exceptional, success and hard work

====

– From birth, assume their abilities are limitless.

– Put enjoyment of activities ahead of competitive success.

– Be relaxed about whether they are exceptional, while celebrating it if it happens.

– They will be exceptional because you have high standards but they need to identify with those standards by choice.

—-

Oliver James

<psychologist and author of Not In Your Genes>

====

This is about the relationship between success, or being exceptionally good at something, hard work and liking what you do as ‘work.’

Lets get one of the biggest obstacles most of us have ingrained in us out of the way: your genes don’t dictate your achievement. Genes affect your physical strengths and weaknesses that could impact what you elect to do <height, weight, sight, muscular, some physical limitations, etc.>, but you are not born with “oh, that’s not in me” type behavioral things.

I think this is important to think about and discuss not only with regard pre-business youth, but also as a young person considering a career and work environment.

Shit. There are some things I will be writing today that I keep in mind as I counsel senior business leaders in steering a company.

Significant long term research <the Human Genome Project in particular> suggests that genes play little or no role in explaining differences in intelligence.

This means that genes are not the reason you are smarter or ‘less smarter’ than anyone else in your family.

This means that almost everyone has the potential to succeed in school, life and careers.

This means that there is no inherent reason why children from low-income families cannot succeed as much as those from wealthy families <assuming they all have similar opportunities — which they don’t but that is another post for another day>.

Studies show over and over again that if a young person believes their mental/intelligent abilities are not fixed <i.e., “you are not good at math” or “you are not artistic”>a young person can increase performance in any subject.

Studies show that that “left brain/right brain” is a myth which, when perpetuated, “fixes” perceptions of certain abilities in young people.

Let me be clearer. If parents or teachers do not start from the assumption that abilities are fixed, children will perform better.

Now. Let’s go to additional studies.

Exceptional success does require exceptionally hard work. The classic research example used is the fact that all professional orchestral soloists who have been studied have done at least 10,000 hours of practice. As a corollary, no orchestral players have done so <they average 8,000 hours>.

<Note: this is the study from which Gladwell erroneously made his suggestion that anyone can be an expert in anything if they put in 10,000 hours of anything>

What Gladwell missed, and what people should think about, is why some put in the extra 2,000 hours <the 8 to 10k> and why some do not.

Oh. And does it matter if you do not put in the extra 2,000 hours if you end up emotionally healthy and ‘successful’ in terms of who and what you are?

This is where ‘nurturing’ comes into play.

The environment in which young people <and I would argue this is the same in business ‘nurturing’ of employees> is groomed for future success and aspirations matters. Studies show ruthless, competitive and perfectionist/seemingly implacable “never good enough” environments are more likely to nurture what is called “ego-depletion.”

This ‘depletion’ means that later on in life the person creates compensation techniques <which are most likely not the healthiest decisions>. And the compensation techniques are more often than not doing “bad” things as compensation. In tangible terms, this means if you do something you dread to do, you will be more likely to feel like ‘compensating’ by eating a carton of ice cream or drinking some cocktails afterwards.

Now. The way to eliminate ego depletion can be found <most often> in one key foundational behavioral aspect – choice. At any age, if something is truly deemed a ‘self-determined choice’ rather than feeling it is imposed, the ego is not depleted but rather enhanced <note: this is an important, under discussed, aspect of self organization and autonomous organizational thinking>. There have been a number of studies that suggest if you treat aspirational hard work, training, practice and studying as a more playful activity – or let’s call this enjoyment tied to ‘work’ – with an imagined array of dramatic wins and losses the learning becomes more cognitive and achievement & success assessment acquires a healthier perspective <note: this is the foundation of ‘gamification theory’ in business>.

Approached this more positive way, learning – the hundreds of hours practicing & work investment -, can quickly become thousands of hours because it is not solely work but has incorporated some self determined enjoyment.

The implications are clear. The person becomes better while remaining happier.

Success, and achievement, thus is not a specific goal but rather improvement <progress>. In other words, the person just does “well.”

And within this simple concept of ‘doing well’ their idea of ‘exceptional achievement’ becomes self identified and they are less likely to encounter emotional distress that typifies the stress of “trying to meet the expectations of someone else rather than self.”

An additional benefit is they are also less likely to be encumbered by narcissism <or me, me, me behavior> later in Life. In my words,  if you are more well-rounded than you are less likely to create some ‘unhealthy compensatory behavior’ aspects.

Look.

Everyone should have aspirations. And we should always encourage aspirations in the young <and in business> … because not doing so actually creates something called ‘emotional neglect’ – which leads to apathy and lower self esteem.

Yes. We should always encourage aspirations, but recognize exceptionalism must come from within a person and not by some external structural system.

Me? I am by no means an exceptional achiever. And that has nothing to do with genes <both my parents were exceptionally intelligent and ‘achievers’>. I am sure in some way my current behavior, and the behavior that got me to where I am today, is created by whatever subtle mix of parenting I received in combination with whatever subtle mix of managing I received in my ‘second youth’ <which is what I call a young person’s first foray into the business world>.

I would suggest it is probably the same for you and your aspirations.

Anyway. I imagine I have a three points for older folk.

– Just as ‘interesting/entertainment’ is the key to engaging someone in listening to something you have to communicate … enjoyment is the key to learning & personal investment in the work you need to put in to become ‘exceptional.’ I would suggest that we need to think about how flippantly we state ‘work is work and that is why it is hard’ to young people.

I love doing some things and even if I put 100’s of hours … it is a version of ‘work’ I enjoy. Therefore, not all work is created equal. I kinda wish we would more often take this point of view with young people instead of pounding away on perfectionism and ‘outcome focus.’ Or at least balance this discussion out a little more often.

– There are several opportunities to nurture. Far too often we say youth shapes behavior. Well. It certainly impacts behavior … significantly so. But we have a number of opportunities to significantly impact a young person’s behavior. Just as I believe teachers can ‘re-align’ young people I believe business managers also have that opportunity.

Personally I never treated employee management as business management, I considered it Life management with a focus on business. Semantics? Maybe.

But the reality is when a young person steps into business for the first time their behavior is shapeable. So all this crap about ‘millennial entitlement’ or ‘young people don’t want to work’ is just that … crap. A good manager in business can ‘re-align’ a young person’s attitude and certainly their behavior. A crappy manager doesn’t even try to do so.

And you are not even a manager if you don’t believe it is your job to do so.

– Exceptional. Exceptional is a tricky word and a tricky concept. It is tricky because there is no one simple definition.  And because of that we constantly misuse it <even when well intended>.

I would suggest even recognizing that ‘exceptional’ is multi-dimensional and often contextual & situational concept is a good thing for us older folk. I guess, to me, exceptional is more often than not an aspiration and not a destination many of us ever actually attain. We may see glimpses on occasion but, in its truest sense, exceptional is a very very difficult status to attain. On the other hand … I could suggest that if you can be the best you can be … really the best you can be … that is exceptional.

In the end.

Just try and remember that having exceptional success is very rarely associated with what genes you are born with … it is more likely associated with your attitude. Find something you enjoy doing, put in the hard work doing it and, well, you just may do something exceptional.

======

Originally published March 2016