The Science of Motivating Young People

Happy almost New Year! Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season.

A very consistent conversation I've had with many of you during Q4 has been some version of: "In 2025, we are getting back to the expectation of Granum!" And it’s usually said with a bit of head shaking and wondering why this generation doesn’t get it...congratulations, we’ve officially become our parents!

It’s not that they don’t get it, more often it's how we’re communicating and supporting them that drives the disconnect.

If you follow Dan Pink or Adam Grant, you’ve probably heard or read their thoughts recently about the 19 magic words that increase the probability people follow through on the feedback/advice you give them. The words are: “I’m giving you this feedback because I have very high expectations, and I am confident you can meet them”. The idea behind this is to communicate high expectations with high support, in a way that validates their value - something we all desire in our growth. While I believe it is important and effective language, obviously following through on the intentions behind that statement is what makes a meaningful impact. The research Pink and Grant were referencing was done by David Yeager, PhD, and he expands on his findings in his new book 10 to 25, The Science of Motivating Young People. It is an excellent book and I encourage anyone involved in advisor development to study the lessons he shares. (Vrana, he lives in Austin, if you can get him out for a cup of coffee it would be a great conversation!)

There is way too much good info in the book to cover in this message, so I am going to focus on two topics that support the 19 magic words above, and are very relevant to your businesses:

1) How your mentors mentor matters.

There are four types of mentor mindsets:

• Apathetic Mindset: We don’t need to talk about Apathetic, other than they need to be off your team.
• Enforcer Mindset: Mentors with an Enforcer Mindset set high expectations, tell them how to do it, and have an expectation that it should just be done. Enforcers will frustrate both themselves and their Mentee while driving a feeling of continual inferiority.
• Protector Mindset: Mentors with a Protector Mindset do not set high expectations, but do empathize with excuses, and make very little progress while trying to be their friend. Protectors will eventually lose the respect of their mentees because they will feel lost and unfulfilled.
• Mentor Mindset: Mentors with a Mentor Mindset are a combination of the Enforcer and Protector - They respect their mentee enough to set high expectations (Granum is the 'I have very high expectations’ part of the 19 words) AND they provide high support (effective mentoring is the ‘and I am confident you can meet them’ part). This is the sweet spot where the mentee feels like they are part of something special and will do all they can to live up to expectations.

For many of us, our natural state may be either the Enforcer or Protector Mindset when mentoring others - we have a natural inclination to one side or the other and, especially when we’re busy, we fall into the shortcut of our natural tendencies. The Mentor Mindset is more often than not a learned behavior that must be studied, purposefully applied and experienced in our own growth. If you see one of these three as the dominant style in your office, it’s a good indicator of the culture your people are experiencing.

2) The 5 rules when effectively mentoring.

• Transparency: Explain the 'high expectations and high support’ openly, honestly and encouragingly. If the mentor feels the need to hold back, there will be conflict later in their relationship. Be clear and repeat it often.
• More questioning, less telling: Have you ever noticed that telling someone how to do something feels good and impactful when you do it, but being told how to do something feels minimizing when you receive it? Whenever possible, helping mentees come to their own conclusions with well-formed questions will make a more significant impact and better buy-in.
• Stress can be enhancing: Help them develop a mindset of embracing stress. All business owners experience it and, if they don’t feel some level of stress, they are typically stagnating. Lean into it, it’s telling where to focus for growth!
• Belonging: As advisors compare themselves to others, everyone will have times that they feel like they don’t belong - let them know that they are going to have successes and struggles and normalize it. “Some have it early, some have it late, but everyone has it and I’m here to help you through it - you belong here!"
• Connect to their Purpose: Align their actions to their values. Don’t tell them to do Granum because Granum said to, rather through great questioning, understand their purpose for being here. If they say they are here to both build a business of significance and have a positive impact on each person they bring into their business, then, to do that, it begins with a proven activity model and I am here to help you execute on it successfully!

As a real bonus, the skills learned to become a great mentor will also help them be a much better advisor. This is a SIGNIFICANT benefit of being part of leadership! When I teach this, we cover how these skills can be used with prospects and clients in addition to mentees - this crossover helps their engagement and desire to learn.

If your 2025 plan includes getting back to Granum with your advisors and/or developing the mentoring skill sets of your leaders, let’s have a conversation. I’m building tools to both develop your new advisors directly utilizing the Mentor Mindset, and skill build with your leaders to improve both their mentoring effectiveness and productivity as an advisor ~ I’m happy to share all I can with you!

Cheers to your best year ever in 2025!

Additional Resources for you:

David’s book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/flSSKFj

7 minute summary conversation with David around 5 key components of mentoring: https://youtu.be/QYCDsf5Lmsk

50 minute conversation between Angela Duckworth and David Yeager on this topic: https://youtu.be/YyX6hf8Q9So

My short book notes:

Read my notes on Mentor Mindset (FPP Library)

Read my notes on 10 to 25 (FPP Library)

Think Differently,

Steve