The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Thomas Paine’

Over centuries, mentors have been playing a significant role in the lives of successful people. Mentor first appeared in Homer’s Odyssey where he was left in charge of Telemachus, the young son of King Odysseus who went to fight in the Trojan War. The Goddess Athena disguised as Mentor advised Telemachus when he grew older, to go and search for his father who had now been gone for 20 years.

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In more recent times, Freddie Laker mentored Sir Richard Branson, Roger Corman mentored Martin Scorcese and Ron Howard, and former Xerox CEO Anne M. Mulcahy mentored Ursula Burns to take over the reins.

Since Mentor first appeared, the mentoring role has evolved into what it is today. According to Dictionary.com, a mentor is a “Wise and trusted counselor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.”

But mentors can be invisible.

That means that the mentor does not know that they are mentoring us. These invisible mentors are our role models. We choose them because we want to study their behaviours. We want to learn from them so we can possibly mimic their actions. Often they have done something that we would like to do, or are trying to do but with some difficulty.

Mentors who are invisible to their mentees have been around for a while.

The concept of the invisible mentor is not new. Napoleon Hill talks about them in his timeless classic Think and Grow which was first published in 1937, but he calls them “invisible counselors”.

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.”

He not only studied the lives of his nine invisible mentors, but he blended the information he learned with his knowledge, and he acted on the information by imaging their good qualities. This investment in time spent getting to know these nine men benefitted him tremendously because he knew them so well that he could anticipate how they would respond in various situations – and he responded that way.

More recently, in 2000, Washington State University professor Karen L. Peterson in her paper “Invisible Mentor: Communication Theory and Lilian Katz” wrote about invisible mentors and described the mentee as an absorbent learner. “Invisible mentors are not “super-human” persuaders or orators, nor are they icons with intractable wisdom. An invisible mentor has the capacity and capability (albeit a gift) to see just above the “tree top” and the ability and commitment to come “back down” and tell many below what can be seen… The invisible mentor has the instinctive capability to sort out the valuable from the superfluous,” said Peterson.

Invisible mentors are still relevant today.

After researching the idea of “invisible mentors,” I concluded that they are unique leaders you can learn things from, by observing them from a distance. It is not enough to have one traditional mentor, because no one person can fill all the roles we need them to. But invisible mentors can complement our traditional mentor. Napoleon Hill had his personal Board of Invisible Counselors. And we can have the same.

It is easier for us than it was for Napoleon Hill because of the unprecedented access we have to information. Today, most of us have access to the Internet, which opens us up to online databases, videos, podcasts, e-books, free courses, you name it. At the click of a mouse, we can learn about almost anyone, we can find and study our own invisible mentors.

And with social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, it easier to contact people who once appeared untouchable and unreachable to us. In addition, Skype allows us to talk to people in other countries without long distance charges that can be prohibitive.

Invisible mentors are relevant today because if we choose our invisible mentors carefully, they can help to accelerate our success trajectory, but we have to be willing to invest the time like Napoleon Hill did to research those who have travelled the path we are embarking on. Or who have done, or are doing what we most want to do. And most importantly, we have to blend that newfound knowledge with what we already know.

So, what’s next?

• What are you are trying to accomplish in life?
• Who are five people who have done what you are trying to do?
• Have they written books or developed videos and other material that explains what they did and how they did it?
• If the five people who you chose are still alive, would they be willing to speak to you for 15 minutes?
• What skills do you lack that are critical to your success?
• Who possess those skills set that you can study them?

These questions are not exhaustive, they are meant to get you thinking. Do you see the relevance of invisible mentors? You could research Napoleon Hill’s nine “invisible counselors”, or you could look at some of the interviews on this blog to get ideas. Many of the people who interviewees choose who they would most like to meet would make incredible invisible mentors as well.

How can you use this information? 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 (theinvisiblementor.com)
• 2011 Interviews for Mentoring (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month (theinvisiblementor.com)

The Internet has been abuzz over the past few weeks with Napoleon Hill‘s Invisible Counselors, but is this technique different from Invisible Mentors? Are people going to turn The Invisible Counselor Technique into a fad like “The Secret” movie where viewers thought they could visualize a goal and have it manifest without taking action, instead of taking the time to do things the correct way. Is there really an easy way out?

This post is my reaction to the concept of Invisible Counselors. Please refer to Vishen Lakhiani’s original post “Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People.” It’s a great post and the video is a great complement to the written information in the post. See the video below. What critical component did Napoleon Hill omit in his technique?

If you cannot view the video click here. I got a copy of Think and Grow Rich because I wanted to go to the source to present the facts to you, and I wanted to better understand Invisible Counselors. Many people have said that Think and Grown Rich was one of the books that had a profound impact on their life. I wasn’t one of those people, and I didn’t enjoy the book when I first read it. However, I thought that Earl Nightingale did a nice summary of the book. I am at the point where I am ready to re-read Think and Grow Rich and see if my reaction is different seven years later.

The Invisible Counselor is discussed at length in Chapter 14, “The Sixth Sense: the Door to the Temple of Wisdom.” I must preface my comments by saying that I do believe in the power of the subconscious mind and the sixth sense. Here is what the book says about Invisible Counselors.

“While I was passing through the age of “hero worship” I found myself trying to imitate those whom I most admired… 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. These nine men were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie. Every night, over a long period of years, I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my “Invisible Counselors.” [I added in the last name of Hill's nine Invisible Counselors]

The procedure was this. Just before going to sleep at night, I would shut my eyes and see, in my imagination, this group of men seated with me around my council table. Here I had not only an opportunity to sit among those whom I considered to be great, but I actually dominated the group by serving as the Chairman.

I had a very definite purpose in indulging my imagination through these nightly meetings. My purpose was to rebuild my own character so it would represent a composite of the characters of my imaginary counselors….

These meetings became so realistic that I started to be fearful of their consequences, and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny. I was afraid if I continued them I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences of my imagination….

I began to add new members to my cabinet. Now it consists of more than 50, among them Christ, St. Paul, Galileo, Copernicus, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Voltaire, Bruno, Spinoza, Drummond, Kant, Schopenhauer, Newton, Confucius, Elbert Hubbard, Brann, Ingersol, Wilson and William James….”

In the technique, Hill called on each of his nine Invisible Counselor and was very specific about what he required from them. For example,

“Mr Darwin, I wish to acquire from you the marvelous patience and ability to study cause and effect without bias or prejudice so exemplified by you in the field of natural science.

Mr Carnegie, I am already indebted to you for my choice of a life work, which has brought me great happiness and peace of mind. I wish to acquire a thorough understanding of the principles of organized effort, which you used so effectively in the building of a great industrial enterprise.

My method of addressing the members of  the imaginary cabinet would vary according to the traits of character which I was most interested in acquiring at the time. I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care. After some months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by the discovery that these imaginary figures became, apparently, real.”

Please click here to read Chapter 14 on page 134 of the electronic version. What Napoleon Hill refers to as Invisible Counselors are what I call Invisible Mentors. From the cited text from Think and Grow Rich, the nine Invisible Counselors are people who Hill admired, and he imitated them, which suggests that he studied them, which is exactly what I advocate for your Invisible Mentors. I suggest that you become so steeped in your Invisible Mentors that you could ask and answer “What would Invisible Mentor 1 do in this situation?” You can also find invisible mentors on The Mentors page.

Below is an Invisible Mentor slide that I created over seven months ago. After I finished viewing it today for inclusion in this blog post, I realized that I have to update it because my views have expanded, because my knowledge has grown, which is a good thing. How has your knowledge changed in the past six months?

Many people viewing the video “The Most Controversial Personal Growth Technique Ever,” may think that they can use the technique to mentally call on successful people to answer their questions, or generate great ideas without any initial work. Hill spent decades studying successful people so his subconscious mind had a place to start. From my previous posts on generating creative ideas and creative problem solving, the process is preparation, incubation, illumination and verification/implementation.

So what did Napoleon Hill Omit? Hill did not omit anything from what I have read from Think and Grow Rich, the video neglected to mention that when Hill started using the Invisible Counselor Technique he used nine people whose lives and life works had been most impressive to him. To me, that means he had studied these people. This is a major omission from the video. Also, he practiced the technique each night over a long period of years. This also suggests that Hill practiced the technique until he mastered it. Statistics floating around suggest that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

This is an important lesson to always go to the source if you are able to, otherwise you’ll never know what critical piece of information you are missing. What are your thoughts on Invisible Counselors? Which five of Hill’s Invisible Counselors would you choose as Invisible Mentors? Now that you are familiar with Invisible Mentors from reading this blog, would you chair an Invisible Mentor Council Meeting? And if yes, what would you hope to achieve?

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 left side) by email or RSS Feed.

For an electronic copy of Think and Grow Rich, please click here.

Further Reading

The Sixth Sense: The Door to the Temple of Wisdom – The Thirteenth Step toward Riches

Napoleon Hill Did This, And You Should Too

Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People