What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from The Cow in the Parking Lot
A mentee ignores advice you gave in good faith, a client cancels a session last minute, someone you have invested time in seems to make no progress at all. The event is small, but the story you attach to it, disrespect, wasted effort, a sign none of this matters, can quietly build into resentment toward someone you are trying to help. The book's core idea, that anger comes from the story we attach to an event rather than the event itself, applies directly to the uneven pace of guiding another person's growth.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
The story you tell versus what happened
A mentee does not follow through on something you agreed on together. One story says they do not respect your time or take the guidance seriously. Another says something got in the way that they have not yet found the words to explain. The lack of follow-through is identical either way.
Coaches and mentors invested in someone's success often reach for the story that centers on disrespect, since it is simpler than sitting with genuine uncertainty about what actually happened.
Before reacting, ask what else, besides indifference, could explain this exact gap between what was agreed and what happened.
The hidden rule underneath the frustration
Underneath a mentor's frustration at slow progress or a missed session often sits an unspoken rule, something like someone receiving my time and attention should visibly value it in return.
When that rule stays unspoken, ordinary struggle or inconsistency in another person's growth gets treated as a personal rejection of you and your effort.
Name the rule to yourself, then ask whether growth on this exact timeline, with this exact level of visible gratitude, was ever a reasonable thing to expect.
Opening a gap before you respond
The urge to say something pointed after a missed session or ignored advice is strongest right when you notice it, often before you know the full story.
A mentor's disappointment, expressed too sharply, can make a struggling mentee less likely to come back at all, which undercuts the relationship you are trying to protect.
Pause before your next message or session, so your response comes from clarity rather than the sharpest edge of frustration.
Building the habit over time
None of this works as a single technique saved for the most discouraging session. The value comes from practicing the pause on ordinary friction, a missed check-in, unused advice, a quiet stretch of no progress, until noticing your own story and hidden rules becomes closer to automatic. Over time this does not guarantee faster growth in someone you mentor, but the gap between a trigger and your reaction tends to open earlier and more often, which changes how anger moves through a relationship built on patience.
Sometimes a mentee's choices raise a real concern that needs a direct conversation, and there is no benefit in delaying that conversation to examine every hidden rule first. In those cases, separate the practical concern from the emotional story: raise the concern plainly and calmly, and save the deeper reflection on your own expectations for afterward. Directness and reflection can coexist without one canceling out the other.
Name one thing, honestly
- What story did you tell about a mentee's or client's behavior this week, and what other explanation would fit the same facts? - What unspoken rule about gratitude, effort, or progress tends to fuel your frustration most in this relationship? - Where has a pause before responding changed how a difficult conversation with someone you mentor actually went?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Pause before your next message or session, so your response comes from clarity rather than the sharpest edge of frustration.