We know this deep down. We don’t need a textbook to tell us. It’s something built into our instincts. You wouldn’t trust a financial advisor who’s drowning in debt and doesn’t know how to manage his own money. That wouldn’t make sense. You wouldn’t follow a fitness coach who is morbidly obese and clearly hasn’t figured out nutrition or exercise. Not because they’re bad people, but because they haven’t lived the transformation they’re claiming to teach. We know this intuitively, but sometimes in mentorship, we forget. We get so eager to help someone else that we forget the first step is always personal. Before we can lead from strength, we must become strong inwardly. Before we can offer stability, we must become stable.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we can lead others through things we haven’t yet faced ourselves. But that’s not how transformation works. You can’t give someone what you don’t have. And no one is going to come to someone who is still full of pride, judgment, or self-righteousness and say, “Take me on the journey to grace.” You can’t teach what you haven’t lived. You can’t lead someone into faith righteousness while you’re still operating out of performance and religious pressure. Your words might be right, but your presence will feel off. Why? Because transformation isn’t about just knowing; it’s about embodying the truth.

Let me say this clearly: We do not teach rightly until we are being taught inwardly by God. That’s what gives your leadership authority. Not your knowledge. Not your title. Not your success. What gives your mentorship power is the evidence of your own journey; that you’ve let God take you from self-righteousness into a place of rest, identity, and trust in Him. The same way I have helped hundreds of men launch successful podcasts, not because I read a book about it, but because I’ve done it. I’ve lived it. I’ve faced the challenges, learned the patterns, and seen the results. Now I can speak with authority. Why would it be any different in mentorship?

Yet here’s the problem many of us face: we believe lies about what it means to be strong. We think we have to hide our struggles to help others. We think we need to be the hero. That we need to always appear put together. That we can’t be vulnerable if we want to be respected. But Jesus said something completely different. He said, “First…” First, what? First get healed. First get real. First remove the beam from your own eye. You cannot bring strength into your family, your business, or your ministry if you yourself are not standing on solid ground. There’s no version of this where an unstable man brings stability. That’s just not how it works.

You see, it’s only when you’ve opened yourself fully to God; your flaws, your flesh, your fears; that you begin to gain the strength to walk with others in their mess. If I’ve taken my shame and weaknesses to God and experienced His grace, then I know how to offer that same grace to someone else. If I’ve faced my darkness, I’m no longer afraid of someone else’s. But if I’ve been hiding from my own pain, I’ll run when theirs shows up. Or worse; I’ll shame them for it. And here’s what we all need to know: you can’t handle another man’s darkness until you’ve been honest about your own.

Let’s talk about darkness for a minute. Every one of us carries it. Pain. Addictions. Fears. Failures. But if those things are still controlling you, if they’re still kicking your butt day after day, then your focus should not be on helping others yet. Your focus should be healing. It’s not wrong to want to help others. But when helping becomes a distraction from your own pain, it becomes dangerous. I’ve seen it many times. I worked in a treatment center for almost a decade, and I watched it play out over and over again. Some people would fill their schedule with so many activities; meetings, jobs, relationships; anything to avoid facing their pain. They would help others to avoid helping themselves.

When you step into the world of mentorship, it’s easy to feel like you need to have all the answers. Maybe you think you have to be perfect, or at least close to it, before you can guide someone else. But let’s be clear from the start; this journey is not about perfection. It’s about transformation. It’s about growth. And most of all, it’s about honesty. If you’re waiting to become flawless before you help someone else, you’ll be waiting forever. But if you’re willing to be honest about your journey; your wounds, your breakthroughs, your failures, and your healing; then you’re already on solid ground. You’re already becoming the kind of mentor people can trust.

You see, transformation has levels. Think of it like a ladder. If you’re only on the first rung, you might be able to help someone get up from the ground to the first step; but that’s about it. You can’t lead someone to a place you’ve never been. And when we talk about leading from a healed place, we don’t mean you’ve conquered everything. It means you’ve faced your pain, you’ve walked through the process, and now you’re living from a place of growing maturity. You’ve moved from self-righteousness to faith righteousness, even if you still get tempted to fall back into old ways. That movement, that direction; that’s what makes you ready to mentor.

In recovery programs like the twelve steps, the model is simple but powerful. You don’t guide someone through the steps unless you’ve gone through them yourself. And not just gone through them once, but lived them. Grown through them. Proved them over time. Why? Because only those who have walked the path can help others walk it. That’s why, in mentoring, the first move is always internal. You have to remove the beam from your own eye before you can help someone else with their speck. This doesn’t mean you’re done growing; it means you’re walking honestly. You’re owning your story. You’ve faced the lies, the trauma, the false identities, and you’re moving forward in truth.

Trying to lead others while your own lens is still distorted is dangerous. And not just for you; for them. Jesus said that the Pharisees worked hard to convert people, but ended up making them “twice the sons of hell.” That’s heavy, but it shows a real danger: we reproduce what we carry. If you lead from wounds you haven’t healed, you’ll hand down those same wounds. If you lead from pride, you’ll teach performance. If you lead from fear, you’ll build followers who are afraid to fail. That’s not leadership. That's a duplication of dysfunction. That’s why your heart has to go first.

Now let’s talk about fire and quicksand. The Bible tells us in the book of Jude that we should be able to “pull others out of the fire,” even while hating the sin that clings to them. That image shows a powerful truth: you can only pull someone from the fire if you’re not still burning in it yourself. The same goes for quicksand. Imagine someone sinking, crying for help. If you jump in without a stable foundation, now you’re both stuck. But if you’ve found solid ground, now you can pull. Now you can lift. That’s the whole point; you must be in a place of stability before you reach out to help someone else become stable. Your healing becomes the anchor that helps someone else rise.

This doesn’t mean we ignore our desire to help. Men are wired to protect, to fight for something, to build. We want to rescue. We want to lead. And that’s a good thing. But if that drive isn’t grounded in humility and healing, we’ll end up reacting instead of responding. We’ll try to rescue when we haven’t yet recovered. And that never works. In fact, it can hurt more than it helps. So how do we balance that strong desire to lead with the need to be healed? By facing the tension honestly.

Every journey worth taking starts with the heart. Not with methods, not with tools, not with leadership books stacked to the ceiling; but with a heart that’s being made whole. In this series on becoming a mentor, we’re not beginning with what to say or how to coach. We’re beginning with you. Because the most dangerous thing you can do in mentorship is to try to lead someone from a place you haven’t been willing to go yourself. You don’t need to be perfect; but you do need to be honest, healing, and open. That’s where your strength will come from. And the person you’re mentoring? They’ll feel it. They’ll feel whether your heart is safe or just skilled. Whether your words carry truth or just knowledge. And if you want to change someone’s life, you’ll have to lead from your own transformation, not just your talent.

Jesus gave us a powerful picture in Matthew 7:5. He said, “First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” He didn’t just give us a rule. He gave us a roadmap. Mentorship is eye work; vision work. It’s about helping someone see what they couldn’t before. But if your vision is blocked; by pride, wounds, old beliefs, hidden pain; you’ll end up doing more harm than good. Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t help your brother.” He said, “First…” That word “first” tells us this is about order. Priorities. Timing. Readiness. You can’t skip the healing part if you want to lead someone with clarity and care.

That word “beam” is no accident either. Picture it: a giant board sticking out of someone’s eye, and they’re trying to perform eye surgery on someone else. It’s a joke, but a deadly one. Because that’s what happens in spiritual leadership all the time. We try to guide people out of fear when we haven’t faced our own. We try to teach peace while still carrying bitterness. We try to preach grace while still being chained to performance. And it’s not that we’re bad people. It’s that we haven’t let God touch the deep parts of our own story yet. The heart must go first.

And here’s the thing about beams; some of them look like good things: confidence, drive, passion, conviction. But underneath, they’re driven by fear, shame, or performance. This is why mentorship begins with self-awareness. You can’t guide someone into clarity if you’re still walking in confusion. You can’t help someone feel loved if you’re still chasing love through what you do. So before you focus on what to say, focus on what’s in you. Because if your heart is full of truth, safety, and humility, your words will carry life even when you don’t get the method exactly right.

Think of the mentoring journey like a transformation map. You’re helping someone get from point A to point B. Point A is the problem; where they’re stuck, limited, confused, or hurting. Point B is healing, vision, purpose, and identity. But between A and B is a whole road filled with obstacles. And one of the biggest ones is the false idea that you can carry someone farther than you’ve walked yourself. You can’t. Transformation isn’t something you teach. It’s something you live. So the mentor’s job isn’t just to give directions; it’s to model the way by walking it first.

Let’s make this real. One of the most common beams we carry; especially as men; is self-righteousness. We don’t usually call it that, but it shows up in all kinds of ways. Thinking we don’t need help. Believing we’re better than others. Measuring our worth by how hard we work or how much we know. It can sound spiritual, even responsible. But underneath, it’s a survival strategy. It’s a way to protect ourselves from feeling small or powerless. The problem is, self-righteousness makes us blind. It hides our need. It blocks grace. And worst of all, it teaches the people we mentor that performance is the way to God. It teaches them to hide.

Change begins with responsibility. This responsibility is about taking ownership of our choices and actions and embracing the power of small, intentional steps. Every day presents an opportunity to align our actions with God's will for our health—mind, body, and spirit. When we make positive choices, no matter how small, we begin to create momentum for the transformation we seek. God empowers us to live intentionally; through our choices, we partner with Him in the work of renewal and growth.

This is God's design. Transformation in life always hinges on a choice. By definition, a "decision" implies cutting something off, creating a crisis point where a direction must be chosen. Transformation often begins at this crossroads, where we cut off old habits, behaviors, or ways of thinking and commit to something new. It's a pivotal moment when we choose to leave behind what holds us back and step into the growth God desires for us.

Lamentations 3:22 tells us that God’s mercies are new every morning, offering us fresh opportunities for transformation. Why are His mercies renewed daily? Because every single day, God communicates that you have worth, you have value, and you are deeply loved. He is not giving up on you. He reminds you that, through the power at work within you, you have the strength to conquer and be victorious over anything that life throws your way.

Scripture reinforces this truth in 2 Corinthians 5:17, declaring that in Christ, we are a new creation. The old has passed away, and everything has become new. This profound statement invites us to stop defining ourselves by our past, our former habits, or our failures. Instead, we are called to define ourselves by how God sees us: “You are my child. You are chosen. You are a royal priesthood, a light to the world, the salt of the earth, and my disciple.”

When we allow habits to define us, we trade the freedom of grace for the chains of shame. This mindset distorts how we see ourselves, casting a shadow over the truth of our inherent worth. But what does Scripture reveal about our value in God’s eyes? In Genesis 1:27, the Bible declares that we are created in the image of God, carrying intrinsic value and purpose. This foundational truth is a cornerstone of understanding who we are and how God sees us.

The Bible goes further in describing Adam as a son of God—not in a begotten sense but as a creation, an offspring of the Creator. This profound relationship between God and humanity underscores the sacredness of life itself. Through Adam, we glimpse the divine origin of humanity; through Christ, the only begotten Son of God, we are invited into a recreation process. In Christ, we are spiritually reborn, begotten anew into God’s family. Together, these truths reveal a dual affirmation of our worth: as bearers of God’s image and as redeemed children of the Most High.

Your current level of victory doesn’t change God’s view of you. Yes, there are habits you need to overcome and areas where growth is necessary. But does any of that diminish God’s love and acceptance of you? Absolutely not.

As parents, we understand this intuitively. We love our children unconditionally, regardless of their behavior or struggles. No matter what they face or how they falter, we walk with them through their darkest moments. Yet, somehow, we struggle to believe that the Creator of the universe loves us with the same, or even greater, intensity. We think God’s love is conditional, as though His acceptance depends on our performance. This belief, though common, is fundamentally flawed.

The first emotion we experience when entering this world is fear. Think about it: inside the womb, we are surrounded by comfort, safety, and nourishment—a perfect symbol of a comfort zone. But birth pushes us through a tunnel into a loud, bright, and unfamiliar world. Fear marks our arrival. Look at a newborn's face, their cries, the redness—it’s all evidence of this primal emotion. It’s a reaction to being thrust into the unknown, to being pulled from comfort into uncertainty.

Fear is our natural starting point. By nature, we are fearful and insecure, and when life disrupts our comfort zones, we retreat to this default state. But it’s not just our nature that inclines us toward insecurity—it’s also our nurture. We are raised in environments shaped by people who are also fearful and insecure. This combination of nature and nurture leaves us deeply ingrained with fear and doubt. It becomes the lens through which we see the world and ourselves.

You don’t truly know a man until you’ve seen him in a moment of deep humiliation—a place where life has stripped away his plans, his ego, and his illusions. It could come through failed marriages, addiction, or unmet ambitions. These are the fires that reveal what a man is truly made of. A man who has never faced these trials, never known failure or humiliation, is untested. Without that fire, he lacks the depth of understanding, compassion, and empathy that come from walking through the valleys of life.

I don’t know if I could trust a man who hasn’t endured such humbling experiences. There’s a certain shallowness in those who have never suffered, never been brought to their knees by life’s challenges. Without the refining heat of failure, they lack the wisdom that comes from walking through pain. They can’t fully empathize or truly grasp what it means to climb out of the depths. Peter, one of Jesus’s closest disciples, learned this firsthand. His failure—the threefold denial of Christ—became the foundation for his future leadership. It was not his perfection but his willingness to face his brokenness that prepared him to lead with grace and strength.

God invites us to co-participate with Him, to step into a partnership where His strength and empowerment guide us beyond our human limitations. When we rely solely on our own power and resources, we are constrained by the finite nature of human ability. God, however, wants to do something extraordinary through us—something that our own strength can never achieve. He calls us to tap into His limitless power to accomplish what is beyond human capacity.

For many people, personal discipline and self-control enable them to achieve remarkable results. They excel in their fields, create fulfilling lives, and demonstrate a high level of personal efficacy. But imagine what could be accomplished if that same discipline and drive were combined with God’s supernatural strength. The results would be beyond what human effort alone could ever produce. It’s a humbling and awe-inspiring thought: What could we achieve when we rely on God’s strength instead of our own?