The dance of success, that is. The tango of today. The flamenco of good fortune.

Chances are—if you have experienced success in life, someone provided the opportunity for your “big break.”

For me it was a man named Jack Price. Jack is a boisterous music evangelist from Texas. We are as different as night and day.

But one day in 1992, the phone (remember land lines?) rang in my hot cramped office in the booming metropolis of Satsuma, Alabama and Jack was on the other end.

As music director for the Southern Baptist Convention, he invited me to sing a solo at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis in front of 30,000 people before the keynote address of the President of the Convention, Dr. Charles Stanley.

Little did I realize at that moment my life was never to be the same.

Sure, I had to perform, I had to pay my way to Indiana, I had to rehearse countless hours, and I had to show up.

But it would not have happened without the invitation from Jack and his belief in me.

And it changed my life forever.

After the solo, people were literally lined up offering job opportunities and the rest, as they say, is history. I accepted one of the offers as Arts Director at a South Florida mega-church of thousands. In one five minute span, I was transported from a hot, cramped office in a tiny South Alabama town with no assistant, to a South Florida air conditioned, spacious office that would have made any corporate CEO proud, with a staff of twelve people.

And I have thanked Jack. A lot. He brought me to the dance.

One of the paradoxes of mentoring is the thrill of taking people to the dance and the heartbreak of many of them forgetting—never to hear from them again once they find success.

Mentoring naturally means connecting people with each other, providing introductions that opens new worlds to them, helping them find their dream job, or giving them the “big break” to sign a record contract.

But many forget…who brought them to the dance.

What about you? Who brought you to the dance?

Have you thanked them appropriately?

Question: What are your thoughts?

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