Why is this so hard? If you are older / wiser than me, which is likely, hear me now: why do I have to beg, cajole, plead, and coerce just to get you to sit down and share with me a smidgin of the wisdom that the Good Lord, the School of Hard Knocks, the IRS, and so on have taught you?
I have experienced this keep-it-to-my-selfishness in my personal life, in our church leadership experiences, and in my career. I know I don’t know much, and I know people who know more than I do, but I don’t know how on earth to get them to share. Let’s recap:
Fifteen months, scores of phone calls and two face-to-face meetings before one couple would share with us about things they learned in their thirty years of marriage.
An older couple in Tulsa whom we approached about mentoring us…they agreed, and we were only ONCE able to schedule dinner with them. All the rest were cancelled, postponed, calls unreturned, “Oh yeah, we need to have you guys over…” in church on Sunday (but wouldn’t set a date), etc.
Five phone calls, three brush-offs and several e-mails before I could land a half-hour coffee meeting with a local business leader I respect. I’m now five (unresponded to) e-mails into attempting to schedule a follow-up meeting.
And the two times that I’ve been on the receiving end of “Hey, we should get together!” from church leadership was in response to specific leadership mistakes I had made. Boy, they came out of the woodwork then…and rightly so, but where was the coaching prior to this?
Now, I know that these are all busy people. And I know the impetus for finding mentoring has to be on me. But c’mon! Work with me a little! At least respond to my e-mails!
I don’t want to grow passively. I don’t want to get twelve years into my career or marriage or ministry and accidentally stumble on some pearl of wisdom and be like, “Wow, I wish I’d known that years ago!” I don’t want a shallow rate of growth, improving casually from time-to-time.
Wise people: I am hungry for your wisdom. Share it…please?
Totally get this.
Great post. And it worked!
That’s awesome, and is the heart of so many of us in the younger crowd. We want desperately for our children to avoid our mistakes, but how will they know what to avoid and how to avoid them unless we teach them. I have so much to learn and so little experience. How can I ever learn from the previous generation’s mistakes if someone doesn’t point me in the right direction. Psalm 145 really points to sharing from one generation to the next. So hungry…please feed me so I can feed the younger ones.
I thought you’d never ask…
I wish my grandpa Norman was still around so you could talk with him. He was all about mentoring and was an amazing man. I think the ‘more seasoned’ folk may be afraid that they don’t have anything good to share or they don’t know how to share it if they did. Heck, half of us didn’t even get the birds and the bees conversation (myself included) from our parents, no less advice on marriage or other weighty topics.
I am thankful for the time we living with Erynne’s parents – for them and their book recommendations.
lance (husband) and i have experienced this quite a bit. our church is notorious for not providing guidance or leadership, which is funny because they are such strong vocal advocates for “community”. through word of mouth, we met our friend and mentor, Jim, who has been a huge blessing to us in so many ways. we chose to do our premarital counseling with him, and still meet with him on a regular basis. through our relationship with jim (who almost ALWAYS responds to phone calls and often reaches out to US) we have gotten connected with other couples, friends, and leaders who share what they have learned with us, and we can share with them. the reciprocity has been amazing. it’s been the best thing for our marriage.
all of that to say, we definitely went thru our fair share of flaky leaders, bosses, and mentors before we discovered true community. my favorite thing that has happened lately is with a church in denver, co. this guy, peter hiett (phillip yancy’s pastor), gives out his sermons for free. lance and i have been listening to him for years. we went to colorado, and we contacted him via email to see if we could buy him a beer and pick his brain. he responded quickly with a phone call, and said absolutely! unfortunately, we didn’t make it to denver that trip, but we have kept in contact with each other.
they’re out there, my friend. i promise!
The mentoring relationships I’ve been privileged to be on the receiving end of (both professionally and spiritually) have come about because I found/sought out someone I connected with and admired, and basically started gently bugging them. Repeatedly asking if I could take them to lunch and pick their brains about this or that subject. Developing a friendship over time, wherein I happened to ask lots of advice.
I never used the “M” word until the relationship had been pretty well established (meaning they were motivated on their own to be interested in my life and in helping me), and only then in a “thanks for being like a mentor to me” sort of way. I think the word “mentor” intimidates people. And I wanted those relationships to develop naturally (after getting very little from the artificially set up mentorships at TM), with people I naturally wanted to learn from and who also felt a corresponding connection with me.
I have experienced this but I can’t say I’ve had your perseverance! What’s the deal? Do you think you normally come across as self sufficient or something like that? Glad this post worked!
Tell you what, in fifteen years when Micah and I are still learning our lessons and ya’ll have gotten good and mentored, will YOU mentor US? Ha ha ha.
@curlybecca – That’s very sage advice, actually. Maybe that’s the problem…I need to just be less obvious about my intentions, because it is probably offputting and intimidating.
@mmmattress –
– Sage… I like that word. Maybe you can be my vocabulary mentor. 🙂
I don’t think it’s necessarily a matter of masking your intentions–the bottom line is you want to learn, and anyone who would look down on that doesn’t need to be giving advice. I see it more like allowing room for a relationship to form on its own, with people you might be friends with anyway, instead of trying to force something. They have to trust that you don’t expect them to solve all the world’s problems for you (that intimidation factor), and you have to find out if they are really headed in the direction you want to go. And I think that is only possible once you know each other well first.
I’m glad your post worked. I think that you represent most of us “younger” people. I definitely agree with Rebbecca. I adopt her practice. It’s served me very well too.
Here you go …….. 1. When in doubt, do the right thing. 2. Pray outloud with your wife on a regular basis. 3. Let your kids see you love God with all your heart. 4. If you follow God with passion, your wife will follow you. 5. Words have great power. Cut way down on facetious or sarcastic speech and go way up on speech that builds up and encourages.