Rishi entered our first meeting half-slouched, fingers dancing over his phone screen. Bright, no doubt. Disengaged? Absolutely. His parents saw a capable student coasting, someone who scored well enough but lacked a genuine spark. They wanted him to “get serious”—the phrase carried all the weight of a pending storm.

I asked him, “What would you do if school weren’t mandatory?” He looked up. That question—simple, sincere—got a grin. “Probably something with the planet. I watch a lot of those climate documentaries.”

We used that opening to co-create a Vision Wall—an evolving collage of climate icons, snippets from a favorite economics podcast, and handwritten notes about how he’d solve real-world problems. This was followed by a roadmap drawn together with colored sticky notes across categories: coursework, projects, testing, and travel. We added a column called “Why This Matters” to tie every action to a purpose.

Rishi’s extracurriculars were also reassessed. Together, we developed a card system consisting of three categories: “Explore,” “Deepen,” and “Drop.” Chess went into “Drop” without a hint of guilt. His sustainability club and podcast listening time went into “Deepen,” paired with a new habit of journaling reflections and action steps.

We added real-world anchors by scheduling a college visit to a university with a strong environmental science department, identifying a Stanford pre-college summer course in Environmental Economics, and initiating a paper-recycling initiative at school.

Six months later, Rishi wrote his first blog post on climate policy for teens. He was no longer “getting serious”—he was getting real. “He finally cares,” his father said. But what he really meant was: Rishi now owns his path.