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When I first met former President Jimmy Carter, I had a lot to learn.
It was the late 90s and I was a rookie reporter covering a trip Carter took to Colorado to help 100 at-risk youth experience the transformative power of nature.
For a young journalist, an interview with a former president of the United States is the opportunity of a lifetime. And yet I went into it embarrassingly unprepared and with the attitude that the Nobel Prize winner was lucky to be facing 26-year-old me. I was as naive as I was confident, and this is an uncomfortable pairing.
Thankfully, because he was a former business owner, Navy officer, and leader of the free world, Carter had plenty of experience with guys like me.
Instead of taking the “dumb questions get dumb answers” approach to our interview, he adopted an attitude of respect and mentorship. He didn't treat me as the person I was at that moment, he treated me as the person he believed I could become one day.
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At one point in our conversation, I asked bluntly, “How do we get people to stop pulling guns on each other?”
Although a well-intentioned question referring to the global community, in the context of a story about at-risk youth, my question could easily have been seen as a callous and simplistic insult to his 100 guests.
But Carter was not offended. Instead, he took an opportunity to validate my potential while explaining how for some people, a lack of belief in their own potential can cause them – including the young people he was there to inspire – to make risky decisions.
“This is something that a person like you, or like me, can't even imagine, because we know what our limitations are, but we also know what our potentials are, and we have ambitions for our potential to be realized in some way. way. “- he explained gracefully. “We believe that when we make a decision, it will make a difference. They don't have it, so we try to help them make it.”
And so it went for the full interview. The former president answered my most uninformed and uninspired questions as if they were being asked by the most profound and influential journalist on earth. He treated me like I was in the front row of the White House briefing room. He saw the best version of me and it was to that person that he directed his responses.
I walked out of that elevated room.
Related: Why mentoring is so crucial for the next generation of entrepreneurs
That was more than 20 years ago, and since then I've had the opportunity to meet and work with hundreds of new hires in entrepreneurial ventures around the world. Most of them have been humble, driven and talented beyond their years, but every now and then I find myself watching a version of my 26-year-old self – someone with more irritation than experience.
And while it's tempting to dismiss a new team member for their baseless bravado or baseless apathy, I always take a moment to remember the way President Carter treated me and try to show my new colleagues a version of themselves they have never met before. .
This approach doesn't always work, but when it does, the ventures I'm a part of are more successful, and I find myself surrounded by kind, supportive, and insightful people.
I recently received a thank you letter from a former colleague that read: “Even though it looked like I wouldn't last more than a few weeks, you didn't give up on me. You believed in me, challenged me, and taught me everything. I know that you made me smarter, you pushed me to be a better person and you took a chance on me…You are the most influential mentor I have ever had.
I actually had the opportunity to give the former president a similar message of appreciation. Six years after our first interview, he gave me another chance to meet with him – and I didn't miss it. I walked into that room prepared, respectful, and a better version of myself—I walked into that room closer to the person he had introduced me to years ago and took the opportunity to thank him for the gift of that introduction.
As Jimmy Carter's life and death continue to make world headlines this week, I am reminded of the remarkable gift he once gave me. It's one that I'm happy to share with you, and I hope it helps you elevate your management style and overall quality of life, as it has for me.