102 Leading with NLP
friend and teacher. Mentor was inspired by the Greek gods,
and the English word ‘enthusiasm’ has its roots in the Greek
words meaning ‘to be possessed by a god’. Enthusiasm can
be such a strong force and inspiration that it seems to come
from the gods. A mentor is an enthusiastic friend, a coach,
someone to confide in, a shoulder to lean on. No one,
certainly no leader, is invulnerable and self-sufficient.
Who has been your mentor in the past? A mentor does
not have to be an old grizzled man with a flowing white
beard, looking like a Hollywood depiction of the Old Testa-
ment God. Anyone can be a mentor. A real person makes the
best mentor, but a mentor does not have to be a person. You
may have a book as a mentor. Nearly everyone remembers a
book or a series of books that had a great effect on them
when they were children. Perhaps they even shaped what
they wanted to do in life. Every good story has a mentor
character, some written so well that they seem to spring off
the page and speak directly to us. A mentor may be a char-
acter in a film. In the Star Warstrilogy, Obi Wan Kenobi, the
Jedi knight, becomes the first mentor to Luke Skywalker.
Even when Obi Wan dies, he still acts as a mentor. Later on,
Luke is mentored by Yoda, who was Obi Wan’s mentor. Yoda
hardly fits Luke’s vision of a Jedi knight, which makes the
point that mentors are not always what we expect them to be.
You can choose your mentors and sometimes your men-
tors choose you. I count my children as mentors. I have
learned a tremendous amount from them, although I did
not always appreciate the lessons at the time.
While writing this book I read a newspaper article about
the joys and perils of being a stepfather. The writer took the
cyborg character played by Arnold Schwartzenegger in the
film Terminator 2as a role model for a good stepfather (at
least in part) – not for his indestructibility, but because the
erstwhile terminator is as unswerving in protecting the
young boy in his care as he was unyielding in his homicidal
pursuit in the first film. A cyborg programmed to kill is not
the obvious choice of a role model for a stepfather, but part
of his character was perfect. Mentors never provide a complete