The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘François Fénelon’

Mentor Yourself: Thomas Carlyle, British Historian, Essayist and Leading Social Critic of Victorian England

“Thomas Carlyle, the nineteenth-century British historian and essayist believed that leaders shape and determine history…. was convinced that “history is the biography of great men,” the greatest of them being kings. The very word king, Carlyle contended, derives from the ancient word Can-ning, which means “Able-man” (although his etymology can be disputed). In Carlyle’s view, the Ablemen (and Ablewomen) of the human species direct the course of history and determine humanity’s destiny.” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Thomas Carlyle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Name: Thomas Carlyle

Birth Date: December 1795 – February 1881

Job Functions: Historian, Essayist

Fields: History and Literature

To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Profiles, while you are reading it, answer the following questions:

1. Are their similarities between Thomas Carlyle and yourself?
2. What are your five takeaways from the profile?
3. When you think of the Thomas Carlyle, what thoughts immediately come to mind?
4. In what ways can you use the information in your work and life?
5. Look at the process you use to get your job done, think of ways to improve the process and make it more efficient. Is there a way to eliminate a step or combine steps? Also, is there a way to do your work in a more cost-efficient manner?
6. After reading the profile of Thomas Carlyle, what is one concrete action you can take?

Biography

British Historian, Essayist and Leading Social Critic of Victorian England, Thomas Carlyle was born close to the end of the 18^th century in Scotland. His father was a staunch Calvinist. Thomas attended Annan Grammar school and later Edinburgh University in 1809 where he distinguished himself in mathematics. He was also a voracious reader. It was Thomas’ intention to enter ministry, but he changed his mind because he lost his faith while attending university, and first worked as a mathematics schoolteacher until he began a literary career as a freelance journalist. In 1817, a reading of Edward Gibbon precipitated Carlyle’s rejection of the Bible.

Madame de Staël’s Germany, Volume 1… influenced him deeply, as well as introduced Carlyle to German thought and literature. He also liked the writing of Johann von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Voltaire, François Fénelon, and the scientific works of Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin. In 1821, Carlyle met Jane Baillie Welsh, whom he married five years later. In August 1822, Carlyle had a transformative religious experience on Leith Walk in Edinburgh, where he suffered an intense crisis of faith and conversion, which he later wrote about in Sartor Resartus (Oxford World’s Classics. “His personal vision convinced him that a transcendental, godly presence animated the universe and put him at odds with what he saw as the wicked materialism of the times and its adjutants: pride, secularism, agnosticism, liberalism, and democracy.”

In 1823 – 1824, Thomas published a Life of Schiller (Complete Works of Thomas Carlyle: The Life of Friedrich Schiller, Comprehending an Examination of His Works) in the London Magazine, and in 1824, he translated Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. Carlyle made his first trip to London where he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and other leading literary figures of the day. When he returned to Scotland, he married Jane Baillie Welsh in August 1826. Carlyle and his wife first lived in Edinburgh until they relocated in 1828 to Craigenputtock where they lived on a farm owned by his wife’s family. In 1927, Carlyle translated the work of prominent German writers and published them in a four volumes known as German Romance.

While in Edinburgh and Craigenputtock, Carlyle wrote a series of distinguished essays for the Edinburgh Review and the Foreign Review, which were compiled and published as Miscellaneous and Critical Essays (Critical and miscellaneous essays, collected and republished. Vol. IV). Some of these essays were on Robert Burns, Johann von Goethe and Jean Paul Freidrich Richter and Signs of the Times, which was Carlyle’s first essay on social problems. In 1828, Carlyle wrote and published Sartor Resartus (Oxford World’s Classics), which was originally rejected by London publishers. Fraser’s Magazine agreed to serialize it in 1833 to 1834. Initially Sartor Resartus met with little success, but its popularity developed over the years.

While living at the Craigenputtock farm, Carlyle began a lifelong friendship with the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sartor Resartus was published in book form in Boston in 1836, with a preface by Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing the development of New England Transcendentalism. The first English edition of the book followed in 1838.

In 1834, Carlyle and Jane moved to Chelsea, London where he acquired the name, “Sage of Chelsea.” In London, he became a member of a literary circle which included essayists Leigh Hunt and John Stuart Mill. Writing Sartor Resartus had matured Carlyle as a writer, so he decided to graduate to much longer works. He started to study the French Revolution and Mills encouraged him, by giving Carlyle his own notes on the subject. The French Revolution published in 1837, cemented Carlyle on the literary map. Instead of writing a factual account of the French Revolution like most historical writing, Carlyle immersed himself in the subject, capturing the spirit and focusing on the drama of the event – he highlighted personalities and circumstances. He was able to animate history.

After the publication of The French Revolution, Carlyle immediately turned his attention to the social problems in England by way of essays and biographies. In 1939, he published Chartism…, and in 1943, his book, Past and Present which dealt with the social problems caused by the industrial revolution in England.

Carlyle gained acclaim and his popularity led him to give several series of lectures on German literature, the history of literature, modern European revolutions, and finally, and most significantly, on heroes and hero worship. In 1841, Carlyle published these lectures, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History blended mythology with metaphysics “to produce an image of the ideal type of individual needed as the saviour of humankind.”

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History celebrates eleven disparate figures grouped into six categories:

1. “The hero as divinity (Odin)
2. The hero as prophet (Mahomet [Mohammed] Muh ammad)
3. The hero as poet (Dante, Shakespeare)
4. The hero as priest (Martin Luther, John Knox)
5. The hero as man of letters (Samuel Johnson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Burns)
6. The hero as king (Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon).”

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in Literature also led to two larger projects later in his career: Oliver Cromwell and Fredrick the Great. In 1845, Carlyle published, Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations by Thomas Carlyle: Volume 1), a collection of Cromwell’s letters and speeches connected by narrative and commentary. From 1852 to 1865 he laboured on the six-volume Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, a biography of Frederick the Great (1865).

Carlyle was elected as Rector of Edinburgh University the in 1865, the same year his wife Jane died. Between 1866 and 1869, Carlyle headed a committee that defended Governor Edward John Eyre of Jamaica – who had suppressed a rebellion of plantation workers in Morant Bay, allowing at least 439 people to be killed retributively – in a fierce public debate. This debate pitted Carlyle and his colleagues Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, and Alfred Tennyson against Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, and Herbert Spencer.

Thomas Carlyle influenced a number of his younger contemporaries such as Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Charles Kingsley, John Ruskin, and James Froude. He also influenced later Victorian writers. “His impact is present in Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, or the Two Nations (1845), John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1851–1853), and in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1852–1853) and Hard Times (1854), the latter being dedicated to Carlyle. Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859) was based largely on Carlyle’s French Revolution, which Dickens claimed to have read hundreds of times.”

Thomas Carlyle’s Steps to Success

• Believed in and practiced continuous learning.
• Kept on writing and created a substantial body of work.
• Had a support network.

Why Thomas Carlyle’s Contribution Matters

Thomas Carlyle not only left us a body of work to enjoy, but he also influenced some of the writers we love dearly, such as Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin and Alfred Tennyson.

Works Cited/Referenced

New Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Encyclopedia of Religion

Encyclopedia of European Social History

Europe 1789 to 1914

American History Through Literature, 1820 – 1870

Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Book links are affiliate links.

In the recent mentoring survey by the social network LinkedIn, a large percent of women reported that the reason they didn’t have a mentor was because no one had asked them. This is the first in a series that will assist you in taking control of your career by creating your own personal mentoring program. Instead of waiting to be asked if you would like to be mentored, you will learn how to take the initiative in finding appropriate mentors for yourself.

It may seem weird to you that there is such a thing as a do-it-yourself mentoring program. We have been conditioned to think of mentoring in a certain way, in a traditional way, where someone, usually at a senior level, advises and guides another person at a more junior level. Before you create a mentoring program for yourself, first you have to understand what mentoring is, as well as determine what your true needs are, so that you seek appropriate mentors and tap into relevant networks.

The Story behind Mentoring

In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, when Odysseus, the Greek King of Ithaca left to fight in the 10-year Trojan War, he left his old friend Mentor in charge of his household and young son Telemachus. The real Mentor is not mentioned that much in the story; however, the immortal Goddess Athena, disguises herself as Mentor and encourages Telemachus to stand up to the men who were courting his mother Penelope.

Athena also encourages Telemachus to go abroad to seek word about what has happened to his father, who had now been away for almost 20 years. Additionally, Athena acts as a mentor to Odysseus as he goes through the many trials during his return journey to his palace in Ithaca after the war.

In more recent times, Freddie Laker mentored Sir Richard Branson, Roger Corman mentored Martin Scorcese and Ron Howard, Michelle Robinson mentored Barack Obama and former Xerox CEO Anne M. Mulcahy mentored Ursula Burns to take over the reins. (For some interesting mentor-protégé pairings click here for an extensive list on Peer Resources).

Definition of Mentoring

The modern usage of mentor – trusted friend, counsellor or teacher – first appeared in François Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque in 1699, Wikipedia (2009).  Dictionary.com has a similar definition for a mentor, “Wise and trusted counsellor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.”  And Wikipedia notes that “Mentors provide their expertise to less-experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education.”

However, the concept of mentoring has been evolving over the past few years, and it’s no longer a traditional one-to-one or relationship. Mentoring is conversations, interactions, support and other networks and our relationships with others. Mentoring can occur in moments (profound conversation you have with others, or the interviews I conduct with others), over a period of time (mentoring for a specific period of time) or even over a lifetime (parents are often great mentors). Once you embrace the broader meaning of mentoring and mentors, it’s much easier for you to create a mentoring program that’s just right for you.

In addition to the above, there is also a new kind of mentoring – invisible mentoring. An invisible mentor is a “unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from a distance.” You may call these people role models, but they are also your invisible mentors. The invisible mentor concept may be unfamiliar to you, but in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was first published in 1937, the author writes about what he calls “invisible counsellors”.  According to Hill, “I followed the habit of reshaping my own character by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life works had been most impressive to me… Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie… I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care.”

Step One in Creating your Mentoring Program

Before you get down to the nitty-gritty of creating your mentoring program, you first have to understand yourself and your needs, the why behind wanting a mentor. Here is your first action to take.

Mini Mentoring Needs Analysis

1. What are your vision, mission and purpose in life?
2. In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life? Please frame your responses in the form of personal and professional goals for each of the five life areas – Economic/Financial, Social, Health/Fitness, Business/Career and Personal. Have no more than 10 goals and assign timelines to them for what you want to accomplish in the first, second and third year.
3. Think about your professional goals, what gaps exist between where you are now, to where you would like to be in the next three years?
4. What actions do you have to take to fill those gaps?
5. What knowledge do you have to acquire to fill those gaps?
6. Who are the experts that you can learn from, and what are their areas of expertise?
7. Of the experts that you identified, which ones do you respect and are respected by others?
8. If trusted friends could introduce you to five people who would be ideal mentors for you, would you choose? Would your ideal mentors be similar to the experts you identified above?
9. The five ideal mentors that you choose in the above question, what qualities and traits do they possess, which accounted for you choosing them?
10. Who are some people within your organizations, and other networks who have the same goals as you do? (These people could be potential members for mentoring groups that you create).
11. At the end of a mentoring relationship, what would success for you look like?

In the next episode of the DIY Mentoring Program, we’ll delve further into the process.

I am thinking of creating a digital product that fleshes out the DIY Mentoring Program. What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

I know that you must be wondering,”What an odd name for a post.” I do not think that I have ever related the story behind the name Mentor.

In Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus also known as Ulysses, the Greek King of Ithaca, left to fight in the 10-year Trojan War, he left his old friend Mentor in charge of his household and his young son Telemachus. Mentor as himself is not mentioned that much in the Odyssey, which I have read. However, it is interesting that in this epic poem, the immortal Goddess Athena, disguises herself as Mentor, and encourages Telemachus to stand up to the men who are courting his mother Penelope. The goddess also encourages the youth  to go abroad to seek word about what has happened to his father, who at the time had now been away for almost 20 years.

Athena also acts as a “mentor” to Odyssey as he goes through the many trials during a very saga-filled return to Ithaca after the war. The modern usage of mentor – trusted friend, counsellor, guide, or teacher – first appeared in François Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque in 1699 Wikipedia  (2009).

Have you ever read Homer’s Odyssey? What are your thoughts? Who was more of a mentor to Telemachus, Mentor or Athena? In the modern sense of the word, who could you mentor, who could you take under your wings? Though this isn’t a book review, I do recommend that you read Homer’s Odyssey, it’s quite a tale. This book teaches a great lesson in perseverance. Many obstacles were placed in front of Odyssey, which delayed his return home and it makes you wonder how much is enough. How persistent and resilient are you?

What are your thoughts on Greek Gods and Goddesses? Overall, do you think that they were fair in the way they dealt with others? If you haven’t read any Greek Mythology, it would be worth it if you checked them out on Wikipedia. I recently saw Clash of the Titans, which involved some Greek characters as well, have you seen that movie?

Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia via Zemanta

Definition of Mentoring: The modern usage of mentor – trusted friend, counsellor or teacher – first appeared in François Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque in 1699, Wikipedia (2009).  Dictionary.com has a similar definition for a mentor, “Wise and trusted counsellor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.”  And Wikipedia notes that “Mentors provide their expertise to less-experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education.”

Holland Bamboo, Jamaica

An important aspect of professional success involves participating in mentoring programs. And now more than ever, during these challenging economic times, employees need mentors to guide and advise them as they navigate flattened corporate structures. Research conducted for Sun Microsystems by research company Gartner and Capital Analytics, a software company, looked at 1,000 Sun employees over a five-year period to examine the financial impact of mentoring and found that:

• 25 percent of employees in a test group who took part in the company’s mentoring program had a salary-grade change, compared with 5 percent of employees in a control group who did not participate in the program
• 28 percent of mentors in the test group had a salary grade change as opposed to just 5 percent in the control group
• Mentors were promoted six times more often than those not in the program
• Mentees were promoted five times more often than those not in the program
• Retention rates were much higher for mentees (72 percent) and mentors (69 percent) than for employees who did not participate in the mentoring program (49 percent)

According to Wikipedia, “Mentors provide their expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education.” In the context of the Invisible Mentor, the following quotes sum up Invisible Mentoring:

“A wise man learns by the experience of others. An ordinary man learns by his own experience. A fool learns by nobody’s experience.” Vern McLellan

“If you would know the road ahead, ask someone who has traveled it.” Chinese Proverb

“It is good to learn what to avoid by studying the misfortunes of others.” Publius Syrius

“A prudent person profits from personal experience, a wise one from the experience of others.” Joseph Collins

“There are three schoolmasters for everybody that will employ them – the senses, intelligent companions, and books.” Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

I believe a great mentoring relationship assists the mentee to be the best he/she can be. What does mentoring mean to you? And how can Invisible Mentors work for you?

Related Posts

• Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (Part I)
• Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (Part II)
• Adventures: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One

• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Get the Mentoring Equation Right, Whitney Johnson