Letters to My Kids

Goals can be an incredibly stimulating thing. Just the virtue of having a goal, a level to attain is inspiring in itself. Picturing yourself on the summit is the first step to actually getting there.

Goals can be incredibly demoralizing as well. And scary. You see, you’re not always going to make the goals you set. When you’re young and it seems everything is going for you it’s hard to picture yourself failing.

But you will. You will set the mark and fail to reach it. Eventually, you will come up short of your own expectations. And when you don’t, it’s very tempting to consider yourself a failure alongside the effort. And the next time you get geared up for a new goal, the nagging doubts come back to chip away at your solid footing.

A critical point you need to have in mind. Goals are not a pass/fail situation.

When negative thinking rules, anything short of your desired outcome is seen as a failure. “If I don’t get an A on this test, I have failed”. “If I don’t make all-state, I have failed”. “If I don’t graduate college in 4 years I have failed”. “If I don’t get a job making as much as my friends I have failed”. And so on.

The fact is, you likely haven’t failed. Maybe you didn’t reach the peak you were shooting for, but how close did you get? Is a B+ that bad? Is all-city that bad? Is a thorough college education that bad? Is steady employment in a rewarding field bad?

Of course it isn’t. It’s further than you were the day before. You’ve won the competition against yesterday’s self, which is the only one that really counts. And the next time you shoot at that goal, it’s that much easier. It’s really not bad to shoot for the stars and get to the moon.

After all, when you do achieve your goal, it’s rarely the be-all end-all of the effort. Soon you’ll be dissatisfied with the vista and start looking up toward the next level. As you should. It’s not a one shot effort to satisfaction. It’s a series of steps up that stretch out of sight, only coming into view as you gain new ground. So what if you had to take one of those steps in two or three efforts? There’s always going to be another step waiting.

Set your standards high and be ambitious with your goals. But don’t be discouraged when you miss them. Learn what went wrong and make a better attempt next time.

At some point in time you’re going to start assessing career options and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.

The educational system of my day did a horrible job helping you through this time. For 11 years they encouraged you down a generalist path, oblivious to the future and finally in your graduating year, they drop the bomb. “By the way, you better figure out what you want to do every day for the rest of your life, over and over , day in and day out, because if you don’t take the right courses in college you’ll never have a shot at it. And college applications will be due in a couple of months, so you really need to know by Friday”.

I hope I prepare you a little better than that. I hope you grow up seeking what you like to do and that you understand the deadlines are never fully fixed. And I hope you understand that you can always change your mind.

But at some point when considering a future career, you’re going to ask yourself a question we all do – should I go to work in a field I really enjoy, or one that pays a lot of money?

I would suggest you pursue what you enjoy, for several very good reasons:

• Money is easy to acquire; happiness is not
• Happiness is something you will seek on a daily basis; money is not
• The wealthier you become, the less money means to you; happiness does not suffer from that disillusionment
• If you really enjoy what you are doing, you will get very good at it. People tend to pay experts in any field very well

No doubt you are going to be encouraged by many to pursue a prestige field. Certain professions are held up in every generation as somehow more elitist, more noble. But unless you have a real desire for that field, you’re not going to find the fulfillment you seek.

Let’s just take an extremely unlikely “suppose” – suppose you really, really enjoy digging ditches, but you think you need to become a doctor.

• As an unenthusiastic doctor, you will probably not enjoy the 8 years of prepatory school ahead of you and cringe under the load of the long hours of your residency. So after 10 years of grinding through something you hate, you take up with a hospital or a private practice. Maybe you have a nice salary coming in. You also dread the beep of your phone or pager, grit your teeth through a daily regemin of patients and begrudgingly stay up to date on your craft. True, you have some money to throw around, but you’re trying to keep up the lifestyle of the other doctors in your field and you never get to spend a lot of time enjoying that money without the fear that you’re going to be summoned in to take care of something you really don’t want to. You spend your days waiting for Friday, bemoaning Monday and counting the days until vacation.
• Instead, what if you went ahead and decided to dig ditches with a road crew? Your enthusiasm is going to make you learn how to do your job better, and people notice that. Eventually you are seen as a standout among the other diggers and they begin to prep you to supervise others, maybe to get more involved in the planning. You find your enthusiasm for a well-dug ditch translates to the beginnings of a civil engineering path. Or maybe you decide to put together your own business and hire your own crew. Or perhaps you are drawn toward planning. Or ditch-digging equipment design. Or training, or motivational positions. The money is there because you’re a standout in your field. You enjoy what you do, so you naturally put in the overtime and the away-from-job investments that are required to get ahead. You are seen as a go-getter and someone who’s going places. And every single workday is something you genuinely enjoy. Maybe you don’t have two houses, or boats, or whatever the status symbols may be in your day. But they don’t mean nearly as much to you as what you’re doing, every single day. You’re not “working for the weekend” or “just long enough to pay off my debts”. You’re living your dream.

Like I said, you probably won’t be faced with such extreme alternatives. But the principles are sound. People that do things well get recognized. Other people who need things done well will pay more for the person who is outstanding. And you tend to do your best at things you’re interested in. Wealth follows enthusiasm naturally.

It’s hard to see this at an early age, because you only see the guarantees, not the possibilities. You see the piece of paper that says a ditch digger makes minimum wage, and a doctor makes many times that wage. But the piece of paper ignores where interest and enthusiasm can take you. If you really enjoy ditch digging and hate doctoring, you need to look at it from a different perspective – where you will likely end up. At the top of the ditch digging hierarchy, or the bottom of the doctor’s hierarchy. Would you have more wealth as the head of a huge construction company or engineering firm, or as a run-of-the-mill family practitioner who’s admittedly “not the best in town”?

And in the end, money is not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s nice to not have to worry about your debt, and it’s nice to have some of the luxuries money can bring. But it’s a poor tradeoff if you hate what you do 8 hours a day, 50 weeks a year. The luxuries are not as luxurious when you only get to enjoy them on every other weekend. A title on the front of your name may pump up your value to some people, but not as much as an everpresent smile and a joy for life, day after day.

The best job is the job that follows your passions.

One thing you will likely have to get used to is receiving compliments. So it’s best to learn the right way to receive one.

Receiving a compliment is a lot like playing catch. Receive it firmly and solidly and it rewards both the giver and the receiver. Receive it poorly and it cheapens the experience for all involved.

First, how NOT to receive a compliment:

• Don’t shrink or act timid. While some may find it charming, generally it lessens the joy for the giver. He feels like he just delivered a 90 mph pitch to a teeball player.
• Don’t lessen the compliment or claim you’re undeserving. That’s claiming the compliment was unfounded and questions the giver’s intentions. That’s like the pitch going by untouched and bouncing off the backstop.
• Don’t act as if the fact they’ve pointed out is beneath your radar. That comes across as arrogance – it’s like sneering at the pitch and telling them they need to give you a better one.

None of these responses are appropriate. In every case, you’ve cheapened the gift they handed you freely and in doing so, discouraged further kudos.

Instead, receive the compliment appropriately:

• Just say “thank you”. That’s like a solidly caught pitch and saying “good throw”.
• Return the compliment to the user in another form. “I like your shoes, too”. “Coming from you, that really means something”. That’s like taking the throw with a satisfying pop and sending back an equal pitch.
• Pass it off to another person. “Thanks, my friend Bob helped pick this out”. “I learned it from Bob, and he’s REALLY good”. Suddenly you’ve got a real pregame warmup going here.

Everyone enjoys recognition. Why not encourage it by showing you know how to handle it?

A man can count himself lucky if he can claim 2 or 3 great friends. The sort you are willing to share heart and soul with, without feeling a need to keep your guard up. The sort you never have to defend your actions to. The sort that seem naturally comfortable at your side, whether it’s a pleasure cruise or a pressure cooker.

These kind of friends are not easily acquired.

The only thing worse than never taking the time to make this kind of friend is to let one fall by the wayside.

Invest yourself where it counts.

The only thing that differentiates between your being an amateur and and expert is dedication.

So many people convince themselves that they’ve missed their chance to be a musician, or an athlete, or a scholar, or an entrepeneur or a leader of men because they are too young or old, or have no natural talent, or they don’t have sufficient opportunity.

The truth is, standouts in any field are not necessarily people who have a natural inclination for their talent, or a positive genetic inheritance, or an uncle on the board. Standouts tend to have gifts in the area of concentration, dedication and will.

Dr. Anders Ericsson, has spent most of his 20+ year career on the study of genuises, prodigies, and superior performers. In the book The New Brain Ericsson concludes:

“For the superior performer the goal isn’t just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That’s why they don’t find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time.”

Most of us want to spend our time on things we already do well. It’s more satisfying to remind yourself of your mastery so far. But when you focus only on those things, you neglect the things you don’t do well. And as a result, those things never improve.

If you want to be a great guitar player, you’ll never get there playing the same old riffs over and over. You might get a record deal, but not talent The fact is, if you want to get better, you have to practice doing the things you don’t do well. You’ve got to get the pinkie finger working. You’ve got to solidify your picking hand technique. You’ve got to learn those awkward stretches. You can’t just keep banging out “Stairway to Heaven” at every practice session.

One trick ponies rarely make it. Occasionally they get their time in the limelight, but it’s never for long. History rewards the people who deliver across the board.

So whatever you’re looking to excel in, you need to find the aspects you’re not so good at. Maybe it’s communication, or negotiation, or research, or following up loose ends. Find those things and work on them side by side with your strengths, and you’ll be a stronger competitor for the effort.

It may seem really boring doing ball handling drills when you’d rather be shooting 3 pointers. But later in the game, when the ball needs to get down the court, you’ll be ready.

At least in the near term, it’s not difficult to determine what you want. Maybe it’s a better grade in school, or a better job. Maybe it’s better connections, or a skill you don’t have, or a relationship you’d like to put in place. Unless it’s strictly a personal accomplishment, other people are going to play a role in your quest to get there. And to a degree, you are going to have to turn to these people to help you get what you want.

So how do you get people to help you get what you want?

You can try many paths. Coercion. Flattery. Obstinance. Persistence. Although sometimes you can make people your stepping stone on the way to your goal, it’s a slippery path. One that is likely to give way on you when you need it most. And a lot of them become enemies when they see you stepping off from them.

There’s a better way to get people to help you get what you want.

Help people get what they want.

True, there are those who will take advantage of your good nature, and fail to return the favor. But people of integrity and intelligence will generally reward your good will with some of their own.

It’s really easy to get started. Make yourself a list of ten or so people that you really want a long term relationship with, preferably people that can do things for you. Find out two or three things that really matter to these people – goals they have ahead of them. Review the list and goals regularly, and everytime you have an opportunity to help them with one of these goals, do it. Keep up with them and keep those goals updated so you know how you can help them.

And as you’re doing so, you create an amazing amount of good will. Even if you can’t get them farther along, at the least they know that you understand them and have their best interest at heart. And guess what kind of people people want to reward when they have the opportunity?

Naturally, this takes a bit of time. And it’s not always easy to see who are the people that you’re going to need in the future. So to really cover your bases, you need to be doing this all the time, with all the people you associate with. And along with creating your own little insurance policy, you’ll forge stronger ties and generally be seen as the kind of person that people want to know and associate with.

Not a bad deal at all.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Marx Brothers. I can’t estimate how many productive hours I’ve burned in front of the screen soaking them up. One thing about the Marx Brothers – everyone remembers Groucho, Harpo and Chico. Only the true fans remember Zeppo. Why? Zeppo didn’t have a schtick.

A schtick is a theme or recurring element that defines someone. Groucho had the slouch, the cigar and the lascivious eyebrows. Chico had the fake Italian accent, his “shooting the keys” piano style and, well, his idiocy. Harpo had his silence, pantomime routines, harp playing and that childlike mindset. Zeppo… well, he was just normal.

Sometimes having a schtick helps you to stand out in a crowd. Particularly when you’re young and struggling with identity issues it helps to have something that’s uniquely yours to build your reputation around. Some people develop them naturally, a very few purposefully create one.

In your school years, you can probably identify the people who already have their schtick down pat. The jock, the clown, the “cool dude”, the sweet girl, the tramp, the loser… you can probably name those people with ease. To most of my acquaintances, I was “the guitar player”, or the “smart kid”.

You can create your own schtick, just by emphasizing a part of your personality or behaviour and staying true to it. Naturally it helps to have an inclination toward the behaviour, but most everything is within reason. By picking something that sets you apart and developing it, you can really enhance your reputation and help to fill out that mental self image you’re so desperate to cultivate in your teens.

Some great schticks to develop would be

• Reliability
• Integrity
• Honesty
• Go-Getter
• Finishing what you start
• Love

Those are the kind of reputations that you can proudly bear through life. I can say from experience, having the reputation of being “the smart kid” bagged me two jobs in my adult life. One I didn’t even have to interview for – I was hired on reputation alone.

Growing up and finding yourself is tough, so you may find that you shoot a little lower than some of the ideals I’ve pushed on you. And that’s OK. Even though reliability will serve you better later in life, it doesn’t have the excitement of some other schticks when you’re young.

Just make sure that the schticks you gain you can live with in the future. In your later years, you’ll be able to easily identify people you know who tried to change their schtick unsuccessfully. The “smart kid” who tries to become the “party kid”. Or the stoner that tries to put on a respectable face later in life. You never quite outgrow your reputation – it always comes back to haunt you.

So, who do you want to be?

Excuses are deadly. There’s no easier way to distract you from the thinks you’d like to do or need to do than to find a convenient excuse. Excuses are about sitting still, maintaining the status quo and remaining below your potential.

Personal growth requires that you conquer the habit of making excuses and deal with the real challenges ahead. So let’s examine some classic excuses:

• I don’t have the time. You always find time to do what’s necessary. What you’re really saying is “That isn’t important to me”. Everyone is given the same amount of time to use in a day, and other people are accomplishing what you’re excusing yourself from. Do you have time for TV? Movies? Video games? Sleeping in? Determine how important your goal is to you and find something less important to rob the time.
• I don’t know how. Learn. You have more resources available to you than any generation before. There are libraries. Bookstores. Schools. People willing to share their expertise. Make use of them.
• I’ll start tomorrow. Why not today? Is there any advantage in getting to your goals later in life rather than earlier? How many people will make use of their time and step ahead of you because of your delays? If you wait for the moment when you’re completely prepared to move forward, you likely will never see the day – because you always begin unprepared, to a degree. Who decided you need to wait until New Years to make resolutions? Who said you have to wait until a test is announced to start preparing for it? What’s the advantage in waiting until you’re up for promotion to start over performing at your job? If you wait for the spotlight to point your way before you try to shine, it will probably be seeking out more interesting people in the crowd.
• I’m not good enough. Says who? If you don’t have the skills, you can get them. If you don’t have the talent, you can cultivate it. If you don’t have the background, you can build it. No one stuck you in a predetermined role. You’re not living in a caste system. Tom Dempsey kicked the longest field goal in NFL history to date, and he was born with only half his kicking foot. Do you think he may have considered on occasion that he wasn’t good enough to compete? The crippling limitations are in your mind; the physical ones are negotiable.
• Nobody has ever done this. Just keep in mind – at some point, this statement applied to everything that’s been accomplished.

Don’t let your ego sabotage your growth. Find the truth in your excuses, because that’s actionable. If you’re lazy, or unmotivated – you can work on that. If you don’t have the proper resources, you can work on getting them.

Don’t let excuses own you.