Deception #2 - "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys... Desire Of The Parents

We continue our discussion of culturally popular deceptions that might keep us from becoming world class at work or what I call "Insanely Great".  The last few days we've been looking at a deception called "Dead End Jobs".  Today I'm using a Willie Nelson song to cue up a deception I call the "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" or "Desire of the Parents" trap.  I don't remember being pushed into any particular career choice by my either of my parents.  As I've said in earlier posts, my dad owned a construction business and it would have been easy for him to have pushed me in that direction but he didn't.

Jack and Suzy Welch tell a story in their book Winning that represents this trap very well. A student was about to graduate from Harvard and he set up an appointment to get career advice from one of Jack’s friends who was very familiar with investment banking and management consulting. His friend reported that she answered each question the young man had very thoroughly and he took good notes but that he wasn’t especially curious about anything. After about 30 minutes he thanked her politely and stood up to leave. As he did this, he stuck his note pad inside a folder and she noticed that it was totally covered with very detailed drawings of cars.

“Wow, those are amazing! Who did them?” she asked.

In the blink of an eye the student was full of energy as he said, “I did—I’m always drawing cars… my dorm room is covered with posters and paintings of cars—I subscribe to every car magazine! I’ve been obsessed with cars since I was five years old. My whole life, I’ve wanted to be a car designer. That’s why I’m always going to car shows and NASCAR races. I went to Indianapolis last year—I drove there!”

Jack’s friend tried to convince the student that he actually belonged in Detroit or working for a car company. But she said he deflated just as quickly as he had come to life a few minutes earlier.

“My dad says the car business is not what I went to Harvard for.”

She wasn’t surprised when she bumped into the father a few months later and he proudly told her that his son was working 80 hour weeks at a Wall Street firm.

Jack Welch continues, “I know someone who literally became a doctor because his entire childhood his mother—a Polish Immigrant who loved the American Dream—introduced him by saying, “And here’s my doctor!” He didn’t hate the profession, but you’ve never met anyone more eager to retire. Welch summarizes his thoughts with this, “Working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up to you.”

Issac Newton followed his inner pull and became a world class physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and theologian. Imagine if he had followed his mother’s desire that he run the family farm. Dvorak and Handel were world class composers. Dvorak’s father wanted him to become a butcher and Handel’s father hoped that he would pursue law.

If you are a parent, your role should be one of objectively trying your best to help your child discover their own unique design, passions, talents and then support them relentlessly in their pursuit. If you are a child of a pushy parent, adult or otherwise, it’s critical that you respectfully listen to their viewpoint and then go on to be about following the trail of gifts and desires God has placed deep inside.

I love the Amplified Bible’s Translation of Proverbs 22:6

“Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.”