When I first met former President Jimmy Carter, I had a lot to learn.

It was the late '90s and I was a rookie journalist covering a trip Carter took to Colorado to help 100 at-risk youth experience the transformative power of the outdoors.

For a new reporter, an interview with a former president of the United States is the opportunity of a lifetime. And yet I went into it embarrassingly unprepared and with the attitude that the Nobel Prize winner was lucky to be getting some face time with 26-year-old me. I was as naive as I was confident, and that's an unpleasant pairing.

Thankfully, because he was a former business owner, Naval officer, and leader of the free world, Carter had plenty of experience with guys like me.

Instead of taking the "dumb questions get dumb answers" approach to our interview he adopted a posture of respect and mentorship. He didn't treat me like the person I was being in that moment, he treated me like the person he believed I could become someday.

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At one point in our conversation, I........

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