Mentoring can sometimes be a difficult process - especially when it comes to sensitive topics like marriage. How can we best help our friends when they come to us expressing marital conflict? How can we learn to benefit from that same process ourselves, the next time we face challenges in our own relationships? Whether you’re a man or a woman, married or single, you’ll want to listen to this episode about how to help your friends, and how to continually improve your own marriage, by focusing on what we ourselves can do (whether as husband or wife) to better meet the others’ needs.

In this episode, I interviewed MacKenzie Price, a trained mentor and lay-counselor who has years of experience helping women recognize the value of living with intentionality in their relationships and creating lives that match their stated priorities.

MacKenzie and I discussed:

The unique challenges women face in getting good advice about relationships
Why marriages can quickly become a lower priority (and how to do something about it)
The value of Socratic questions in helping people recognize the danger they are in
What’s most important to husbands? (the answer may surprise you)
The one thing that can’t be neglected for a healthy marriage (this answer won’t surprise you)
Knowing when a mentee is ready for real growth, and how to respond when they aren’t
The downsides of offering “blind support” and why it’s worth the confrontation

I hope you enjoy our conversation about the purpose in the process of mentoring a marriage!

Episodes are also available on Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts!

MacKenzie Price is passionate about helping women see the value of living with intentionality in their relationships and creating lives that match up with their stated priorities. With a husband of 15 years and two daughters, she understands how hard juggling family, work and life in general can be, so she strives to help people create a full and vibrant life that goes beyond just getting by. Always up for conversation and adventure, she does work with personal development trainings through Reinvent Ministries, college mentorship with CRU, lay counseling with Women of Care and leads women’s study groups focusing on marriage, parenting, and Bible study.

MacKenzie has a B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University and began her career in software marketing and sales, then spent 17 years building a successful mortgage business from which she retired in 2018. She also hosted a weekly segment on Austin’s TWC News called On the Town. Passionate about education, MacKenzie helped build Alpha, a cutting-edge school for K-12 in Austin, TX. She has made her home in Austin, TX since 1998, but her favorite getaway is a trip to the mountains for some great skiing or hiking.

You can find and follow MacKenzie on Instagram @mackenziep18, and on Facebook @mackenzielarsonprice.

Links to Resources

Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs by Emerson Eggerichs.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr

A great site for Ennegram testing - I reference this (my favorite personality profile test) in so many episodes…it’s worth your time.