Brian Johnson reflects on his son's chess tournament to explore what makes great mentorship: holding people to high standards while showing genuine warmth. He and Michael Balchan, President and Head Coach at Heroic, discuss how this balance shapes how we lead and teach.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I typed this the morning after Emerson's most recent chess tournament. He went 31 and is 1221 in his last 15 matches. Note that's kind of crazy. He's on a roll, especially considering the fact that his competition keeps on getting harder and harder. In fact, he's increased his US Chess Federation rating by nearly 250 points in the last month. Now, to put that in perspective, it took him a year to go up the prior 250 points. The plateau of latent potential for the win. Check out that +1. Now here's what's most interesting about yesterday's tournament. He didn't want to go, and he wouldn't have gone if Mommy and I hadn't practiced our mentor mindset with him in the 48 hours before the tournament. Check out the notes on 10 to 25 by David Yeager for more on the science of motivating young people. Now Emerson's reasons for not wanting to go His Nama Alexandra's awesome mom had been in town for a couple weeks to celebrate his birthday with us, and he hasn't been playing that much chess, basically keeping his puzzle streak alive but otherwise not doing too much. Plus, he'd been eating off the menu a bit more and had gotten a little sick earlier in the week and he didn't want to go to the tournament. He didn't think he'd perform as well as he could, and he was afraid he'd lose a lot of points. Now, my default is still to get more than a little annoyed in these situations. It's always remarkable to me how easy it is to channel my dad and how it takes some work to channel my ideal you're a good wingman identity and show up with the joy, love and encouragement with which I'm committed to parenting. In Jaeger's language, I tend to be an enforcer with high standards and lower warmth. Mommy tends to be a protector with high warmth but lower standards. In other words, when I'm not in a wise mindset, I make him go even if he didn't want to and Mommy would let him skip enter a chance to practice our philosophy. Awesome. Now, on the one hand, it was pretty straightforward. We signed up. Unless we're really sick, we're going. We do what we say we're going to do. But we hadn't set that super bright line standard and I wasn't going to force him to go or do anything. It was his decision for this tournament. Going forward, we'd agree that once we're signed up we go. But I knew he could perform really well and if he didn't, I knew we'd win or learn. Mommy and I were aligned and he decided to go and he crushed it. But I. I repeat, he almost didn't go. So the entire day as we were one, two, threeing each performance, I always told him I was most proud of him for simply showing up. I'll tell you about a goosebumps when we just got a right now moment at the end of the tournament in our next plus one for now, is there something you signed up to do that you know the best daimon inspired version of you would do, but the little demon driven version of you is trying to get out of doing yeah, what is it? If you feel so inspired, go do it.
What's up? This is Michael, President and Head Coach at Heroic. One quick note before we go. I just think it's so amazing that Brian keeps reading all these books and distilling them into more wisdom and less time. By the way, thank you Brian for continuing to read the books distill them for us. I love not having to read the book, just getting them more wisdom in less time to the plus ones of Philosopher's Notes and if you're into this kind of thing, expressing the best version of yourself and using your greatest gifts make a positive impact on the world. Make sure you head to Heroic Us to check out all the other resources that we have available to you. You can download a bunch of free goodies including Philosopher's Notes, Masterclasses and our scientifically proven Heroic app. You can also explore advanced resources to help you go next level, including live and virtual workshops. We working one on one with a Heroic Performance coach or even becoming a certified coach yourself as you master heroic performance, the fundamentals of coaching excellence and Heroic coaching prosperity. Again, head to Heroic Us to get the ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools you need to activate your heroic potential and change the world together. And please do hit subscribe, Appreciate you have a fantastic day and see you again soon.
