THE POWER OF MENTORING

He that walks with the wise will be wise

Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all your getting, get understanding.

Wisdom is one of the most powerful forces on earth. It is the difference between failure and success; between poverty and prosperity; between defeat and victory; between stagnation and promotion.

We are discussing a vital key to wisdom, MENTORING.

King Solomon in the Bible had a remarkable dream. God told him to ask for anything he desired. Solomon asked only for wisdom. This was God’s reply; “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you haven’t asked for long life, but for wisdom and knowledge to properly guide my people, yes, I am giving you the wisdom and knowledge you asked for. And I am also giving you such riches, wealth and honour as no other king has ever had before you!”

You see, the wisest king in the Bible was also the wealthiest. Wisdom is powerful.

You Too Can Have Access To The Wise

Now, you may not encounter God in a dream like Solomon, but you can have access to wisdom too. One of the proverbs of King Solomon says, “He that walks with the wise will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.”

You too can receive wisdom through association with the wise. I call that Mentoring. It is also known as Coaching.

Dear friend, God has positioned mentors around you to minimize your mistakes and maximize your potential for success. Learn from them and get ready to rise to the top.

Mentors inspire us.

Mentors enhance our speed in life.

Mentors are our gates to greatness.

We are wise when we admit that there are people who know better than we do, and we learn from them.

Three Dimensions To Mentoring

1.         Parental Mentoring

Parents have the responsibility for grooming children for future success in their adult life. Our greatest heritage from our parents is wisdom, and God’s grace on their lives.

2.         Professional Mentoring

This is the acquisition of wisdom from teachers, employers, and those who have excelled in our chosen line of career.

3.         Pastoral Mentoring

This is the acquisition of the wisdom of God through our spiritual leaders. Several people in the Bible prospered through their relationships with ministers of the gospel.

Who Is Your Mentor

Now, in a mentoring relationship, the one who provides the wisdom is known as the mentor. The one who receives is known as the mentee or protégée.

Dear friend, who is your mentor? Archbishop Benson Idahosa once said; “If someone has achieved ten times what you are trying to achieve once, the person knows something you don’t know.”

Productive and Non- Productive Protégées

Some protégées are passive. They leave all the initiative to the mentor. They do not pursue their mentors. They do not ask probing questions. Such protégées do not get much out of a mentoring relationship.

Other protégées are parasites. They only want to take advantage of the mentor. They take advantage of the mentor’s name, influence and money. They do not want to pay the price for developing themselves. And just in case the mentor corrects them, they move away.

Lastly, there are protégées who are productive. They take full advantage of the mentoring relationship and carefully apply the wisdom that they derive from it.

Let me describe some qualities of productive protégées:

1.         They invest whatever it takes to maintain contact with their mentors.

2.         They respect the advice of their mentors.

3.         They freely discuss their greatest dreams with their mentors.

4.         They discuss their fears and challenges with their mentors.

5.         The sow seeds of appreciation into the lives of their mentors.

Productive protégées publicly acknowledge and honour their mentors.  Ultimately, good protégées step into the shoes of their mentors. They become mentors themselves.

Your mentor is your doorway to the future. God will lead you and connect you with those who will bring out the best in you.  Your mentor is a preview of your future.

Qualities Of An Exceptional Mentor

1.     A mentor invests time with the protégée. Communicating wisdom requires time.

2.   Exceptional mentors usually create exceptional protégées. Like begets like

3.      The exceptional mentor measures the passion of his protégée by his pursuit of the mentor. The proof of desire is pursuit. Sometimes, a protégée needs a strong desire and perseverance to get the attention of his mentor.

4.        A mentor knows precisely the path that the protégée must tread to make it to the top. He can analyse his own success and pass on the principles that helped him to the top. He can teach also from his past mistakes.

5.    A mentor is honest enough to correct the protégée even at the risk of being misunderstood and alienated by the protégée.

6.  A mentor can often identify weaknesses in the protégée that has the potential to result in a pitfall.

7.         A mentor exposes fraudulent people to his protégée. Christ warned His disciples repeatedly about the Pharisees.

8.         The exceptional mentor desires for his protégée to go further than he has gone. “He who believes me, the works that I do shall he do and greater works than these shall he do …”

9.         The exceptional mentor is not threatened by the success of his protégée. Rather, he considers it as part of his own success.

Dear friend, ask God to direct you to mentors whose wisdom will bring divine acceleration to your destiny. Also, remember that success without a successor is failure. Pass on what you know. I believe this will be the most exciting day so far.

It is good for you to have mentors in business, marriage, career, and ministry. They will inspire, challenge and guide you. Read their books, listen to them. Experience, they say, is the best teacher. Yet it is better and cheaper to acquire wisdom through the experience of others. I pray, that God will help you move away from those who will divide and subtract from you and bring into your life those who will multiply and add to you.

On the other hand, are you in a position to mentor others? You see, poor protégées hardly become excellent mentors. If God has lifted you, are you a mentor? Are you passing on your wisdom to someone? Are you a mentor as a parent or as a professional? Mentoring changes lives. You can multiply your success. When you help others to rise, you will not go down yourself
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