| Last week, author John Grisham was the featured guest on Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist.
Grisham has written over 50 books, which have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. Unsurprisingly, he has developed a writing habit of 1,000 words a day. Reflecting on his career, Grisham shared the following insight during his interview: “When I start a book, I have a very good outline. You can waste a lot of time if you don’t know where you’re going. If you know where you’re going, it’s hard to get lost.” Marvelous life advice! We aren’t so easily distracted or derailed when we know where we’re heading. Grisham continued, “One of my rules of writing: don’t write the first scene until you know the last scene. I know the last scene before I start. I always know where I’m going [with a story]. If you know the ending, you know what’s next. It’s hard to stare at the screen and not do anything; you [feel compelled] to get there.” Applying Grisham’s advice doesn’t mean writing the last scene of your life; it means establishing the final scene of a goal. Understand how you want an adventure to end before allowing the trek to unfold. Identify the finish line. Now let’s apply Grisham’s writing approach to mentoring. Some people go into mentoring without a specific goal, and they flounder. Conversely, those who envision a goal’s completion will enthusiastically share that target with a mentor. And because the mentor agreed to guide, advise, and encourage, that clear destination gives purpose to their mentoring conversations. Determining how the voyage ends creates a sense of urgency to start the journey. Not someday. Now. An alluring conclusion sparks excitement to take action immediately. Every juicy, audacious, jump-out-of-bed-early goal I’ve ever accomplished – from taking the bar exam to authoring a book to cycling across the country – had a clear destination… the last scene. And this drove me to deliberately connect, move, discover, and grow throughout each experience. Know the last scene, and it will entice you down the entire path. © 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved. |