Mentors

Today the process of mentoring is quite popular but in the very early seventies when Herb True a professor at Notre Dame University first began mentoring me even the word “mentor” was not in common use.  Herb died last November and I cannot begin to tell about how he had a dramatic impact on my life. Locked into a dead end job because I had refused too many promotions what joy I got from working was from my moonlighting pursuits. Our relationship began when I attended one of his speeches and I gave him some humor and he tried it immediately and then asked me to write for him. I had never seen a professional speaker perform before and I was in awe.  Because if Herb I got into speaking myself. I also got my first audio visual production assignment through Herb and because of that I soon was promoted to a much, much better job with the railroad where I had worked for 25 years and I could truthfully say that all of the wonderful things that have happened in my career came from that faith that Herb showed in me from the start. In all of his speeches later he acknowledged publicly that I had saved his life, another example of the fact that what goes around comes around. I will always treasure our friendship.

Mentors by Art Fettig ©

Mentors are people who truly love what they are doing and they want to
share that love and skill with someone whom they believe might excel.

Mentors don’t do it for you – they point the way.
Then they stand back and watch you stumble and grow.

They understand that life is a Do-it-yourself project, and that difficult
things, come too easy, often unappreciated, generally  prove useless.

Mentees, nearly always, at times, feel their Mentor is holding them back…
and it might be true and necessary, for craftsmanship demands an enormous amount of try and fail.

Mentors quietly care and they silently cheer you on. Every little challenge
you meet and overcome burns joyfully within their hearts.

Mentors give unselfishly, most likely, because once in their past they too,
experienced a Mentor who shared and cared and silently cheered for them.
For this is a continuous, self-perpetuating  process.

Mentees grow, and when they’ve reached a certain  level of success they
then become Mentors.

For love goes on and on and therein lies the magic.