Many mentoring conversations--especially those that pertain to junior faculty of color--cite concern about the socio-racial location of the mentor. This essay, an autoethnographic reflection by an academic of color, is a call to consider the characteristics of mentoring that have moved faculty successfully through their institutional benchmarks. The article is intended to start a discourse around how the consideration of socio-racial location in the mentor, as a measure of compatibility with the mentee, might be a misguided standard in faculty mentoring.