To My Mentors: Three People Who Shaped The Way I See The World

Today I’m remembering three of the people I called mentors and their lives, as I read tributes to the ones who recently left us.

I met them during my school years, but they taught me that learning never really ends.

One mentor transformed a small school I attended in Athens, Greece (which I wrote about here) into a powerful and unique learning community whose lessons I apply every day. He taught me that the right choice to make may be the hardest choice. As he used to say, “there may be a thousand reasons for not doing something, and one good reason why you should.”

Another mentor was a champion of innovation and creativity at that school who taught me to love the arts and that the truths and secrets of life reveal themselves to you if you dare to open your mind to them. Like the sudden realization when the strange painting you always knew but never understood, revealed itself to you. When I remember him, I remember the end of the John Keats poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn:”

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Another mentor from my university years knew I had something to offer, and skills, before I had achieved anything. He gave me opportunities before even I knew I was worth having them. He had climbed to the top of the advertising and marketing world, but the mischievous look in his eye reminded me that he never forgot what it was like to be just starting out.

More importantly, I shared a bond with these mentors. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I met them.

Nikos Kazantzakis used to tell a Greek or Etruscan proverb about friendship, “it is not because two clouds meet that lighting flashes; two clouds meet so that lightning will flash.” There are no accidents.

Perhaps the highest form of praise someone can pay to a mentor is to become a mentor. It must be tricky to be a mentor, because I’m not sure if most mentors believe they deserve that title.

What’s for sure is, while none of them would call themselves mentors, many people they knew called them mentors, and I hear their praises now on social media now that they are gone.

What we can do is live the difficult, yet worthwhile, lives they challenged us to live. And thank them, with great admiration.

Who were some of your mentors? Leave a comment below! I would love to hear from you.