How to Achieve Greatness.

As a useful counterpoint to the current American rage to dumb children down, to make them all equal in all ways, we offer a this essay from one Kumar Mehta.

He has studied what makes children exceptional, what makes them great, what makes them defiantly unequal.

In fact, he opens his CNBC article (via Maggie’s Farm) with this statement:

Humans are not all equal in every way. There are a few individuals who have achieved an unparalleled mastery in their field — and they are what I call the exceptionals. Put another way, they are the 1% of the 1% of the world's most successful people.

Of course, the notion of exceptionals is somewhat defensive. Why would you not employ similar techniques in bringing up your child, especially if you want your child to excel, to do better. Since the American school system is trying to make every child as mediocre as can be, we should want to make every child as great as can be.

Mehta begins with a simple principle, one long since proposed by Peter Drucker.

He wants them to play to their strengths. He wants them to discover their talents and then to work to develop them. As Drucker put it, in his pamphlet, “Managing Oneself” the place to begin is by discovering what you are good at. 

This seems non-controversial until you realize that most of our psycho theorists tell children to do what they love or what they want. When it is not telling them to feel guilty about their privilege-- an excellent way to render children dysfunctional-- it tells them to follow their passions.

In truth, they should go where their talents lead them. This is not the same as following one’s bliss.

Mehta’s second point reflects Drucker’s thought and also that of Malcolm Gladwell. He explains that, once a child discovers what he is good at, he must next work very hard at it. In a time when the good old work ethic, see yesterday’s post about workers, has fallen into desuetude, the notion that you need to work hard to achieve excellence sounds a bit archaic. And yet, the children who excel in standardized tests, to take an easy example, tend to work much harder than the children who do poorly on such tests.

And then, Mehta continues, talented children should be raised in a culture that values striving, that does not just value hard work, but that also values achievement, as in, good grades and winning in competition.

The researchers found that the majority of ultra elite athletes came from environments that advocated a culture of striving. They grew up in homes where pursuing excellence and pushing the boundaries were always expected, not merely desired.

It’s not just that failure is not an option. Mediocrity is not an option either. In the right culture children are expected to get the best scores. Didn’t the Tiger Mom tell her daughters that they had to be the best in all subjects, except drama and gym?

Parents should emphasize self-confidence, and should not criticize. In Mehta’s words:

When parents encourage self-confidence (instead of criticizing their kids and putting them down each time they fail at something), their kids are more likely to perform at the highest level and adopt the mindset that they will eventually rise to the top.

This kind of self-assuredness — or unwavering belief that they can be the best — is key to achieving greatness.

Note well, Mehta is not looking for children to achieve goodness. He wants them to be great. Do you have a problem with that?

Parents who seek this goal must also engage with their children, especially when their children ask questions. They want their children to be curious. They placed a priority on learning, exactly as today’s Asian American parents do. It is not the same as prioritizing popularity or coolness.

Parents of the most accomplished people always make learning new things a priority. And because they teach their kids to embrace curiosity, one thing they take very seriously is answering questions.

I've interviewed several Nobel Laureates, and almost all of them recalled that, even much later in life, their parents always patiently tried to answer questions they asked. And when the parents did not have immediate answers, they taught their kids how to look for the answers and often searched for them together.

And then there is specialization. In order to achieve greatness children need to specialize in precisely one thing. They cannot be dilettantes, or multi-faceted multi-taskers or jacks of all trades and masters of none. 

Parents often face the question of whether they should take the "specialist" approach and encourage their children to specialize in an activity that they show high potential in, or take the "generalist" approach and expose them to many different things (e.g., baseball, soccer, piano, math club) to help them become well-rounded.

Most parents choose the latter, but parents of exceptional kids choose the specialist approach.

Early specialization doesn't mean that your kid gives up doing other things, perhaps for fun or even for developing additional skills. It just means that they've picked the activity where they are committed to putting in the effort required to become as good as possible at it.

The parent mindset is that the earlier they encourage their kids to learn the basics of a field their kid shows promise in, the sooner they'll progress to more advanced skills. And the sooner they develop those advanced skills, the quicker they'll develop best-in-class skills. And the quicker they gain best-in-class skills, the more likely they are to attain a rare and elite level of proficiency.

And, of course, such children must have a competitive environment. The notion that every child should receive a trophy, a staple in a therapy culture that is working to enhance self-esteem, even where it is not based on achievement, is working to undermine excellence. A culture where competition is bad unless it produces the results that affirm the biases of liberal educators will be producing mediocrity:

Being competitive from an early age, even in small activities like board games or who can clean their room the fastest, exposed them to the stress and pressure that was required for them to win later in life.

But their parents also taught them that they should not place value on just competition and results, that being exceptional is more than just keeping score. If you solely fixate on results, and not improvement, then you're less likely to master your field.

This offers a brief precis of what a child needs to do to be great at what he is good at. Rather than limiting this to a tiny minority, we would do well to use these guidelines as a means to set out new policies. Aside from Peter Drucker, you will find them outlined in the Tiger Mom’s book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.