What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from Traction
Assuming a mentee is naturally clear on their own priorities just because they're working hard is the specific trap Traction names, and it's an easy one to fall into when a mentee seems generally motivated.
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 get clear on their priorities
A mentee can't move forward effectively if their own picture of what matters most right now is vague or constantly shifting.
A mentor assumes a mentee understands their own top priority because it was discussed once, and later discovers the mentee has been focusing on something else entirely.
Ask your mentee to state their top priority for this month in one sentence, and check it against what they're actually spending their time on.
Help them focus on a small number of priorities at a time
Trying to make progress on too many goals simultaneously means none of them gets the focused attention needed to actually move forward.
A mentee keeps adding new goals without dropping anything, and every goal ends up moving slower because their attention is spread too thin.
Help your mentee pick their top three priorities for the next few months, and explicitly set aside anything that doesn't serve them.
Check in consistently and resolve problems as they come up
A regular, disciplined rhythm of short check-ins that surface and resolve issues keeps small problems from quietly growing into big ones.
A mentor only addresses a mentee's struggle once it's already become a serious setback, and issues that could have been caught early have had weeks to compound.
Set a short, recurring check-in with your mentee whose only job is to surface and resolve open issues before they grow.
Help them track a small set of signals on a consistent schedule
Watching a few meaningful signals of a mentee's progress regularly catches drift and problems early, well before they'd otherwise become visible as a crisis.
Addressing today's question and building a disciplined mentoring rhythm aren't opposites — the rhythm is what prevents today's small gap from becoming next month's larger one.
Name one thing, honestly
Does what your mentee is actually spending their time on match what they'd say their top priority is right now?
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
Set a short, recurring check-in with your mentee whose only job is to surface and resolve open issues before they grow.