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Foreword by Author Tim Elmore
Jesus mentored twelve guys for three years. It’s well documented…by four different authors, two of which were eyewitnesses and products of His mentoring process.
We see from Jesus’ example that more time with fewer people equals greater kingdom impact.
Consider the key ingredients of Radical Mentoring (methods Jesus used):
- It’s on purpose.
- It’s all about the Father and Kingdom building.
- It’s a selfless endeavor. Jesus mentored out of obedience to the Father.
- It starts in a group context, not one-on-one. Jesus knew the value of interaction between group members.
- It’s intentional. Jesus handpicked those He mentored after prayer. The group was made up of laypeople, not “church people”…diverse…anything but a holy huddle.
- It was for a short, defined period of time. Jesus’ mentoring program began on time and ended on time.
- It’s based on Scripture. At the core of Jesus’ teaching was Scripture. Jesus and His mentees knew the Scriptures by heart.
- It’s bathed in prayer. Prayer was a huge part of it, public and private…Jesus modeled a prayerful life.
- It’s taught. Jesus modeled His faith in a transparent way. Jesus lived out His life in front of His mentees. Jesus taught along the way of life. He was practical yet spiritual.
- It’s a commitment. There was a mutual commitment, and it was a huge commitment.
- It required a multiplication element that produced evangelists and disciple-makers.
Together, the elements yielded a group of committed Christ followers.
“But why? Why should you do this?” Here are seven reasons:
- Jesus did it, and He told you to as well. “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). He’s telling us, “Go and do what I did. Go and find some people who are a little farther behind you on the path, and help them take their next steps, just as I did with my disciples!”
- You’ll find meaning and fulfillment.
- It’ll sharpen you and keep you sharp. Intentionally mentoring a group of younger people is also a great opportunity for the mentor to learn and to refresh the knowledge he already has. As the saying goes, “We teach what we most need to learn.”
- It’ll make you more grateful. Mentoring a small group will only be successful if it’s done from the overflow of gratitude from a grateful heart.
- You’ll leave a real, living legacy. Have you ever wondered, “Ten years from now, how will anyone know I was even here?”
- You love your church.
- You won’t waste your life. So many voices in the Christian community are talking about “finishing well,” about resisting the temptation to withdraw from engagement with others and instead staying in the game.
Do what Jesus did. Pick some less experienced people and mentor them.
Mentoring On Purpose
John Sculley III was President of PepsiCo from 1977 until 1983. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, aggressively recruited him to Apple. Sculley repeatedly turned down Jobs’ offers to come head up Apple until one day Jobs said something that rocked Sculley’s world, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?” That was the defining moment. Sculley changed .his mind, quit one of the most lucrative, high-profile CEO positions in America, and moved to California to join the team of this small, upstart computer company with a vision.
How about you? Do you want to change the world like Jesus did?
Since Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life and sold a gazillion copies, everyone wants to talk about purpose, because it’s important.
A mission or goal is about what. It’s measurable and finite. Strategies and tactics are about how. Purpose is about why. It’s not really measurable. It’s understandable yet vague. Rick Warren’s mantra is that we’re all created for a specific purpose…to glorify God. And he’s right.
Mentoring isn’t about coming to know something, that’s education. Mentoring isn’t about learning to do something, that’s training. Mentoring is about showing someone how to be something. It’s about becoming a learner and follower of Jesus Christ because that’s what makes our Father most pleased.
About 350 years after Christ, the Roman emperor Julian (AD 332-363) wanted to reinstitute faithfulness to the pagan religions of Rome but struggled because Christians were doing such good things for people, even strangers, that they rendered the Roman gods irrelevant. Wouldn’t it be cool to render the pagan gods of the twenty-first century irrelevant by having millions of Christ followers become so genuine in their faith they changed the world with their kindness, mercy, and generosity?
You can get dirty mentoring people. They bring real issues to the table. And those issues require mentors to get personal, transparent, and exposed.
Love takes action. Rick Warren, in a Catalyst Conference talk, said, “The church has amputated its hands and its feet, and all that’s left is its mouth.” We talk about serving, but in large part we serve the institution of the church. We serve each other within the church…and that’s about it.
Regi Campbell’s Radical Mentoring groups start with the inner man and his relationship with his heavenly Father. Having used the Radical Mentoring model for making disciple-makers for over 15 years, the key dynamic at play is embodiment.
The Old Testament is the story of God trying to communicate His love and power to us. The narrative of the Jews is the narrative of mankind…selfish, stiff-necked, fickle in their faith, always focused on what’s in it for me, forgetful and ungrateful.
At just the right time, God decided to reveal the embodiment of Himself. Jesus comes into history to show us a working model of God.
The mentor is the embodiment of the Christian life, observable and accessible to the mentee.
It’s Not About Me
Authentic mentoring, mentoring like Jesus did it, involves selflessness.
God’s reality, the visible world merged with the invisible world, is a reality of threes, not twos. Deciding to mentor isn’t just a decision between you and the person or you and the group. That’s a world of twos. It’s you, the younger guy who needs a mentor and God. It’s you, the potential Radical Mentoring group and God. God is the third party in every transaction…every situation…every decision.
Mentors like Jesus love to watch their mentees go beyond themselves…to do greater things than they’ve done. Peter Drucker was thrilled by the success of his mentee, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last.
Collins wrote: I’ll never forget asking, “How can I ever pay you back?” and his saying, “You’ve already paid me back. I’ve learned so much from our conversation.” That’s when I realized where Drucker’s greatness lay, that unlike a lot of people, he was not driven to say something. He was driven to learn something.
Drucker had said, “Go out and make yourself useful.” That’s how you pay Peter Drucker back. To do for other people what Peter Drucker did for Jim Collins.
Jesus asked questions…lots of questions, and He listened. He didn’t just talk. On those few occasions when He did, He was intentional about it.
Jesus tailored His message…His answer…to the needs of the asker. Thus, the selfless mentor is a good listener, dispensing his wisdom to meet the needs of his mentees, not his need to tell all he knows. That’s the selfless heart…the God-seeking heart of the mentor.
Campbell explains, “God has turned the guys I’ve mentored into my best friends. I never expected that. Isn’t that just like God to take something you give Him in a selfless way and turn them back to you as blessings beyond anything you could imagine?”
The Secret Sauce: A Group
Jesus, the world’s greatest mentor, worked with a group. That’s right, a group. Campbell explained that all of his life, he thought of mentoring only as an individual thing…one-on-one, life-on-life. But Jesus started…and ended…with a group.
In Christian circles the mentoring paradigm is Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy. Paul being an older, wiser mentor. Barnabas being a peer…someone “on mission” with us…someone we can have accountability and do life with. And Timothy being a younger, less experienced, less mature person we can pour our life into.
You can’t orchestrate friendship. You can’t make one-on-one mentoring relationships happen. Sort of like marriage…no one can explain or predict how God puts certain people into each other’s lives, but He does. When we look at Jesus, we see intentionality. He didn’t have time for His mentees, His “Timothy’s” to just show up. He had to go and get them.
Why tell your story eight times to eight people when you can tell it once to all eight at the same time? Why share your successes and failures over and over again when you can share them once for multiple listeners to hear?
If all health care were delivered from an ambulance, we certainly wouldn’t ever see lives saved through open-heart surgery. No one would ever get a physical…there would be no prevention of disease. And if all mentors do is help people in crisis times, real growth will be slow, and mentors will wear out.
Mentoring a group of guys by meeting once a month for a year gives a simple structure and a measured pace, enabling goal achievement and making the most of time spent together.
Mentoring in a group environment puts less pressure on the mentor than one-on-one mentoring.
One of Campbell’s mentors, who was also his pastor for ten years, had the courage to tell him once, “Regi, I think you’ve learned all you’re going to learn from me.” It’s rare that someone would be honest enough to promote you on to be mentored by someone else. The beauty of a mentoring group is it has a defined end. Most mentoring relationships just peter out over time. Guys stay friends and occasionally communicate, but there isn’t a time when it’s understood, “Ok, you’re on your own now. I’ve given you my best. Go and do your best.” Having a defined end is cool, and it’s a lot easier to nail down.
Another surprise for Campbell as he started mentoring in groups was what he was able to learn. He had envisioned teaching them but never counted on learning himself.
Research has proven that we retain only a small percentage of what we hear with slightly higher retention when we write stuff down. Radical Mentoring is a facilitation model…not a teaching model. In fifteen years of group mentoring, Campbell has never spoken to any group for as long as ten straight minutes. Never!
A great mentor is one who can listen, ask good questions, bring others into the conversation, and tell a relevant story to make a point. He lets the conversation run when it’s going in a good direction but cuts it off as soon as it loses its point.
If you want genuine friends who will be there for life…guys God will use to bless you beyond belief, then lead a Radical Mentoring group. Invest selflessly in a group of high-potential guys. You’ll love them, and they’ll love you back. Watch what God will do through you, and then don’t be surprised when He uses those guys to bless you back with love and companionship.
Handpicked for History
Jesus is our model mentor. From hundreds of followers and thousands of fans, He picked twelve disciples to pour into…to be His living legacy…to create and build the church.
We’re about big. More. More is always better than less…right? Churches, maybe more than any other institution, are always focused on “how many.” If it’s not big numbers, it’s not working. If the numbers aren’t getting bigger, then something’s wrong.
Consider a whole new way of thinking when it comes to making disciples and disciple-makers. Jesus started small. One group. Twelve guys. No matter how large your church, there’s nothing wrong with starting small.
Radical Mentoring shouldn’t be broadcast from the stage. Instead, mentors and mentees must be prayerfully and carefully invited to engage.
When Jesus seemed to be totally indifferent to how many people were “in the crowd,” how did we get to be so focused on numbers?
Large numbers can be deceptive. People can develop a false sense of eternal security…knowing about Jesus without really knowing Jesus. Radical Mentoring groups build strong sustainable faith into men so they can do the same for those they mentor, and so on.
Jesus showed us at least three purposes with who He picked. First and foremost, He picked guys for their Kingdom potential. When selecting mentees, we’re looking for future leaders because God chose to equip us to be leaders.
God can leverage our investment through leaders more than followers. So try to pick guys who are missiles, even if they aren’t guided missiles. From among the “missiles,” try to eliminate the candidates who seem to have the most mature, well-balanced view of their future. They have less need to be mentored. Pick the least mature, neediest future leaders because they are the people a mentor may be able to help the most.
Jesus picked the twelve. They didn’t pick Him. This is one of the most valuable lessons we take from Jesus. And one of the most countercultural aspects of becoming a mentor like Jesus. When Jesus picked His mentees, He sought the advice of His Heavenly Father. We know that He prayed all night long before making His choices, which is the longest prayer time the Bible records. This was a serious decision, and Jesus gave it the time it deserved.
He picked the twelve His Father led Him to. Period.
The principle here is to let God put the group together. By allowing Him to lead, by not letting it become a beauty contest or a personality match, we’re more dependent on Him to include and exclude the guys He wants us to mentor.
Starting Now, Ending Then
There’s incredible value in setting a specific beginning and ending date for mentoring. Sure, the relationships will continue after that time, but they come naturally…and the mentoring happens as a natural outgrowth of that relationship. When we look at Jesus, we see He only mentored His disciples for about three years, so there must be some value in mentoring for a defined period of time.
Maybe God is saying to you, “Your time has come. Get off the bench and get in the game. Stop thinking of yourself, and start investing in the next generation.”
Parkinson’s Law says this, “The work expands so as to fill the available time for its completion.” If we have twelve months to teach younger people what we’ve learned, then it’ll take twelve months. If we have three years, it’ll take three years. Time is an incredible taskmaster. When time is limited, we grab the essentials. We focus. We figure out what we’re going to do and how to get it done.
This is clearly a God thing. What better gift can God give us than to put godly young people in our lives who love and care about us? While the intensive part of Radical Mentoring starts and ends, the love of God, lived out in the lives of the people you invest in, goes on through this life and into the next. Which is pretty incredible!
Truth at the Core
There are many famous mentors we all recognize.
- Socrates mentored Plato.
- Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great.
- Peter Drucker mentored Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great.
- Andrew Carnegie mentored Charles Schwab, the famous executive and financier.
- Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken mentored Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s restaurants.
- Former NBA player Dell Curry mentored his son, current NBA player, Steph Curry.
All of these mentoring relationships were based on truth. This truth was understood by the mentor at a higher, more experienced level than the mentee. And for whatever reason, the mentor decided to share his truth with someone less experienced than himself. A huge part of mentoring involves the effective transfer of truth from one generation to the next. Leadership is caught, not taught.
Jesus was (and is) the ultimate mentor. And it’s clear the foundation of His life and His message was transferring truth to the next generation and all the generations who followed.
Over and over Jesus would share new truth. It was built on the truth of the old law, but it went further. Jesus brought new truth and new insight. Jesus came to communicate even more of God’s truth. Principles like giving, forgiveness, and compassion were concepts not always easily connected with how the Old Testament law was interpreted.
Jesus Himself is the truth…not just His teaching…and not just His confirmation of others’ teachings.
Scripture wasn’t just what Jesus knew…it was who Jesus was. He was able to recall specific Scriptures in the moment that reminded Him of God’s truth and His faithfulness.
Radical Mentoring is about the transfer of truth…God’s truth…to the next generation of leaders. And a big part of that is the memorization of Scripture by topic and keyword so it can be recalled and acknowledged in the moment of need.
One of the best parts of Radical Mentoring occurs when you let your mentees see “under the hood.”
Jesus didn’t teach on every verse He knew, and neither should you. Jesus amplified the verses He knew the Father wanted Him to talk about. On much of the Old Testament, Jesus was silent.
Radical Mentoring isn’t a Bible study. So don’t try to make it into one or feel guilty because it isn’t. Teach them Scriptures that God has used to teach you.
The beauty of applied Scripture is that God uses it to help you think, to respond differently…effectively. But it has to be in your heart, easily accessible in the moment of need. We see Jesus using Scripture this way…for wisdom and guidance…never to attack people. Jesus used Scripture as a defense, not an attack. Go and do likewise.
Prayer as Practice
The mentor starts to pray. “Good evening, Father.” It’s like he’s hit a number on his cell phone and his dad is on the line. “Thank You for adopting me into your family. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m so grateful you did.”
Try to remove as many church words as you can, to talk to God in authentic language about authentic stuff and in the context of our authentic relationship.
Mentoring involves modeling…doing what you do so others can see you do it and learn. Again, Jesus shows us how. Jesus responded by praying what we call the Lord’s Prayer, giving us a model for how to approach the Father…with gratitude and humility.
It’s good to kneel when we pray. It reminds us that He’s God and we’re not. It reminds us that we’re lower than God…that this isn’t a conversation between buddies…or equals. This is humbling ourselves…acknowledging His superiority…putting ourselves below Him spiritually but also physically.
God is our heavenly Father. That’s the way to address Him, that’s the way to view Him, that’s the framework of our relationship, and that’s the way Scripture describes Him to us.
In a sermon series called “How to Listen to God” that later became a book by Charles Stanley, he listed the five C’s that provide a grid to test if what you’ve heard is from God. In an abbreviated fashion, here they are:
- Consistent: Is the answer/instruction consistent with Scripture?
- Challenge: Will the answer challenge your faith?
- Conflict: Does the answer conflict with human wisdom?
- Clash: Does the direction clash with my fleshly nature?
- Courage: Will obeying God require courage?
Try listening to God and discern that “still small voice” and sort it from the messages of the world. These five questions can help you distinguish His voice from all others.
When you look at Jesus as a mentor, nothing is more visible or well documented than His commitment to prayer.
As you jump into mentoring like Jesus, pray. Then pray again.
Teaching by Doing
Here’s where mentoring is unique. A teacher can teach what he could never do himself.
JESUS TAUGHT BY DOING
Prayer is the most overt example of Jesus teaching by doing.
Jesus taught acceptance by accepting people. And He did it by accepting the most unacceptable people in His world. He would go to their homes and dine with tax collectors and other “sinners” in the eyes of the Jewish leaders.
Women were often looked down upon in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ time. But many of Jesus’ closest followers and supporters were women, giving us a picture of acceptance of the highest order.
GREAT MENTORS ARE GREAT LISTENERS
Jesus listened. He was in the moment, totally focused on whoever was in front of Him.
Remember the powerful moment when Jesus stood, removed His outer garment, wrapped a towel around His waist, and washed His disciples’ feet? In that culture washing feet was the lowest, nastiest job. But Jesus did it to model serving in a radical, emotional, physical way.
As you embrace this mentoring challenge, you’ll realize that you’re teaching by doing, that you’re doing life all the time, and that your mentees are watching.
The Context of Wherever
Mentoring is about content, community, and context.
In the secular world, mentoring is built around a specific purpose. The curriculum would be around that purpose. In the Christian world, there’s no recognized content for mentoring beside the Bible itself.
Traditionally the mentoring relationship is almost always initiated by the mentee. He has something he wants…a felt need…for guidance, wisdom, advice, or help.
The less experienced person wants to confide in someone who’s “been there, done that.” Now, is this a type of mentoring? Yes. Is it what Jesus did? No. Jesus initiated the mentoring relationship with His disciples. He approached them. He chose them. Everything He did was about His agenda, not theirs.
Jesus took His mentees into His context…for His purposes.
Jesus used the everyday things and events of life to make His points.
Campbell explains, “My goal is to share with my mentees what I did right and what I’d do differently. I confess both with as much clarity and transparency as I can. As a mentor the only way good can come from the mistakes I’ve made is if other people get to learn from my painful errors.”
As mentoring relationships go through the year, kid issues come up, and they’re often brought to the group with a big “I need help” tag on them. As Campbell listens and guides the discussion, he reminds the guys that they have a perfect Father. Ask Him what He would have you do. He’s the role model and a far better mentor than any man can ever be. Campbell continues, “If I can share what I did (or didn’t do) in a similar situation, I will…if I’m sure it will address their issue.”
A Mutual Commitment
In his powerful book When Work and Family Collide (see my summary here), Andy Stanley’s premise is that we can never meet everyone’s expectations…we have to “cheat” somewhere…disappoint someone…shortchange something.
HIGH COMMITMENT IS ATTRACTIVE
The fastest growing religions in the world, in fact the only growing religions in the world, are those that demand something from their followers.
In America the more conservative the denomination, the faster the growth rate. Where people are asked to do something, not to do something, to give up something, those are the growing faiths. It’s only valuable if it costs you something. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. It’s a principle that Jesus taught clearly.
America has become all about the numbers, measurable outcomes. If the numbers aren’t headed in the right direction, something has to be wrong. We are driven by numbers throughout our society. As a former CFO used to say, “Numbers are like hostages…torture them long enough, and they’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”
The church in America has fallen victim to this numbers game by doing whatever it takes to get people in the seats. We consistently compromise the quality of the program or of the learning experience in order to appease the peripheral participant. By trying to maximize the numbers, we minimize the effectiveness.
RADICAL MENTORING GROUP COVENANT
Radical Mentoring isn’t about breadth; it’s about depth. It’s not about how many we can mentor; it’s about taking the ones we can mentor deep into the faith.
Each of the provisions in the covenant deserve some kind of explanation.
- All-in. Help guys become all-in followers of Jesus.
- Feedback and Introspection. Jesus didn’t mince words with His disciples. He called it just as He saw it. A good mentor has to be honest.
- Attendance and Timeliness. You can’t develop intimacy and trust in a group that never really becomes a group. When attendance is sporadic, you don’t remember who’s heard what.
- Finishing. If the mentor is committing to a whole year, then why shouldn’t every person in the group make the same commitment?
- Christ Centered. Make no bones about it. Jesus Christ isn’t a priority in life; He is life.
- The Mentor’s Commitment. The mentor’s covenant is with God, but he spells out some of it here for the mentees to see. He wants them to hold him accountable for delivering on his promises.
- Confidentiality. Because guys are sharing all their “dark corners,” past and present, it’s critical that the group be a safe place.
- Multiplication. In order for a mentor to agree to invest in a mentee, he has to agree to invest in the next generation. Call it “pay it forward.”
- Wife Approved. It’s important that each of the mentees’ wives are on board with the process.
Attentiveness to God…maturity in our relationship with Him…that’s what Radical Mentoring is all about. You can’t get there without commitment. But the growth that can come when a mentor and his mentees make a covenant and keep it is pretty amazing.
God will honor that commitment and show up. He promised.
Pay It Forward
The concept was described by Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 22, 1784: When you [. . .] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.
The term “pay it forward” was popularized, by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Between Planets, published in 1951, “Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.”
We sometimes connect the term “pay it forward” with the 2000 film by that name starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment.
Mentoring as Jesus did is the ultimate “pay it forward” challenge. Why? First and foremost, we cannot repay God for what He’s done for us.
What about the people who led us to Jesus? The people who led you and me to Christ, if they were rightly motivated, don’t want to be paid back. The way you pay them back is to pay it forward.
In the movie Pay It Forward, each good deed is paid forward with three additional good deeds. Imagine if this were multiplied by eight instead of three. And what if the people doing the paying forward were paying forward good deeds with eternal impact?
As it’s sometimes said, you haven’t created a disciple until your disciple has created a disciple.
But just having an intense faith and intimate relationship with Christ won’t ensure that it’s “paid forward” to the next generation. We need intentionality.
The mentoring approach Campbell described is all about intentionality. It removes any excuses for not investing in future generations.
The basic premise of mentoring is to show mentees not just how to do something but also how to be something.
Attributes of the best mentors:
- Maturity. A good mentor must have maturity. It’s essential. It’s nonnegotiable. Dictionary.com says maturity is a “state or quality of being fully grown or developed.”
- Faith. A mature Christ follower is connected with a body of believers and has a rock-solid faith in Jesus Christ. We mentor so the body can be built up – so it can have unity, knowledge of Jesus, and spiritual maturity to the max.
- Good-hearted. A mature Christ follower has a good heart.
- Confident. A mature Christ follower who is ready to be a disciple-maker has confidence. He’s not cocky…he doesn’t know all the answers. But he knows the God who does.
- Dependent on God. While maturity involves confidence, it’s not self-confidence. It’s confidence in a dependable God.
- Wisdom. A wise person knows the difference between right and wrong and chooses right regardless of the consequences. Wisdom comes from gaining knowledge and applying it, gaining experience that can be applied to the future situations.
- Perseverance. To be mature, one has to have faced challenges and overcome them. You have to have lived long enough to know that things worth having are worth both working for and waiting for. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).
BUT WHERE DO I START?
Another question that constantly surfaces is who to mentor, where to start, what age group?
Take a few minutes and think through your “seasons of life.” Where are you now? What season of life or age frame did you come through before the one you’re in now? What was the one before that? Keep thinking back through those seasons, one by one, until you get back to one where you think, “Hey, now I know something about that one!”
The “bookend” of Jesus’ earthly mentoring relationship with His mentees ended as it began with the call to “go and make disciples.”
THE REAL MENTOR
God is the mentor. Always. He wants to be the perfect mentor to every single one of His children. As we “sit at the feet” of older, wiser people, He is loving on us, teaching us, coaching us. When we’re doing the same for our mentees, He is doing the work, teaching the lessons, giving the guidance. It’s all about Him.
After all, He is the world’s greatest mentor.
Joe Erhmann, author of Inside Out Coaching says we can’t help anyone with their lives until we have a coherent narrative of our own. Because of that, the best mentors are those who tell their faith stories in the most open, honest and useful way.
Keep in mind that God is truly the mentor here. It’s up to you and the other mentors to give it your best shot, but only God brings about life change. You may invest in these guys and see no immediate fruit. But over time, God’s Word and His work never returns empty. Trust Him and keep doing what He told you. “Go…make disciples!”
Seriously. Agendas, Handouts, Timelines, How-to’s, Binders, Videos, Email Templates, you name it. It’s all there for you…to help you at every step of the way. Please visit radicalmentoring.com to get started.