Mentoring: Confidence in Finding a Mentor and Becoming One

My Church recently hosted a 3 day men's retreat in which I served as one of the keynote speakers. This was the very best of 5 books I researched on the subject of mentoring. It addressed both the Mentor and Mentee role, responsibilities and expectations extremely well. The writing style and editing was exceptionally good and made for a very easy read with specific ideas and helps to get a mentoring relationship started. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

Bobb Biehl does a phenomenal job is describing what a life-long mentor is and does. He makes the urgency of mentoring relationships very clear. His wisdom and insight challenged my thinking. Our churches need this book today!

This gives you a great base to do mentoring, lots of things to consider about being a mentor....You can easily go back to it and assess your current mentoring relationships.

I liked the book because Biehl had many good ideas. Biehl believes that today's mobility has cut down on the amount of lifetime mentoring that goes on. One hundred years ago, this type of lifetime mentoring occurred often. Children on farms were mentored along side of fathers and mothers and entire families. These relationships provided instruction and encouragement over many years. Because we live in such a mobile society these relationships are becoming less frequent. In today's society people must make time to mentor each other. This requires commitment on behalf of mentor and the protege. Without this commitment to time and effort, the lifetime mentoring relationship will not survive. Many times people mentor for the good feelings they get out of helping someone else. Other times people mentor others because they are paid for it as part of their job. These people are mentoring because they get something out of it. Biehl believes mentoring is more about asking how can I help you, instead of what should I teach you. Mentoring should be a relationship with someone you like, someone you believe in, and someone you want to see succeed in life. The mentor takes on the attitude that they are there to help this person in any way possible. The mentor doesn't look to what the relationship can do for them, but what they can do for their protégé, the person they are mentoring. In ideal situation, the mentor and protégé will become friends. Biehl warned that two common problems mentoring relationships often occur are: opposite sex relations, and starting with unrealistic expectations. While mentoring relationships between the opposite sex are sometimes successful, they tend to have more problems. As Biehl states, "relations can get deep enough, fast enough that the love individuals give and receive can easily be reinterpreted into sexual dimensions. We can find ourselves attracted to a mentor or protégé of the opposite sex-even if the person isn't that physically attractive to us." I think one must remember here that Biehl is talking about a lifetime mentoring relationship. I believe that mentoring in a more common way where people only spend an hour or two together a week would not find as many problems with the opposite sex mentoring relationship. While I agree with Biehl that these relationships can open themselves up to some uncomfortable situations, I do not agree that these mentoring relationships should never be attempted. In regards to unrealistic expectations, Biehl states that many times proteges enter into the mentoring relationship with unrealistic expectations. Some proteges believe that the mentor will solve all their problems during their relationship. It can be helpful discuss expectations in the beginning of a relationship. Questions such as: What things will you talk about? How much time will you spend together, and where will you meet? By asking these questi