Brian Johnson apologizes to his son Emerson, a chess player rated 2100 aiming for 2200, for pushing too hard without warmth. He uses golf analogies to structure chess practice and reflects on whether mentors are enforcers or protectors. The episode asks you to examine your own mentorship style and apply it today.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. In our last couple Plus Ones, we talked about the science of motivating young people. Today, we're going to continue that discussion. So, the kids got up after another great night of sleep. Emerson's at 92 readiness, 93 aura, ready to rock the final day. Protocol dominated. I'm kind of proud of my wingman services. We just got back from a little walk around the hotel to get some mommy-approved AM sunlight. On our walk, I chatted with Emerson about the wisdom we've been discussing. Quick context, Emerson's United States Chess Federation rating is currently about 2,100. He's really excited about getting that to 2,200, at which point he will officially become a national master. He's currently a candidate master. Pretty exciting. Now, that was his goal when he first started playing chess. You can check out a +1 from years ago for more on that initial goal. It was fascinating for me to reread it when I didn't even know what it meant to be a national master and whether or not he actually could do that and on what timeframe, etc. Now, he wants to get there within the next several months, which is aggressive but possible. He's been doing the things his coach has encouraged him to do, but for the last couple of weeks, he's been kind of sort of just doing the minimum. And I kind of sort of told him that he could probably kind of sort of step up his game a bit. If he wants to accelerate his path to National Master. Now, although I wasn't a total jerk about it, I could tell when I said it last night, I bummed him out a little bit, as he told me that his coach has been celebrating how many puzzles he's been doing, etc. I kind of sort of repaired it last night, but I did a much better job this morning. Here's what I said. Did I bum you out a bit last night when I pushed on your training? Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I literally just wrote about how to be a good parent mentor this morning. I talked about how sometimes if you push hard but don't have enough warmth, you can be a jerk. And that's what I did. I'm really, really sorry. To which he said, it's all good. Then I used the transparency statement Professor Jaeger tells us works so well. Again, check out those notes. I said, I want you to know that I believe in you and I'm excited to help you hit your target in the timeframe you've set for yourself. I'm pushing you because I think you can do it. And that you might be able to step up your training a bit to give yourself the best shot. Again, sorry about being a bit of a jerk when I said it last night. I think you're right and all good. So what specifically do you think you can do a little differently? Then we talked about the specifics of what he can do. I won't bore you with the details, but there were some fun parallels to great golfers working on their openings or off the tee, middle games, which would be the fairways, etc., and end games, which is your short game. Then we set some fun targets to take it up a notch. Awesome. Today's plus one spotlight where it belongs on you. Where do you tend to err when you fall out of the wise mentor mindset? Are you an enforcer with high standards but not enough warmth? That's my vulnerability. Or are you a protector with high warmth but low standards? I don't really have a great risk of falling into that, but most importantly, How can you optimize just a little more? And can you put this into practice with a loved one today? Awesome, get on that. Day 1, all in. We've got heroes to train. Let's go. Hey, this is Brian. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. If you enjoyed it, please hit subscribe so that the best of the show keeps landing in your feed. Then head over to heroic.us. That's heroic.us where you'll find the full library of wisdom I've created over the last 20 years, as well as the app, advanced training programs, coaching, and everything else we've built to help you optimize your life, actualize your potential, and live heroically. It is day 1. We are all in. Let's go.
