The Importance of Mentorship with Dr. Timothy Jones & Shannon Williams

In this episode, Dr. Michael Patterson, the founder of Be A Peace Maker, a nonprofit organization committed to developing peace makers in society, hosts with Nick Stonestreet, CEO of Ronald Blue Trust. They have an in-depth conversation with the principal of B.E.S.T. Academy, Dr. Timothy D. Jones, and assistant principal, Shannon Williams, whose work in one of the most impoverished areas of Atlanta gives young men the chance to find life-changing mentors and educational opportunities. During the interview, they discuss the importance of mentorship in their own lives, and why having organizations like Ronald Blue Trust helping to provide mentoring relationships to low-income children is so essential in today's world.

Dr. Michael Patterson is the Founder of Be A Peace Maker, Inc. He is a pastor, author, motivational speaker, and adjunct professor at Morehouse College.  He recently completed his Doctoral degree in Education and Organizational Leadership from Abilene Christian University.  Dr. Timothy Jones is serving Atlanta Public Schools as the principal of B.E.S.T. Academy Prep School. Throughout the course of his career, Dr. Jones has been instrumental in furthering school and system improvement efforts as well as driving and sustaining strategic change resulting in marked gains in student achievement. Shannon Williams manages two companies and works as an assistant principal for an urban school district in Atlanta.

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The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only.  It is not intended as specific individual advice. The clients’ experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust.

Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust, Inc. are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency, are not deposits or other obligations of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate, and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested.

Chapters

• 4:31 The Impact of Mentorship Relationships
• 8:25 BEST Academy
• 13:50 What Makes a Good Mentor?
• 18:22 Examples of Kids Impacted by Mentorship

Transcript

 [Announcer] Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth For Life podcast. Let's bridge the gap between your faith and your finances. At Ronald Blue Trust, we apply biblical wisdom and technical expertise to help you make wise financial decisions. Our goal is to help you leave a lasting legacy. In this podcast here, you will hear inspiring stories, practical tips, and encouragement from the Ronald Blue Trust family with special guests along the way. Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth For Life podcast. The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended as specific individual advice. The clients' experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients, and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be very of Ronald Blue Trust. In this episode, we have Dr. Michael Patterson, the founder of Be A Peace Maker, a nonprofit organization committing to developing peacemakers in society. With Nick Stonestreet, CEO of Ronald Blue Trust. Today, they have an in-depth conversation with B.E.S.T. Academy Principal, Dr. Timothy D. Jones. And Assistant Principal, Shannon Williams. In this discussion, they talk about the importance of mentorship. Let's listen in now.

- I am Dr. Michael Patterson and I have my co-host here, Nicholas Stone street, how you doing Nick?

- I'm good, Mike, it's good to be back with you.

- It's been good. We've been having some incredible conversations.

- Yeah, one of the things that we talk about is the quality of your life depends on the of your relationships. And so my life's enriched by our relationship.

- Well, I thank you so much.

- I thought that'd be a good way to start that.

- Yeah, I feel the same way my brother. It's good to have friends. We have another opportunity to go deeper into a conversation that many of our listening audience cannot only just hear, but implement, can imitate. I believe that the more we can implement what we learn, we can make a difference in this society. And today we're talking about why mentor, why mentor. Mentoring at its core guarantees young people that there is someone who cares about them, assures them that they're not alone in dealing with day-to-day challenges, and makes them feel like they matter. Research confirms that quality mentoring relationships have powerful, positive effects on young people in a variety of personal, academic and professional situations. Ultimately, mentoring connects the young person to personal growth and development, and social and economic opportunity. Yet one in three young people will grow up without this critical asset. And today we have a good friend of mine, a brother I've known for decades, Dr. Timothy Jones, Principal of the B.E.S.T. Academy down in Atlanta, Georgia. And also we have his Assistant Principal, Mr. Shannon Williams. So we wanna thank you gentlemen for being here today. And we wanna jump into this conversation about mentoring. So, brother Tim.

- Yeah.

- Thank you for being here.

- Well, thank you. And thank you for your lifelong friendship. You, in many ways, have been a mentor to me and for me. So, I appreciate you and my life.

- And I appreciate you in my life because as I was going through my graduate program oh, if you ever wanna work on an advanced degree, have Dr. Timothy Jones in your life. Man, I almost jumped out the window a couple of times. Pulled me back from the edge, but I do appreciate that friendship. Yeah, I met Brother Tim, you were 17?

- Yeah, Florida state.

- Florida State, a 17-year-old freshman.

- Absolutely.

- In every sense of the word. Well, this is a faith-based audience. I met brothers and sisters doing something - what we call door knocking. So I was a young Christian. I was knocking on doors and dorms, and I got an opportunity to meet this young dude from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Timothy Jones.

- Yeah, that knock went unanswered for a while, didn't it?

- Well, we don't have to go into all the details about that, you're here now.

- Absolutely.

- But yeah, like I said, let's talk about how mentoring has impacted your personal lives. I think you and Nick have a great conversation about this because I believe you are very in tune with the importance of being mentored and mentoring young adults.

- Yeah. So, for me is really trying to find a mentor. I think that's a frustration that young people can feel is like, who do I look up to? And it wasn't until I got to college that I found somebody that was a great mentor, somebody I really looked up to, somebody that I just felt like I wanted to imitate and could really learn from. His birthday's March 17th, St Patrick's, and I still call him and I write him a note of gratitude every year. And talk to him a couple of times during the year. But especially on his birthday, I just always remember him taking the time because I'd never really grown up with a lot of positive mentoring experiences, and just fortunate to have someone that cared enough about me to reach back. And then made all the difference in the world. So, yeah.

- Yeah, I've been really fortunate to have a litany of mentors in my life. Starting from an early age, I didn't realize at that time what they were. I knew that they cared about me and they believed in me, but I didn't understand why, because I didn't have that degree of self-belief when I was young. But I tell you that you cannot have great people in your life that mentor you and put you on a pathway to success without being compelled to do the same for others. And so because they were so significant in my life, I would hope that I could be as significant in the lives of others.

- Excellent. So, brother Williams.

- I was really just sitting here listening to you guys, and I was thinking into myself, wow, who represented that mentor that you guys you're speaking about so passionately. And I was thinking about, well, my father, of course, was an outstanding father figure, but I can remember the piece of my life when my father passed away, and being a little lost for a while. And I had the opportunity to work at the district office for Atlanta Public School. And I worked as a leadership coordinator. And I can remember Dr. Jones being one of the men that always said, "Hey, come talk to my staff, "come talk to my staff." And he gave me that piece of hey, what I was doing really meant something. And as he and I continued to get to know each other, he doesn't know, but he took on the place of that mentor for me. And I would just go in his office and he would always give me some words of advice. And I more so looked at the way he lived his life and the things that he said, and the things that he did, and the way he treated people. And I said to myself, wow, that's a guy that if I had the opportunity, I would really love for him to be my mentor. But I never knew how to ask him. And it just so happened that when the position of Assistant Principal became available at his school, he reached out, we talked about it and I said, wow, look at all of this coming to fruition. And I ended up being his Assistant Principal and he's my de facto mentor. So we are having a celebration right now because this is the first time he's hearing this.

- Oh, wow.

- That he has been my mentor and he didn't even know it, but it's the way he carries himself and the way that he projects every day in the building that says to me and to my spirit, that's someone that I just love taking advice from and listening to.

- Wow.

- That's great.

- Wow.

- Thank you for sharing.

- What an honor.

- Thank you so much.

- Well, Shannon you and Tim, can you talk a little bit about B.E.S.T. and about the kids at B.E.S.T. Academy and their backgrounds and where they're coming from and where you can help, where mentoring enters into their lives?

- Definitely. One thing that Dr. Jones talked to me about entering into this position and the 30318 represents one of the poorest areas in the state. And I'm talking about just economically, educationally, highest rate of crime, high age rate teen pregnancy. So we have a bunch of things.

- Dropouts.

- Dropouts, a bunch of things that--

- What about fatherless households?

- 69% of our young men at the school currently go home every day to homes without fathers.

- 69%, wow.

- So when you start putting that together, and I do a lot of research on leadership and just things that could help, and one of the things that I recently was looking at, I don't know if it was Elon Musk, I don't wanna give him credit if it wasn't him, but it was going down that path. And he talked about, what does it take to have a paradigm shift? And two things come into place. One, genetically, the other is environmentally. So genetically, if we are talking about having a paradigm shift with our young men, and genetically and the fathers are not in the house, that's not gonna happen. And then the second is environmentally. And we are talking about having a paradigm shift with our young men, but I talk to a lot of boys every day. And every day we talk. Dr. Jones used to do this to us in our spirit every day that we teach our boys to be the gift. So every day we are teaching them how to wrap their gift box, because the whole point of being a gift is to give it to what? somebody else.

- Right.

- So we are trying to teach our kids how to be a gift, but environmentally, a lot of times when they go home, instead of them getting that extra boost on how to be this gift, their gift box is unwrapped. So every day we have to start over with this process of teaching our boys how to be the gift. So when we start talking about mentorship and why and how, and one of the things you'll hear me say a lot is connecting to what? To the why. When you start talking about mentorship, how important it is for these young men in our community, in the B.E.S.T. community, to have people that generally care about them, that can explain the what and the whys, and they can explain to them these are things that young men are supposed to be, trying to do, aspiring to do, it gives them a different mindset. And what we are talking about, if we are going to have a paradigm shift, it has to be looked at in that way. That mentorship has to take the place, one of the genetic father that's not in the house or two, the environment that is not conducive to producing productive people in society.

- Wow, thank you for sharing. Before we move on, I think it'd be good for our audience to know a little bit more about B.E.S.T. Academy.

- Yeah, B.E.S.T. is a 6-12 single-gender school in Atlanta. We are currently serving about 300 African-American and Latino boys. We have a litany of innovative initiatives. But we predicate the relationships at our school on the foundation of the best experience over a sustained amount of time. The longer we have these young men with us, the more impactful we can be in their lives.

- Well, I personally wanna thank you gentlemen for your hard work. Education is not easy. You guys have taken on the role of not only teacher, leaders, surrogate, father, uncle, big brother, big cousin. Being pastors. There's so many facets to what you do. And I know you and I have talked extensively about partnerships.

- Yeah.

- That there is a role for wraparound services outside individuals to come in and meet you and the students and offer what we can. So can you talk a little bit about--

- Yeah, we both will actually, because we're always trying to find resources for our students because it's bigger than us, and it takes a village. But it takes a functional village.

- Gotcha.

- In order to raise a kid. And so some of the things that we do is we have partnerships with people like Chris 180, the Path Church. We're moving to something that Shannon's gonna talk about a little bit in terms of wraparound services. Our community has so many needs. But we're finding that there are resources out there that we haven't tapped into. And I just feel like it's our job to search and to find the opportunities that match the need. And I think that most leaders... this is a noble profession, right?

- Absolutely.

- Most leaders have that mindset, but they don't necessarily have the opportunities nor the knowledge to go find it. And so we're specializing in finding what we need.

- Tim, you mentioned Ronald Blue Trust. And so we wanna start with our mentoring program. So we'll be kicking that off in a few weeks.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- And what makes a really good mentor? Shannon, you and Dr. Jones, what do you all see? How could our people really impact the kids and what makes a good mentor?

- That's a great question. And that's a question that millions of people and just not kids, because like I stated when I first sat down as a 46-year-old man, I needed a mentor.

- Right.

- And I think anybody that's trying to move and elevate and make themselves better, needs a mentor. So, when we start answering that question, what makes a good mentor, I think the biggest thing is a person that's willing to invest into a person, and it's not about all of the different things that's going on, it's not about trying to get an ad in a newspaper, it's about I really want to invest in this kid. And I want to invest in this kid or this grown man.

- Right.

- And I want to see him grow and I'm willing to do what it takes to make sure that they are given opportunities that otherwise wouldn't be presented there. And it doesn't make a difference because the bottom line is I want to leave this person better than what I found them.

- Very good. I think it's a desire to be relevant in a kid's life. And what I mean by that, I have mentors in my life now. I have a mentor for my marriage. I have a mentor for my finances, I have a spiritual mentor. So, I have a lot of different needs, right? So, I think the same person is not able to do all of that for me. So, relevancy is huge. And the desire to first understand, seeking first to understand what a child needs, and then being relevant in that aspect of their need is important, and that's the first step. Because that builds the relationship because they see in you an opportunity to grow. And I think a mentor's first inclination is a deep desire to see you at your fullest potential in whatever area of mentorship you need. And knowing that area is huge. And then, I think beyond the relationship becomes this reality of we are here now and what do we do next? A lot of people just don't know, right? And so a real mentorship is, hey, I'm gonna check in on you. That's the beginning. I'm gonna connect with you on a regular basis. I'm gonna find out more about you. I'm gonna remember important dates in your life, and I'm gonna be here and available. That's the start of a good mentor relationship. But then--

- Excuse me, so you're saying a mentoring relationship can turn into a lifelong friendship?

- Absolutely.

- Wow.

- Now I don't know that all adults wanna call kids, friends, but I do know that the relationship will be predicated on a foundation of respect. And it moves to admiration. And then it moves to a lifelong commitment to pour into each other's lives later. And that's been my experience with good mentors. That certainly I saw initially as a mentor, that I was doing something quintessentially different and needed in a person's life. However, what I found was they were actually doing more for me than I thought I was doing for them.

- So this is a higher calling. It's not just showing up once a month to read a story to a kid you're talking about.

- Well, I think there are places for that.

- Okay.

- But I don't know that's true mentorship. A mentorship seeks to first understand, and then the mentorship seeks to create this impetus to make a person better through a lived experience.

- Yeah. It's interesting, Tim and Shannon. There's different inflection points in people's lives. And you never know if you're hitting that point of where a kid's gonna go one way or another way. Through your experience with the kids at B.E.S.T., do you have any stories of kids where you hit that inflection point at the right time and their life changed?

- Yeah, even in the brief time that I've been there, because one of the things and Dr. Jones does impress, and it's amazing that he's sitting here saying, we haven't had this conversation. So, one of the big things that I always try to listen with is an ear for perspective. And when I have conversations with young men, I wanna know what they're thinking. And I wanna give them that avenue to tell me what they are thinking and why they did what they did. And how we can work to make this a little better. One of the big things I talk to my kids and I'll get to the story is about E plus R equals O. And when they get into my office, I'm an old economics teacher, so I go E plus R equals O, and they're like, "Mr. Williams, what do you mean?" Event plus the response to the event equals outcome. Now, a lot of times son, we can't change the event. The pandemic happened, we can't change that. But what can change is how we respond. And that's what really gets our kids in a lot of trouble is the initial response that they have. But remember, go back to paradigm shift, paradigm shift, genetics and environment. They respond a lot of times because they become CD-ROMs and they play whatever's been downloaded by mom, dad, or the environment. So what I'm really trying to impress upon our kids at B.E.S.T. is look, we gotta have a different response if we want a different outcome. If your outcome has been the same and you're getting negative things happening to you, it's because you're responding to the event negatively. So they're starting to listen. And I see guys now in the hallway from just two months I've been there, and they're pointing at me and said, "I'm responding differently, I'm responding differently." So, that's the story in itself, not one particular. But you're starting to make an effect on kids because you're cognitively priming them to think differently.

- Well, I do have a story.

- Okay, I bet you got a lot of them.

- Yeah, well, I have one that I wanna share because the person who was most important and the most significant person in this child's life is sitting to my right. And so I had a student and it was really interesting that I would always tell him, hey man, you need to be a wrestler, you're so strong, right? And he picked one of our staff members up and he put him down forcefully, but he didn't do it in a malicious way. He was just playing. He was trying to show that he could wrestle. And the guy was like, hey, I don't wanna wrestle, right? And so that's how he got into my office. And that was my first meeting. And so I realized a couple things. He was just in need of someone to say, hey, I see you. He just needed some recognition that he existed. Unfortunately, the man of the house, 13, 14 years old, his mom had several children, and he was the oldest or second oldest.

- Second oldest of about seven siblings behind.

- Yeah, right. And so he would often feed the babies and change the babies and all of this stuff. And even when his mom was pregnant, he was carrying his mom up the stairs because he felt he was the provider. And no one said, hey man, you don't have to do all of that, that's not your role, right? You're a good big brother, but you're not a daddy. You can't be a father to all your brothers and sisters. And finally, I had a breakthrough in talking to him. And he said, "I don't wanna do all of this, but I have to." And I said, "Man, do you have someone that you can talk to "on a regular basis?" He said, "No, but I need it." And I said, "I got just the person." And Michael comes through my office doors. And I said, "Mike, I was just talking about you,". And Dr. Patterson sat down and they must have had an hour-long conversation. And that was the beginning of the most extraordinary experience. He changed the course of this child's life. He was gonna graduate, hopefully, and maybe work in an electronic shop because he loved to tinker, he was a device guru, he could do anything.

- Oh, yeah.

- And so smart, smart kid, not necessarily academically, but he had all of these skills that he had acquired over time. So he was a Jack of all trades. And so, Michael inspired him to study hard, to commit or recommit himself to achieving some goals, to graduating. And then would you like to tell the rest?

- We weren't allowed to make excuses growing up. And I'm like, I don't feel sorry for you brother. You just gotta do what you need to do. He came to church, which was cool 'cause we were meeting at the school at the time. So all these married guys, young guys, guys doing things with their lives, and it wasn't just me, the brothers grafted him in and started being his friends and picking him up and spending time with him. And it took a combined effort of the church, the school, Dr. Jones to get across that stage of graduation. He missed the spring graduation. And we went to the summer graduation and we celebrated. But now he's in the Marines.

- Yeah, and married.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and he's doing so well.

- Wow, that's great to hear a success story. What I'd love is one year from now for us to come back together and talk about the kids that we've been able to impact from Ronald Blue Trust. You in our mentoring program with you all. So, already starting to dream about that.

- Thank you gentlemen so much. Definitely enjoyed all the insight into mentoring. And again, thank you for what you do in public education.

- Yeah.

- And you guys worked really, really hard during the pandemic. Hopefully, you will realize you will be rewarded.

- Yeah.

- God bless you.

- Thanks for what you're doing for the kids, it's amazing.

- Thank you.

- Definitely. And we're looking forward to what we're gonna have here, Ronald Blue blue and the different individuals who are gonna step up and build these relationships.

- Yep.

- Thank you.

- We're ready. Thanks.

- It's gonna be phenomenal.

- It's gonna be great. Well, we will see you at the next episode, thank you, everyone.

- [Announcer] Thank you so much for listening to the Wisdom for Wealth For Life podcasting. If you're looking for financial advice, please contact us. Please visit ronblue.com. That's ronblue.com. Thank you for listening. And please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. Ron Blue Trust is a trademark used by Thrivent Trust Company, a federal savings association, and Thrivent Trust Company of Tennessee incorporated. A Tennessee public trust company, separate affiliated entities. Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency. Are not deposits or other obligations of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate. And are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested.