Mentor with Heart: A Path to Purpose
(Image credit: Photo by Godwin Torres on Pexels)
By Helen Patterson
Most of our lives are organised around things we can count, predict, analyse and control. Hours billed, projects delivered, number of emails answered. Not very bohemian, right? Our calendars fill, our to-do lists grow, and from the outside it can all look very productive. Even successful at times.
But underneath the deadlines and targets, there is often another layer running quietly in the background. And funnily enough, it tends to resurface at odd moments. Say, on the commute home, or in the middle of a difficult meeting ( I believe it secretly relishes in choosing the most inconvenient timing), or when the house finally goes quiet at night. What I am talking about is the rare but impactful encounter with a few very simple questions: Is this what I am here for? What is the point of all this? What am I actually contributing? Is any of this aligned with who I feel I really am?
That is the strange, human experience we call purpose. Purpose is such a uniquely human preoccupation. My dog has never once woken up wondering whether she is “living her purpose”. Animals seek food, safety, warmth, connection. They live inside their instincts. We, on the other hand, turn our lives into grand and meaningful questions.
And more often than not, when we scratch below the surface, purpose is often tied to being of service. Creating some kind of good in the world, however small or local that good may be.
This December, as we’ve been exploring the theme of Mentor with Heart at Life Works Well, I’ve found myself returning again and again to this idea:
What if mentoring is one of the most practical ways we have to reconnect with this notion of purpose? What if mentoring is, quite simply, learning the language of collective purpose?
Because I don’t think our problem is that we don’t work hard enough. I think our problem is that we are often caught in the hamster wheel, in the attractive and sometimes destructive illusion of doing, achieving, replying, delivering, driving us away from the deeper “why” that helps it all make sense.
The hunger for purpose
When I talk with people in organisations, purpose often comes up in subtle ways. It sounds like:
“I’m good at my job, but I don’t feel anything anymore.”
“I keep hitting my targets, but it all feels a bit flat.”
“I want my work to actually matter to someone.”
We might label these as engagement issues, burnout, or misalignment. And yes, sometimes they are. But these are not causes, they are consequences of something much more substantial that isn’t fulfilled, and more often that not, completely dormant. Beneath many of these conversations is a very human ache: I want to feel that my energy is going somewhere meaningful.
The irony is that many of the systems we’ve built, especially in corporate environments, push people away from purpose. We over-index on efficiency, speed, and output. We reward individual performance and overlook the less visible acts of care and support that hold teams together. We ask people to be endlessly productive, but we rarely ask them to be useful in the deeper sense, useful to each other’s growth, confidence, and courage.
This is where mentoring comes in. Not as another programme or performance metric, but as a way of putting purpose back into circulation between human beings – a way of repurposing purpose (see what I did there?).
Mentoring as shared purpose, not solo destiny
We often talk about purpose as something intensely personal: my calling, my path, my mission. There is some truth in that. But I think we’ve over-individualised it. When we frame purpose only as “what I am meant to do”, we risk turning it into another self-improvement project, another thing to optimize, brand and compare.
Mentoring invites a different orientation. It asks: how can my experience, my attention, my presence serve someone else’s journey? How might my purpose be entangled with the purposes of others?
Every time we mentor with heart (formally or informally) we touch a form of collective purpose. We are no longer just asking what our life is for; we are allowing our life to become useful in someone else’s story. We are sharing the act of living with the act of loving, caring, and helping. Life becomes the purpose. A life well-lived, embodied, and activated towards a global sense of goodness.
And the beautiful part is that this is reciprocal. When I mentor someone, I am reminded of what I know, what I’ve lived through, what I care about deeply enough to pass on. When someone mentors me, I am reminded that I am not alone, that my growth matters to others. In that exchange, purpose stops being an abstract concept and becomes a lived relationship.
The hamster wheel and the missing layer
If we zoom out for a moment, many of us are spinning way too fast. Emails, meetings, targets, deadlines, care work, parenting, caring for elders, the constant hum of notifications and obligations, and I could go on.
None of these things are inherently bad. The problem is when they become detached from a sense of meaning.
Heartfelt mentoring adds this missing layer. When you take 45 minutes out of a busy day to sit with a colleague who is struggling, and you listen properly, something shifts. You are no longer just “doing your job”. You are participating in their unfolding, helping them see themselves differently. That interaction stays with both of you far longer than the meeting that came before or after.
The same is true outside of work. Be it a neighbour you check in on, a young person you encourage, a friend you help through a career transition. These are mentor moments. They do not require a title or a programme. They simply require willingness and a certain quality of presence. And they are, in my experience, some of the most reliable sources of purpose we have.
Being of service: dāna and everyday mentoring
In some spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism, there is the concept of dāna: the practice of giving freely, without expectation of return. Dāna is not about grand sacrifice, but generosity as a natural expression of who we are.
When I think about mentoring with heart, I often think of dāna. The real gift in mentoring isn’t money, but time and attention. A way of listening that allows someone to hear themselves.
This time of year, when the contrast between comfort and struggle is so visible to some, it feels especially important to remember that being of service does not always mean doing something dramatic. Sometimes it is as simple as:
Answering the question behind the question when a junior colleague asks for help.
Offering reassurance to someone who is stepping into a new role.
Naming a strength you see in someone who has stopped seeing it in themselves.
Sharing your story of failure so someone else feels less alone in theirs.
These acts are small, but their impact compounds. And crucially, they feed our own sense of purpose as much as they feed others.
What if companies treated mentoring as purpose infrastructure?
Let’s bring this into the organisational lens.
Imagine if companies focused as much on purpose as they did on profit, as a genuine strategic pillar. What might that look like?
It could look like mentoring being woven into the everyday life of the organisation, not reserved for a chosen few.
It could look like:
New joiners being paired with people who are there to help them navigate the reality behind the job description.
Senior leaders being expected to sponsor and mentor beyond their immediate teams, especially those whose voices are less often heard.
Teams setting aside regular time to share lessons learned, not just deliverables.
Mentoring being recognised as a meaningful contribution, not just invisible emotional labour.
Would profit disappear? I doubt it. In fact, I suspect two things would happen:
Performance would strengthen over time. When people feel invested in, they tend to stay, grow, and bring more of themselves to the work.
Joy and health would increase. Because we would be working in environments where giving and receiving support is normal, not exceptional.
Purpose and profit are not opposites, they are two sides of the same coin. But purpose must lead. Mentoring with Heart is one of the ways we can align the two.
One Million Mentor Moments: a simple practice of purpose
Part of why I started OMMMs (One Million Mentor Moments) was to make all of this simple and tangible: an invitation to notice and name the moments where mentoring shows up in your life.
Who encouraged you when you doubted yourself? Who did you quietly encourage? Where did you offer a small piece of your time, your story, your experience, with no agenda other than to help?
You can share those stories publicly using #OMMMs, write them in a notebook, or just carry them in your heart. The practice is what matters, and the naming is the point.
Because every time we notice a mentor moment, we are reminded that purpose is not somewhere out there waiting to be discovered. It is here, in how we show up for each other.
Moving into a new year with purpose and heart
As we approach the end of the year, many of us naturally begin to reflect. We look back at what happened, what didn’t, what we are proud of, what we wish had been different.
In Canada, January marks National Mentoring Month. There will be more conversations and stories about mentoring, more opportunities to think about what it looks like in our workplaces and communities.
Before we rush into resolutions or plans, though, I think there is value in pausing with a few simple questions:
Where did I feel most purposeful this year?
When did I feel that my presence genuinely helped someone else?
Who mentored me, perhaps without even realising it?
Where might I want to offer more of that kind of support in the year ahead?
Mentor with Heart is not a slogan for me. It is a way of moving through the world that keeps pulling me back to what feels essential: time, presence, kindness, courage, generosity. All key agents of purpose.
If you find yourself restless or tired or “over it” as the year closes, it might be worth gently asking: Where in my life could I become an everyday mentor? And how might that small act of service reconnect me with a sense of purpose I’ve been missing?
Because in the end, I don’t think purpose is something we chase down and capture. I think it is something that emerges quietly and reliably whenever we choose to mentor with heart.