What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from Contagious
Assuming that genuinely good advice will spread through your mentee's own network on its own because it's good is the specific trap Contagious names, and it's an easy one to fall into when the value of the advice seems obvious to you.
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
Help them give people something that makes them look good for sharing it
People pass advice on to others when it makes them look insightful or ahead of the curve, not when it's merely correct.
A mentor gives sound, well-reasoned advice, and the mentee absorbs it privately but never mentions it to a peer facing a similar situation, because there's nothing about the advice that makes repeating it feel like a win for the mentee.
Identify one detail in your advice that would make your mentee feel sharp or ahead of the curve for having heard it, and highlight that detail when you give it.
Help them build the idea into things they already encounter regularly
Advice tied to something a mentee already deals with often stays present in their mind far longer than advice given once and left there.
A mentor gives excellent advice in a single session, and it's forgotten within weeks because nothing in the mentee's regular routine brings it back to mind.
Identify one recurring situation or routine your mentee already faces, and find a natural way to connect your advice to it.
Help them make people feel something specific, not just know a fact
Advice sticks and spreads through an emotional reaction, not through information alone; a mentee who merely understands advice intellectually has no real reason to act on it or repeat it.
A mentor explains a sound approach clearly and logically, and the mentee agrees it makes sense and then never actually applies it, because nothing about the explanation made them feel anything about it.
Identify the specific feeling (confidence, relief, motivation) you want a piece of advice to produce in your mentee, and check whether how you're delivering it actually produces that feeling.
Help them give the idea a visible, practical, and story-shaped form
Advice that a mentee can visibly apply and see working, that gives them genuinely useful information to pass along to a peer, and that fits into a story they'd enjoy telling about their own growth, sticks and spreads far more easily than advice offered only as an abstract principle.
Addressing today's specific question and giving advice that spreads and sticks aren't opposites — advice that's genuinely useful and tied to a real feeling is usually more actionable for today's question too.
Name one thing, honestly
Is there a piece of advice you give often that your mentees rarely seem to actually act on or repeat to anyone else?
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
Identify the specific feeling (confidence, relief, motivation) you want a piece of advice to produce in your mentee, and check whether how you're delivering it actually produces that feeling.