The Gas Station Chat: A Micro-Moment of Life-Changing Encouragement (Heroic +1 #1,907)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. I'm typing this midway through creating a note on David Yeager's great book called 10 to 25. His book is all about the science of motivating young people. I'll share more details on David and his book soon. For now, know that he's Carol Dweck's protege and one of the most respected developmental psychologists in the world. And this book will be my new go to parenting book. Now, I interrupted my normal creative process to make sure I created this plus one. So let's get to work. Now, Dr. Yeager's book is all about cultivating what he calls a mentor mindset to help bring out the best in the next generation. The hallmark of the mentor's mindset is essentially simultaneously having both high standards and high support. We're demanding and we're warm and supportive. When we're just demanding, we can fall into what he calls the enforcer mindset. When we're just supportive, we can fall into what he calls the protector mindset. Again, we want to have both high standards and be super supportive. Seeing someone's potential and holding them to the standards that will help them activate it while being super supportive in the process. We'll take a deeper dive into all that soon. For now, I want to talk about one particular passage near the end of the book that deeply moved me. Here it is, David tells us, And I quote, Dr. Daniel Lapsley is a professor of adolescent psychology at the University of Notre Dame. He grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father was a coal miner while his mother was a homemaker. He never thought about college because nobody in his family had ever been. One summer day in 1965, just before he started seventh grade, Lapsley and his friends were hanging out at a gas station. After playing basketball, Lapsley struck up a conversation with a college aged guy who was waiting for his car to get fixed. Soon the topic turned to the Vietnam War. Lapsley was a reader and he precociously defended President Johnson's domino theory of communism in the region and the United States role in the war. The college guy argued the other side in earnest. A little surprised that Lapsley had done his research, but also encouraging him. He gave no hint of ridicule, sarcasm or belittlement. When his car was ready, he turned to Lapsley and said, you're an extraordinarily bright kid. Have you ever thought about going to college? Then, for reasons Lapsley still doesn't understand, he asked if Lapsley had read Dante's the Divine comedy and said how much he would enjoy it, implying that Lapsley would be up for the challenging read. Lapsley was 12. He can still remember the exhilarating pride, the earned prestige. I walked home as if striding mountains. Imagine this stranger urging me to go to college, wondering if I've read Dante. This interaction offers a good example of what I mean when I say that earned prestige is motivating. Eventually, Lapsley did indeed go to college, just like the stranger had recommended, and he never left. He earned his PhD and spent his entire adult life as a college professor. He now serves as a lead mentor in the university's program to support first generation college students. Now that's from a chapter in Section three, which is all about building a better future. The chapter that precedes it is an incredibly inspiring look at how we create inclusive excellence such that disadvantaged groups are best given the opportunity to do excellent work and flourish while making important contributions to their fields and communities. The main theme of that chapter and how we create inclusive excellence. It's the essence of the entire book, the mentor mindset featuring its hallmark of high standards and high support. Now, right after that passage above, Jaeger tells us that Lapsley said that the encounter with the stranger at the gas station looms larger than any teacher, larger than anything that happened in any school. The stranger at the gas station planted an idea, raised a possibility that had not occurred to me. He said he made me feel special and talented. This clear, vivid memory I have has never shaken and I credit this encounter, this stranger, with setting me on the path that was unusual for kids in the steel town of my birthday. Now I actually got emotional reading his story as I felt into my own upbringing and an experience I had just last weekend. I nearly wept recounting the story with Alexandra a moment ago. First, as I've mentioned, I am a first generation college student. Technically, my grandfather put himself through college while driving a taxi when he had young kids, but neither one of my parents went to college. So this story struck a chord from that perspective and but what really moved me was an experience I had at Emerson's chess tournament last weekend. It was on the very last day, over four hours into his final game. Emerson was one of the very last players to finish. I was sitting outside the door, eagerly awaiting him to open the door and flash me a thumbs up I won. Or a thumbs down, I lost. Or of course a neutral I drew. Now I don't remember precisely how my interaction with a high school kid who finished just before Emerson started, but I found myself standing next to him as he placed the one next to his name on the sheet, reflecting the fact that he won his match. You get one point for winning. I could tell he was stoked, but there was no one there to celebrate with him. Get emotional right now. So I decided to be that guy again. I got tears in my eyes typing I got tears in my eyes feeling into the power of that moment. Now, my very strong intuition is that this young man probably didn't come from the strongest family background. He was around 16 years old and I know he was old enough to drive and have a job because he told me how much he loved chess and how he studied and played as much as he could when he wasn't in school or working. So I helped him figure out where he would place and then I congratulated him on officially becoming a professional chess player. When it was clear that he finished high enough to make some money. He said he hoped it covered his entrance fees. Again, he was so incredibly stoked, feeling the exhilarating pride of a job very well done. And I was incredibly stoked for him and equally committed to making sure he felt just how excited I was for him and his future. Now again, I nearly wept as I shared this story with Alexandra a few minutes ago as I felt into the 20 to 30 to 40 hours I worked when I was in high school and college and and how important it is that kids who don't have all the resources our kids now have get as much heroic support as we can give them. Now though, I'm happy I target swiped create a micro moment of awesome with someone and encourage someone. Literally two targets I swipe every day. I wish I had read this book before I got to spend those precious few minutes with him. And I wish I had copies of my book in the car so I could have given him one. We had given all of them away and I wish I had taken the extra minute to trade contact info so I could have given him a free lifetime heroic membership link I always have ready at hand on my other phone and I could have stayed in touch. And most of all, I wish that you and me and all of us take every opportunity we get to celebrate the people in our lives loved 1.0 and loved 2.0 ones as we appreciate their successes so we can help them cook some earned prestige hero bars while shining a light on their heroic potential. Remember, in the faces of men and women we see heroes. Let's remember that we never know what moments may change someone's life. And let's go be wise mentors and empower them today.