Life Skills 101

Our schools need a program that teaches success.

If you want to begin a challenging discussion, ask people to define success.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “1. The achievement of something attempted. 2. The gaining of fame or prosperity.”

Both of these seem inadequate.

Would the definition apply to someone who makes safe choices and achieves low goals despite being capable of much more?

Would it describe a team player who achieves a personal best while letting down the team?

Would it apply to those thoroughly decent people who have not achieved fame or prosperity but have helped many others as they’ve gone through life?

Would it include the sage who abandons life’s rat race and lives a life of seclusion and contemplation while withholding talent from the world?

The Efforts versus Results Schools of Thought

Lauding doing your best even if you don’t achieve your goal sounds a little like “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” If we are considering the development of skills, that’s not as crazy as it seems. Among other things, Thomas Edison is famous for explaining unsuccessful experiments by saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

In a previous post, I mentioned legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden’s approach of urging his teams to do their best while never telling them to win. His goal was to create a collection of efforts which, if taken, would greatly increase the likelihood of winning. His approach was successful – his teams won 10 national championships – and it illustrates the courageous patience needed for endeavors in which time is required to develop skills.

Unlike, say, parachute-packing.

Wooden was competing in a system where there are clear boundaries, set rules, and the need for instant judgment calls by the players. Developing players was a vital mission that might even have been harmed by premature demands for results.

The Unknown Unknowns

In 2002, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made some memorable remarks about decision-making: “There are known knowns: the things you know you know. There are known unknowns: the things you know you don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the things you don’t know you don’t know.”

Although Rumsfeld’s categories were initially mocked, over time it was acknowledged that his description was realistic. His categories should certainly spark some humility when considering available information.

While commanding the American military forces in the chaos of Iraq, General Stanley McChrystal was quite innovative. He granted greater authority to officers who were close to the action, improved communications between the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and CIA units, and yet over time realized that even if each unit did its best, unless the joint overall strategy was furthered, the war could be lost.

Success can require more than the known knowns and the sum total of the elements. It often gets back to the caliber of the people and then some intangibles.

The Two Wands

In 2006, Richard D. Lamm, then the former governor of Colorado and a long-time political maverick, wrote a book, Two Wands, One Nation, which presented the following choice:

Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can’t wave both wands. Only one.

Which would you choose?

Lamm’s question was controversial and yet he didn’t say that discrimination should not be prevented or that abolishing racism is not a noble goal. He was surfacing the idea that a strategy which strengthens the individual in such a manner that external adversities are largely rendered irrelevant may be far more effective than trying to tackle every problem in the realm of civil rights.

Lamm was in step with a diverse group of influential scholars. Lawrence E. Harrison, Thomas Sowell, David Landes, Amy Chua, and Jed Rubenfeld have found that cultural factors are the key determinants of success. [A partial list of their works is at the end of this post.]

Review their studies and you’ll find that West Indian blacks, Nigerian Americans, Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Jews, and Mormons have achieved high levels of success in spite of prejudice.

Those groups have achievement and values-oriented cultures. They have not had to depend upon the kindness of others in order to succeed. And with many years of practice, they have much to teach society as a whole.

Life Skills 101

It would be exciting to see universities devoting more time to studying and teaching the success skills of such groups instead of modern academia’s tendency to focus on group victimization.

“Success Strategies” could be an exciting new academic field, but it may be even more beneficial if its lessons are addressed in elementary and high schools as a Life Skills program. There already are efforts to bring back industrial arts and home economics classes. Teaching young people about frugality, self-discipline, ethics, conversation, listening, and study skills as well as business, decision-making, and civic responsibility could convey information which, in most cases, would be more helpful than algebra.

This may sound ultra-basic, but the basics are tough. They aren’t automatically picked up via osmosis, and they are desperately needed in times when the number of young people who want to be “cultural influencers” outnumbers those who want to go into the trades.

Given that, a Life Skills 101 program might accompany another program, one which could be a life-changer.

Call it Reality 101.

And over time, both of those programs could produce that elusive condition known as Success because Success is not what you do, it is the result of what you do.

Recommended Reading:

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.

Lawrence E. Harrison, Jews, Confucians, and Protestants: Cultural Capital and the End of Multiculturalism.

Lawrence E. Harrison, The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself.

Richard D. Lamm, Two Wands, One Nation: An Essay on Race and Community in America.

David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Nations Are So Rich and Some So Poor.

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities.

Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America.