It wasn’t until law school that future secretary of state Dean Acheson was fully unlocked as a human being. There, he said, with the help of his professors, he was introduced to a “tremendous discovery,” as he called it: The discovery of the power of thought. Not only did I become aware of this powerful mechanism, the brain, but I became aware of an unlimited mass of material that was lying about the world waiting to be stuffed into the brain.
It was this discovery that propelled Acheson to become not just one of the top legal minds of his time but eventually the country’s principal diplomat. Yet it’s also a little sad. He went to Groton School, Yale College, and Harvard Law School. His parents were smart too. But somehow nobody had been able (or interested?) to get him to realize the power of thought until he was in his midtwenties? Unreal! Just as we have to help introduce our kids to the world of ideas, we also have to help them discover the incredible power of thought. We have to give them a sense of the limitlessness of human potential trapped in those three pounds of soft tissue between our ears. We have to show them what a powerful mechanism they have been given; then we need to show them how to use it.
We need to unlock their brains . . . as early as possible.