Letters to My Kids

At some point in time, no doubt you’ve noticed people that are unusually good at certain things. The star student that aces every exam. The quarterback that’s perpetually an all-star. The guy with lots of charisma that everyone gets along with. The artist or musician that is better than anyone else you know. Often people say that this person was simply born with a natural affinity to these things – they have a natural talent. There’s something in their makeup that makes easy to them what you find difficult.

Talent is a myth, and a dangerous one at that.

Genetic differences between human beings are minor fluctuations, minimal differences that aren’t worth mentioning, for the most part. The difference between a “talented” person and one who isn’t is the degree of effort they put into developing those skills. Someone can be born slightly better suited for a skill, but it’s nothing compared to the amount of effort they put into gaining that skill.

The star student gets the grades because they’ve honed the learning process. They’ve learned how to listen, learn and study. You may object, saying that someone you know “never cracks a book” for a test and still does well. I know – I was one of those guys. The reason I rarely spent hours in study is because I learned how to listen properly in class and digest the material then, so study time just became practice time for me. And when I did study, I used methods and techniques that let me retain the material I was likely to be tested on effectively.

The star athlete may have some more natural athletic ability because they got more exercise as a child, but the bulk of their talent comes from learning the game, practicing regularly, visualizing results, weight training, etc. Michael Jordan may have had a body that was well suited for basketball, but there’s a million other guys with the same build that will never live up to his potential. The differentiator was the effort he expounded to be as good as he was.

The reason a belief in talent is dangerous is because it convinces you that something is out of your reach. Looking at a talented performer and saying “I could never do that” ensures that you never will. But if you understand that you can achieve those levels of accomplishment by investing yourself in them, the world opens up to you.

• You can be an outstanding athlete. All you have to do is practice and learn
• You can be an outstanding student. All you have to do is learn how to learn and dedicate the time required to your studies.
• You can be a great musician. Study the basics, learn from your betters and practice, practice, practice.
• You can be an outgoing, charismatic person. Study and practice

Believing there’s a talent prerequisite for the things you want to be is a horribly self-defeating worldview. Understand that you CAN do it. It just takes effort.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor E. Frankl

Human beings are highly reactionary creatures. When we receive a stimulus, we respond. That’s a highly useful reflex for us accident-prone creatures. When we put our hand on a hot stove, there’s no deliberation or analysis – we just jerk it back, instinctively. It’s a natural reaction.

Unfortunately, that reflex tends to spill over into situations where it’s not as valuable. Someone insults us and we want to strike back with equal or greater vitriol. We receive bad news and want to panic. We get news of a financial windfall and want to run out and spend our gains. We are faced with a challenge and want to flee. In some cases, going with an instinctive reaction without proper deliberation can be quite harmful for us.

Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who endured unbelievable conditions with a strong mind and spirit. In his memoir of this time, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, he made the above comment about the power each of us has to exact control in our lives. Frankl was able to endure harsh circumstances by understanding that he alone exercised control over his reactions. While he could not control his situation, he could control the way he responded to it.

I hope you never have to endure such an extreme situation, but the advice is solid in your daily life. When you are met with a situation, you need to take the time to understand that you are in control of your response to the situation. You can respond well or poorly, positively or negatively. If you want to have a happy life, you have to determine that you will respond with joy. If you want to be successful, you have to determine that you will respond in a way that turns the situation to your advantage.

Let’s work with some simple examples:
Suppose someone insults you at school. You could respond instinctively by returning a harsher insult or with physical violence, but where does that response get you? What if the person returns greater violence upon you? What if they don’t and you are seen as a bully? What if your words happen to touch a sensitive point that causes them serious grief? What if you find mutual friends dividing their support between you. What if you “win” but begin to fear retaliation and spend the rest of the year looking over your shoulder? Now, suppose you took a moment in the space between stimulus and response and asked yourself the best way this could end. You could choose to ignore it and be free of the fear of the incident escalating. You could turn it into humor and end it on good terms with everyone. If the person is a good friend, you could choose to approach them later to help them understand why the insult bothered you. And though I don’t recommend it, you could take the time to put together a response that would leave theirs in the dust!

Suppose you just got word that you were going to be fired from your job. You could panic and rush out to get a job that isn’t a good fit for you. You could respond in anger and burn any remaining bridges with your employer. You could beg and plead and just end up embarrassing yourself and lowering others’ opinions of you. Or you could take the space to process the information before reacting. You might realize this was a change that you needed more than they. You could discuss it with your employer professionally and ask for their assistance with finding a job that is a good fit. And you might sit down with them to thoroughly understand the reason you weren’t a good fit there and make plans to correct those problems in your next position.

Suppose you’ve just been told that you have a dehabilitating disease and could expect to lose the use of your legs. Your instinctive reaction might be grief and rage. You might lose the will to continue on, or be tempted to sit and feel sorry for yourself, or deny the diagnosis. Taking time to determine how you will react might not offer you a way out of your problems, but it can allow you to deal with it on your own terms. You could choose that you will fight the disease and attempt to overcome it. You could resign yourself to the situation and meet it with dignity and strength of spirit. You could “count your blessings” and enjoy the quality of life you are handed with a greater enthusiasm than you did your former situation.

That space between stimulus and response may be an instant, or years and years. The time you take isn’t the issue. It’s what you decide to do with it. When you understand you have the power to control how you react to situations, you understand your freedom in a way you never dreamed possible. Frankl said he felt free because no matter how many personal freedoms were taken from him, the power to choose how he would respond was beyond his captor’s grasp. They could inflict any number of indignities on him, but they could not crush his spirit. It was this power that helped him to survive the Nazi death camps with strength of spirit.

You must understand that you are in control of your life. No matter what successes or hardships come your way, your greatest strength is your ability to choose how you will respond to the situation. And every time you use this power, your freedom is validated and you grow closer to the person you want to be.

This is the cornerstone of self discipline and the key to real personal growth.

“When an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all his skills.
If he shoots for a brass knuckle,
He is already nervous.
The prize divides him.
He cares.
He think more of winning than of shooting.
And the need to win
Drains him of power”
Chuang Tzu

There’s a point in time in which your desires to reach you goal can overwhelm you. The drive to succeed can be a powerful motivational tool, but in some instances you can find yourself putting so much emphasis on the end result that it makes it difficult to actually move toward that goal.

Maybe it’s standing at the foul line at a crucial point in the game. Maybe it’s the presentation you hope will bag you a new client, or a promotion. Maybe it’s the first date that you hope is going to bloom into a lasting relationship.

The pressure to deliver can hamper you sometimes. The key is to focus on what you’re doing right now, at this moment in time. When you feel the pressure, focus on the moment.

Don’t worry about the game – just take a good shot. Maybe you’ve never been in such a close game at this level before, but you have made plenty of successful free throws. Don’t worry about the promotion, just make the best presentation you can. Don’t worry about marriage, just focus on not making a fool of yourself tonight.

The difference is subtle, but meaningful. It’s about keeping your mind in the moment where it can do some good. Dividing your attention between the task at hand and the probabilities of what may come in the future is reducing your capacity to handle the moment.

Some philosophers suggest that “the now” is everything – past and present are only illusion. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I do know that the only part of that view you can affect is what’s happening this moment.

Stay in the now.

What do you want out of life? What kind of goals are you setting for yourself?

Maybe you’re interested in being very wealthy, or obtaining a position of great recognition. Maybe you’d like to be a humanitarian, or cure some chronic disease. Maybe you’d like to have a political title – Mayor, Governor… even President? Or maybe it’s to settle down with the perfect spouse and raise a big family?

The goals you choose are not as important as making sure that it’s you doing the choosing.

As you grow and learn to interpret society and culture, you begin to develop a picture of what defines success. The heroes are published to you regularly, the values described in any number of terms. Chances are, you have a pretty good idea of what people in general consider desirable. A certain income level, a certain occupation, a certain caliber of house, clothing and vehicle, a certain degree of accomplishment. And it’s not unusual that you might set out to get a few of these things for yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing your goals. Just make sure they are indeed the things that you want, not what you think society demands of you. Insecure people (and we’re all a little insecure at times) guide themselves toward flashy goals intended to impress others rather than accomplishments that give meaning to their lives. And especially when you’re young, it can be a bit difficult to understand what exactly you really want out of life.

Here’s an exercise. Write down a short list of accomplishments – 10 things you’d like to have accomplished, acquired or achieved by the time you die. Then for each one, ask yourself “why”? What meaning does this bring to your life and why do you want to achieve it?

An easy example is wealth – most everyone will immediately respond that they’d like to be wealthy. But what exactly about wealth is attractive to you? You might seek wealth for the things it can allow you to purchase, but if you actually use that purchasing power, you give up the wealth! You might want the financial security that you would expect to possess, but you can have financial security without wealth by using your money wisely- and merely having wealth doesn’t ensure that you won’t find yourself financially insecure on a larger budget. You might desire the prestige that comes with wealth, but you must consider that such acclaim is fairly hollow – most people respect accomplishment, not wealth. Not to mention that such wealth would probably alienate your existing friends or inspire envy. Additionally, being wealthy requires extra work to maintain it. You have to protect it from taxes to keep the government from taking more and more of it. Because you have more possessions, you have to spend more time keeping them maintained and secure. You’re a greater target for crime. Your $100,000 car is more likely to be stolen or vandalized than a $20,000 one. If you have investments, you’ll need to stay on top of them. And so on.

Setting and pursuing goals is a great thing. Rushing into a preconceived notion of what you “should” want or be is disrespectful to yourself and ultimately unsatisfying. Better to understand and seek the things that YOU want than find yourself unfulfilled having achieved everyone else’s definition of success.