How well do you need to know your mentor?
One of my favorite parts of giving keynotes is at the very end, when I open up the floor to questions from the audience. It is an opportunity to not only directly address a subject top of mind to the person asking the question, but to explore a topic that can be of value to the entire audience.
During the Q&A portion of a keynote I gave in Milwaukee earlier this week, a member of the audience asked me if I ever interviewed Milwaukee legend and longtime Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker, who passed away at age 90 earlier this year. Bob Uecker’s name came up repeatedly during my trip to Milwaukee and for good reason. He brought joy to countless people through his work with the Brewers, but also through his time on TV and in movies. Many of us think of him for his role in Major League as much as anything.
I told him that no, unfortunately, I never interviewed Bob Uecker. But I also told him something that I learned from conversations with several of my podcast guests: your mentor can be someone who you actually never met before. I cited examples of an Emmy winner who told me that her mentor is Oprah Winfrey even though she has never met Oprah and two business leaders – a founder of a household name entertainment company and a CEO of a multibillion dollar business – who each told me that their mentor is Steve Jobs, even though neither met Steve Jobs. They were their mentors from afar: they consumed all of their content, read all of their books, watched and listened to all of their interviews, and learned as much as they could from them without actually speaking to them.
You can and should have mentors who you know personally. But you can also have mentors who you don’t know and who you learn from from afar. Bob Uecker was one of those people for me.
