Develop People Who Don't Know What They Are Doing

In 1960, Jack Nicklaus, an AMATEUR, lost the U.S. Open by only two strokes to Arnold Palmer.

In the locker room afterwards, the great and now aging Ben Hogan nursed a cigarette and an adult beverage and told a reporter: "This kid Nicklaus - I played 36 holes with him and I tell you what - he could have won this Open by ten shots if he had known what he was doing".

When we select those we are going to mentor, this is exactly the point where we want to identify and begin to develop them.

They are talented, perhaps more talented than we are.

But they are young and inexperienced and don't yet know what they don't know.

Ideally, they KNOW that they don't know what they don't know...but are interested in knowing all about it.

This is the most teachable time - they are good enough to make a difference, but not yet experienced enough to know what they are doing in the face of experience, challenges, trials.

A person like that makes for a good investment of our time for those of us committed to helping the next generation become all that it can be.

We know that they are going to be a player, so our time isn't going to be wasted.

But we also know we have something to teach and model so that our words and time won't be thrown away. Most importantly of all, they WANT to learn from us and don't yet assume they have it all figured out.

Look for talented people of character who aren't yet what they can be because they don't yet know what they are doing.