I’ve been reading 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People by David Yaeger, and it’s a fantastic book. If you work with young athletes or students, I highly recommend it.
A couple of things really stood out to me in the first half of the book:
If you want young people to perform at a high level, you can’t just be tough on them—you also have to support them. One without the other just doesn’t work.
Yaeger tells a great story about a first-year teacher who got thrown into teaching an AP class. To prepare, he visited another school where the AP program was known for great scores each year on the AP exam. The teacher there was tough, demanding, and in the students’ faces. At times, the teacher was literally yelling at the students. The class performed well, so the new teacher figured that approach was the key to success.
But when he tried it, it flopped. His students weren’t responding and even more importantly, were not not successful.
The big difference? The school he observed was in a high-income area, where students had tutors or parents who could help them succeed despite the tough teaching style. His students didn’t have that extra support system.
Once he adjusted his approach to include both high expectations and high support, his students started performing better than he ever imagined. There were alot of great details and stories about how the teacher did this—-it is worth checking out the book.
This one caught me off guard at first, but it makes total sense.
Young people want to feel valued. They care about social rewards—not just from their peers, but from adults, too. If they feel seen and validated, they stay engaged and loyal. If they don’t, they often check out.
And here’s the key: It has to be real. They can smell fake from a mile away (which ties into Tim Elmore’s work on authenticity).
For athletes, this doesn’t mean handing out empty praise. It means genuinely recognizing their effort, progress, and contributions. It means creating a positiver enviroment where the right things are celebrated and people aren’t torn down. That kind of validation carries a ton of weight.
As I was reading, I kept seeing connections to what we do at the Impactful Coaching Project (ICP):
The balance of high accountability and high support
The importance of building real systems of care
The power of recognition and validation in motivation (check out put ups)
These also tie directly into what we call the 3 C’s of Coaching—Competence, Care, and Constancy.
Competence – You have to know what you’re talking about.
Care – You have to genuinely care about your athletes and have SYSTEMS to do this on a day to day basis.
Constant – You have to show up and be consistent.
Today’s athletes can spot a fraud faster than ever before. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t care, or aren’t consistent, they’ll check out. But if you get all three right, you can make a huge impact.
Yaeger’s book is a great read, and I highly recommend checking it out. And if you want more on this, we’ve covered a ton of these topics in our books at ICP. Both have plenty of research-backed strategies and real-world applications you can use right away.
Check out our book!
Things That Are Making Us Think
Steve Magness (author of Do Hard Things) just came out with a new book. Really enjoyed his interview on the Daily Stoic Podcast talking about it. Check it out at https://dailystoic.com/steve-magness-on-winning-the-inside-game/.
