Ask an intriguing question:

1. Ask an intriguing question: Can a dead person be your mentor? Well, most people would probably think not. However, when I read the biography of a famous person, I often feel like I am having a conversation with that person. I listen carefully to the person’s hopes and dreams, experiences, struggles, and victories. By the end of a good biography, I feel like I’ve just found a new mentor. Reading the biography of Martin Luther King, I discovered Key similarities and differences in his life and mine that would make him a good mentor for me.

2. Tell a story: When my parents first came to the United States, they had no job, no family or friends, and they could not speak English. Then my father met Darius, a wonderful man from our church who became my father’s “sponsor.” A sponsor is a mentor, someone who shows you how to survive and succeed. Darius taught my father the ropes of making it in America. As I read about the life of Mother Teresa, I think she can be my Darius because she and I have some interesting similarities and differences.

3. Give a comparison: A mentor is like a mirror into your soul. When you look into the eyes of your mentor, you will see your own strength and ability reflected back. This is because a mentor knows what it’s like to be starting out in life; he can help you develop self-confidence and take the correct steps to self-realization. When I learned about the similarities and differences that exist between Henry Ford’s life and my own, I felt like I was looking at a mirror into my own soul.

4. Make a bold statement: I’d have to be a fool to believe in mentors. Everybody is too self-focused in the world today to reach out to anybody else. I am a worthy person who pulled himself up from a tough background, but no one has every reached out a hand except to give me a shove backwards. Well, at least I’ve found a dead white guy who can be a mentor to me. Harry Houdini was a poor immigrant like me who pulled himself up, but he became a famous escape artist; maybe he can help me escape too.

5. Use a quotation: GQ editor Art Cooper once said, “When I was a young man, I had a mentor on women and he said when you meet a woman that you think you like, don't ask her out for a drink. Take her out for a bowl of soup. Because a woman who can enjoy a bowl of soup is bound to be more interesting.” If I had had a mentor like this guy, I would have saved a lot of money on drinks. I’m also taking my next date to the Soup Plantation. In the meantime, Charlie Chaplin could be a unique mentor for me; we are both womanizers, but we have some differences as well.

6. THESIS: Harry Houdini would be a good mentor for me Main Idea 1: I am similar to Houdini in some important ways Main Idea 2: my life is different from Houdini’s life

7. THESIS: Harry Houdini would be a good mentor for me + Main Idea 1: I am similar to Houdini in some important ways + Main Idea 2: my life is different from Houdini’s life = Harry Houdini would be a good mentor for me because of the similarities and differences that we share. Because of some amazing commonalities and contrasts between Houdini and myself, I can imagine him as a mentor. In comparing and contrasting myself to Princess Diana, I have found a beautiful mentor who has helped me understand myself and my life a little bit better.