With Purpose Success, part 66

Yet the term mentor didn't fully emerge in popular language until the eighteenth century French priest and educator Francois Fenelon put his own spin on the subject in The Adventures of Telemachus. This was a soaring work of fiction that told of Telemachus's many travels and the relationships he forged with various wizened elders, including his primary teacher, Mentor. Searching for his father, Telemachus embarks upon a series of adventures and encounters with extraordinary men who directly or obliquely provide him with important life lessons. He employs these lessons in his search and ultimately becomes reunited with his father. 

Telemachus is little known today. But when it was printed in 1699 it became an immediate success and was the most frequently published modern work in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book was most important for the political views it espoused. But it helped shape intellectual development for a hundred years, and because the mentoring theme was so dominant throughout the story it solidified and gave a name to the act of being a role model and life counselor. 

In more modern times, Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie has become a mentoring classic. In this heartwarming real-life tale, Albom tells of reconnecting with a favorite college professor he hadn't seen in sixteen years. After learning his old mentor was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, Albom visits the man every Tuesday and soaks up his wisdom on love, work, marriage, envy, children, forgiveness, community, and aging. 

Over the course of my career, I've seen a handful of seminal events that have lifted our youth-obsessed culture's aging awareness, such as 

John Glenn's trip back into space at seventy-seven, George Foreman retaking the heavyweight boxing crown at fifty, Jessica Tandy winning her first Academy Award for her role in Driving Miss Daisy at seventy-nine. 

But in some ways, Tuesdays with Morrie trumps them all. A runaway best seller, it presented a view of mentoring that caught the attention of millions of readers. It's not a Hollywood story about conquest or guy gets girl or coming of age. It's about the passing of wisdom; about the primal need for elder guidance and to pass along all that one has learned. There is something powerful about the passing of knowledge and wisdom and perspective from one generation to the next. Albom's book nailed it-and hit a global nerve. 

I'll bet you've had a mentor, or life coach, at some point and possibly been one too, at least informally. My time helping students with public speaking is a form of life coaching, and in the coming years-when I'm more or less done mentoring my children (you're never really done, of course, but now that Maddy and I are empty nesters, they seem to need me less)-I envision devoting many more hours to that kind of thing. As 

I grow older and, hopefully, grow a bit wiser, passing on the fruit of my experiences to others is a role I'd really like to play. 

Certainly, I've had mentors. In my case, they've been informal relationships at different points in my life. I long ago learned to value the insights and wisdom of people who are older than me. I've sought them out from time to time, and when I've connected it has always helped me work through specific problems or set a general vision for my work or my life.