could practically taste his success. Long story short, he chose to fight again. Just one week later, he began to turn his life around and was doing better than he ever had before. He was far from perfect, with a long road of practice and recovery ahead of him, but he did not give up.

 Your #1 job as a mentor is to believe in heroes even when no one else—not even the hero—will.

Commander, a letter to Champion

The heroes you meet may be young, inexperienced, and they may make terrible choices. But if you doubt their potential for change for even a moment, you have failed your critical job. So remember who you’re talking too. If you always remember that there’s that divine spark within them then you’ll be able to see them for who they really are.

I invite you to pause your reading and take a moment to ask yourself this question: “who in your life do you need to start seeing with the eyes of a champion?”

We live in a world of heroes who desperately need to be seen. These heroes aren’t being seen by their friends, their families, their teachers, their role models, not even by themselves. Not being seen for who they truly are is metaphorically killing these heroes—sometimes literally too. 

Champion, you have been given a divine power and responsibility. To adequately see the millions of heroes you touch in this life is a nigh impossible task, I’ll admit that. But I see inside of you the capacity for enough love and light to bless the world in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. I believe with all my heart that the Lionheart mentors will lead a movement that will change the world of youth forever! 

I do not doubt you for one moment. You are more powerful than you now know! Choose to see with the eyes of a champion, and together we will bring light to a dark world.

 I believe in you. Always.

 Sincerely, Commander