The May 22, 2006 issue of Forbes magazine has a wonderful article by Rich Karlgaard entitled “About That First Job.”
Business Information.
What caught my eye was the description of how, as a young man in the business world without a lot of business interest or experience, Karlgaard found mentors that never knew they were his mentors. Karlgaard writes “I picked mentors because they had something I needed to learn. From one I learned how to match a jacket, shirt and tie. He always looked sharp; I wanted to look sharp too, so I quietly observed the color of his clothing, the knot of his tie, the amount of shirt cuff showing. Sounds trivial and even silly, but it helped me and gave me confidence.”
If a person in business spends 60 hours a week on their profession that leaves 108 hours that are available to spend on their personal lives. Take out seven hours a night for sleeping and you have 52 hours left per week to spend with family, friends and other people you care about.
Often the quality of the time we spend in those 108 hours determines how we approach the other 60 hours. Most of us focus on finding mentors in our business lives. What we probably all could use are good mentors in our personal lives.
Nearly 18 years ago I found a good man to mentor me in my personal life. Like Karlgaard, I viewed my mentor from afar, never letting on that I was learning through all the intervening years.
When you meet someone and their history is revealed, it speaks volumes about not just who they are but the internal compass—their values—that guide them. My mentor was very happily married, and had been married at that time for 35 years to the same lovely woman. He had raised two daughters and a son, all doing well in their chosen fields of work. After a stint in the service of his country, his own employment had been with the same firm for more than 20 years; he was loyal to his company, done what was asked of him, and the firm was loyal in return. During my first few chats with him I discovered that at his core, at his foundation, he was rock solid, something akin to granite.
Now, fast forward to today, and allow me to take another look at my mentor. He retired after 35 years with the same company. His children have grown, and he is the proud grandfather of six, and the great grandfather of two. Just this week, he and his bride celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary.
DeWitt Jones the famous photographer for National Geographic, once said “It is no use walking to preach unless you preach while you walk.” And so it was for my mentor. He never preached; he didn’t have to. He walked the walk, and that alone was often enough for him to skip the talking the talk part.
My mentor was never a captain of industry, he never owned a business. He was, I am sure, one of the “get it done” people that helped his employer. He did this without negativity, grumbling, and complaining. He was, for more than one organization, a “good soldier.”
He was a role model in his personal life, and that translated very nicely to what he did all week long for 35 years at his company. He was a good neighbor, which is someone that you not want only to live next to, but would love to work with on a daily basis. His belief system in his personal life was very visible, and this made the transition to his work life as well. His valued his reputation and guarded it. I am sure that he helped others guard theirs. He took care to watch people’s backs.
I often weigh people by whether or not I would want to be in the same foxhole with them during a battle, a tough time in life. I know that my mentor Bob would be at the top of the short list of everyone who knows him. If you know Bob, you’d want him to be shoulder to shoulder with you. He is just that kind of guy.
Bob is my father in law. I’ve known him since 1988. Because of the geographic distance that separates us, I have had to observe and learn from afar for too long. But the lessons I have learned have been invaluable.
I visited him last weekend for the first time in a longtime. Bob is a real fight for his life. He still has, at his core, the values that made him a success in the 168 hours that he and each of us have been given each week in our lives. One of those values is to make sure that your priorities are right and that means taking care of those that you love.
Bob passed away in late August, 2006 and was buried in Longview, Texas. We all miss Bob, and think of him often. I can only hope that I can be as good as a mentor as he was to me.
