Connecting: Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed in Life

In this very helpful book, the authors Stanley and Clinton share with the reader the nine kinds of mentors that we (may) need at different phases in our lives. They are: the Discipler, Spiritual Guide, Coach, Counselor, Teacher, Sponsor, Contemporary Models and Historical Models. The nature of mentoring that these mentors provide range from the intensive to the occasional to the passive. For some people who may not have access to mentors, Stanley and Clinton very helpfully point out how we can still be mentored indirectly by the people around us and also by those who have left behind autobiographies or whose lives have inspired biographies on them. Besides these kinds of (upward) mentors, the authors also underscore the importance of having downward mentoring as well as co-mentoring. Their book concludes with an important chapter on how we can finish well. Highly recommended.