Robert Lovett, the U.S. secretary of defense under President Truman, once said, “You may think this is a small thing, but you’d be amazed at the number of people [I] met in Washington during the war who had never learned to handle anything by themselves.”
If you want your kid to stand out, if you want your kid to succeed, teach them how to handle themselves, how to solve problems. That’s what will make them one in a million. There are plenty of Ivy League kids who struggle to make good decisions, to take care of business, to think and speak clearly. There are geniuses out there who, quite frankly, will say and do things that make you wonder how they manage to cross the street without getting hit by a car.
This isn’t to say you should lower your sights. It’s to remind you to make sure you’re aiming at the right thing. Degrees, fancy credentials, all the right experiences? What does it matter if they aren’t self-sufficient, if they can’t get things done?