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"And then" moments, coined by Taylor Doe, reveal crucial factors omitted from success stories.

Mentors and relationships often drive success, not just personal talent or effort.

Ninety-two percent of high-income kids have adult mentors, compared to 77 percent of low-income youth.

Whereas success stories typically celebrate talent, grit, and hard work, new research suggests that outside factors (like who shows up along the way) play a vital role as well. For example, when researchers followed 1,353 young people for four years in a randomized controlled trial that culminated this year, they found that youths who were offered community-based mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters showed advantages in areas including academic performance, social skills, coping efficacy, and mental health, while also showing lower rates of violence-related delinquency and recurring substance use (DuBois et al., 2026).

That finding and more suggest we need to uncover and examine the unspoken—yet crucial—components to success. Taylor Doe, a longtime youth mentor in Oklahoma, has spent years examining those often-overlooked relationships, resources, and opportunities hidden inside people’s stories of success. I spoke with Doe about why hard work alone does not determine where a young person ends up, as well as what adults can do to help create the moment that changes what comes next.

Jenny Rankin (JR): What is an "and then moment" and why isn't talent and hard work always enough for a young person to reach their potential?

Taylor Doe (TD): I’ve mentored young people for nearly two decades. They are always asking some version of a very real question: How do I become successful? The answer they typically hear from adults and social media is: “Work hard, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and you can make it too.” Hard work is certainly part of success, but our stories are more nuanced than that.

I wanted to give my students a more authentic answer and a way to identify the keys to success. So I started interviewing people about their success stories, and I noticed a pattern. We use one little phrase to skip over everything that matters: “I went to Bartlesville High School, and then graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and then worked in corporate America, and then started and sold my own business.”

The phrase “and then”........

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