The college admissions scandal that made headlines this week is troubling on many levels. Bribing coaches and officials to admit students to elite universities is unethical, immoral and illegal, of course. According to the New York Times, the bribery scandal also reflects an extreme example of a broader pattern—parents removing every obstacle in a child’s path.
The Times article detailed a new survey that shows how parents across income levels are extremely involved in their children’s lives. Parents are more likely than ever to say they remind their children of deadlines, make appointments for them, help them write essays and job applications, lobby employers for a raise on their child’s behalf, and even attend job interviews with them.
The involvement often backfires, according to experts cited in the article. It leaves young adults “ill-prepared for independent adult life and unable to succeed at the schools and jobs their parents helped them get to.”
Scholars who have taken up the issue of hyper-involvement in children’s lives include Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In Antifragile, Taleb’s follow-up to the mega hit, Black Swan, Taleb makes the argument that setbacks are necessary because they make humans stronger or less fragile. We require stress and struggle to learn, adapt and grow more resilient.
In the 2018 bestseller, The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff write that we “stunt” our children’s growth and “deprive them of life experiences to become functional adults when we go to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life.”
One of the major findings of my own research is the fact that most inspiring leaders have struggled in their life and have turned adversity into victory. Leaders who triumph over tragedy are more interesting because the product of struggle is grit, resilience, courage and confidence—the very qualities we admire in our leaders.
In the past few years, my books have reached special forces operatives, Navy SEALs, and trainers in specialized commando units. It makes sense that they would be reading books on communication skills because team leadership is a critical element in the success of a mission. I’ve learned that experiencing setbacks and failure is a key component of special forces training. They don’t want leaders to fail, of course, but taking risks and learning from failure is the best way to build self-confidence and team unity.
In Unbeatable Mind, Navy SEAL Mark Devine explains that confidence is a character trait and a skill. A skill is built by attempting to accomplish stretch goals, failing from time to time and reframing the failure to find a silver lining. By developing the skill, “You will have the self-confidence to attack any challenge,” Devine writes.
Devine explains that great leaders are willing to take risks and fail in front of their teams. “Your authenticity as a leader is enhanced dramatically, especially as your team observes you fail and rebound from it.” Struggle and failure is the foundation of mental toughness because it’s a learning opportunity, says Devine. When things go off-track, people who are not conditioned for failure or setbacks will “assign blame and wallow in self-pity” instead of learning lessons and acting on those lessons with a positive attitude.
I live in Silicon Valley where I’ve spoken to prominent venture capitalists behind the world’s biggest tech companies. Some have candidly told me they prefer to invest in entrepreneurs who have known failure, struggle or extreme hardship. Remember, Silicon Valley was built by pioneers like Intel’s Andy Grove who experienced fascist dictatorships, a Nazi invasion, and a Soviet occupation of his native Hungary. In his famous book, Only the Paranoid Survive, Grove wrote that his experiences formed his attitude that too much “success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure.”
I once interviewed venture capitalist Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital) and his co-author Alex Ferguson, the legendary soccer coach of England’s Manchester United. They told me that in business or sports, hardship breeds success.
Ferguson reminded me that they hired David Beckham who grew up in working class section of East London. He also brought on Cristiano Ronaldo who grew up in a poor village on the island of Madeira in Portugal.
“I’ve long had a soft spot for people from a working-class background, because I think it prepares them for the hardness of life,” Ferguson said. If Ferguson had a choice between two players—one had great talent but little grit while the other had merely good talent and extraordinary drive—he would always prefer the latter.
One of Robert Kennedy’s favorite books was titled The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. In its pages he found the answer to deal with his grief after his brother’s assassination. Kennedy was fond of reciting some of the lines in his speeches. Among his favorite: “He who learns must suffer…The fullness of life is in the hazards of life.”
No parent wants their child to experience the hazards of life, but by removing every obstacle in their path they prevent their children from experiencing the fullness of life, too.