Importance of Mentors (By Madeline Frank)

Throughout your life you will have remarkable mentors and teachers. How do you appreciate and thank them?

Your mentors and teachers show you how to do the work and inspire and motivate you to a higher level of achievement. They model how you should do the work and how to lead!

While I was a student at the Juilliard School, I played Principal viola at the 92nd Y Orchestra which gave me a stipend to help me pay my rent. One of the section members was an amazing and inspiring amateur violist named Herman Silver, age 75. He was passionate about playing chamber music on the weekends at his home with the best musicians in New York City. Herman would loan me the music to study for two weeks and would tell me the date of our concert. I would go to the Lincoln Center Public Library, borrow the recordings to study, and practice the music.

Herman enjoyed sharing his passion for chamber music with the next generation and had marvelous professionals join us. Herman was a marvelous and inspiring mentor. He introduced me to Toscha Samaroff, a concert violinist, who did studio work and recordings in New York City. He was a remarkable violinist, who had studied with Leopold Auer. When I met him he was 75 years old. Toscha played the very challenging first violin parts to Felix Mendelssohn Octet & Louis Spohr's Octet. Toscha was a remarkably strong leader who played with a beautiful tone and gorgeous phrasing. Herman Silver said, "Toscha Samaroff sounds just like Jascha Heifetz!"; a high compliment indeed. In these chamber works I played the first viola parts and Herman played second. It was one of the best experiences in my life playing with Toscha Samaroff. He was a magnificent musician. He led and encouraged others to play at their highest level of playing.

When Toscha came to visit his daughter, Lee, in Virginia Beach several years later, we arranged to play Handel Halvorsen's Passacaglia for violin and viola and other works. It was a beautiful chamber music experience I will long remember!

Another marvelous violinist who played with Herman Silver's Saturday night concert series was Stanley Hoffman. He studied violin with Arthur Grumiaux and studied at the Juilliard School with Mischa Mischakoff, Oscar Shumsky, and Raphael Bronstein. When I met Stanley, he was 47 years old. Herman Silver said, "Stanley plays Paganini 's Caprices brilliantly."

He was a member of the New York Philharmonic, and later the Jerusalem Radio Orchestra.

We played Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence String Sextet in D minor with Stanley playing the difficult and beautiful first violin part. Stanley was a marvelous leader with his lovely phrasing and beautiful sound. When you played with Stanley you played at your highest level of playing too!

Over the 7 or 8 years we played together, we also played Brahms String Quintets, Mozart String Quintets, Beethoven String Quintets, and Dvorak String Quintets. It was an amazing experience.

Many years later I taught and played these same works with my students in concert. It's all about passing the mentorship gifts on to the next generation!

What are the three things you can do to mentor and teach others, to pass on the gifts your mentors gave to you?

1) Pass on their mentorship gifts to others! Dr. John Maxwell, number 1 leadership guru, and one of my mentors says, "Make people development your top priority and see everyone you mentor as a 10."

2) Model the way for others to follow by listening, observing, connecting, adding value to them, respecting them, empowering others, and instructing them.

Lift others up. Help the person you are mentoring by encouraging, motivating, and inspiring them to a higher level of excellence. Take them under your wing just like Herman Silver, Toscha Samaroff, and Stanley Hoffman did for me.

3) Mentors have a positive attitude and lead the way for the mentee to follow them!

Remarkable mentors and teachers make the difference! They help you to become the success you are today! Pass on their gifts to you, by mentoring the next generation to leave a lasting legacy from them.

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Valuable Lessons Taught By Children

Maybe you're a parent or one of your siblings is. Perhaps you have a close friend that is a parent. It could be that your kids have kids or your kid's kids have kids. There is probably someway that children are in your life. The common mindset towards children is that it is the adult's job to teach them. Something that many people don't consciously acknowledge is that children are great teachers themselves. That is to say a child has the potential to teach an adult just as much if not more than an adult could teach a child. Lessons taught to a child will differ greatly from the lessons a child teaches. Adults tend to teach ideals in the logical realm while children teach the illogical. What do I mean by illogical?

Children are great teachers of faith. If you are a parent you probably have noticed how much faith your child or children have in you. They believe you are a source of infinite knowledge. Yet the really powerful thing is they have total and complete faith in your character. They believe that you are only capable of doing the right thing. Is there anyone in your life that you have that much faith in? Faith is a powerful thing and children have a great capacity to trust those they care about. Something every adult should take notice of.

Another great lesson that can be learned from a child is to be present. Children are notorious for living or as some people refer to it as living in the moment. Obviously children don't have the stress of work, bills and preconceived notions but I don't want to take away from a child's ability to be fully present. That ability allows children to experience the complete range of human emotions that a logical mind tends to suppress. They don't wait for the right moment to enjoy the world. They just enjoy it. Let's use an upcoming doctor's appointment as an example. An adult will think about the appointment, try to prepare for it and wait for it to happen. While a child will play or do whatever he/she sees fit until the actual appointment takes place. Children have a knack for focusing on only what they want to focus on which is usually what is happening now.

The last lesson to be learned from children I want to address is their creativity. Imagination is something we all associate with children and rightfully so. It is absolutely amazing to watch a child play. They are able to create a game from pretty much anything. They come up with new ideas that aren't based on how profitable it might be but on how much fun it is. Their imagination allows them to experience life in so many different ways. When was the last time you weren't so concerned about your image that you could just act like a dog and bark at your friends? Better yet, when was the last time you were even able to imagine you were a dog? Creativity spawns from losing yourself in the moment. If you are unable to be completely present you won't be able to be truly creative.

Children are teachers of so many other lessons but those three are some of the most powerful. Being an adult is great but being an adult with a child's outlook on life is absolutely wonderful. Children are the world's greatest inventors and scientists even if most people refuse to acknowledge the fact. If children were in control of the world I guarantee it'd be a better place. They may never have all the answers but they'd definitely be willing to ask to right questions.

Remember that you must put forth the time and effort to become the person you want to be and live the life of your dreams. You owe it to yourself to push to be the best you possible. Strive to improve daily and take things in stride.

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