Across sports, politics, business, even the arts, we see a theme driving the most ambitious, the hardest working, the biggest risk-takers. Be they men or women, they all seem to be craving something, trying to prove something. The approval of their father. The love of their families. To shove it in the faces of the doubters. To get as far away as possible from the trauma.
It’s hard not to see that this is real and productive fuel. As a parent, it should also be hard to see it, period. Because there are so many other forms of fuel out there that don’t involve pain or what is, in many cases, a kind of abuse. Tiger Woods was set up to succeed in golf by his father’s regimen of hyperattention as well as neglect. Did that help him? Sure. But given how incredibly talented and smart and hardworking Tiger is, don’t you think he could have accomplished a lot without essentially being tortured with prisoner-of-war tactics? You can subject your kids to hard and difficult things and it may help make them successful. These things may have even helped you be successful. Yelling. Blunt truths. Endless workouts. Emotional manipulation. These things work . . . but they also come at a steep emotional cost. Encouragement and genuine support, on the other hand, work equally well and have the added benefit of bringing you closer to your kids and making you both better people.
Choose the right form of motivation. Not the harshest.