Successful Drones vs. Failed Savants

As I touched on before, Jonah Lehrer has a seemingly contradictory back and forth going with himself, in which he first argues for distracted creativity as a method of success then turns and argues that intense, long-duration focus (grit) is the real key to success. It certainly seems like "long term memory" is not a key to success...har har.

In any case, this apparent contradiction begs the question: is it better to be an underachieving, irritatingly spastic but brilliant artist or a highly-capable, manager-pleasing, right-brained drone who relishes long hours?

If Creativity and Grit are two possible success predictors, I'd like to posit a third option: quality of parenting. Children with good, stable parents are almost invariably successful. Good parents teach their kids to stick with hobbies, to practice conflict resolution with their siblings and peers (and their future spouse), to think creatively both as a member of the family but also in ways to rebel. Good parents send their kids to school, without exception, and teach their children that school is essential to both long-term happiness and success. Good parents praise their child's accomplishments, and positively reinforce good habits like grit and creativity. Good parents also carefully and patiently weed out "bad" traits, like impatience and reactive behavior.

In regards to grit, Lehrer points to spelling bee winners who were able to were "able to deliberately practice" spelling for hours a day through rote memorization. But Lehrer readily admits that grit is a learned trait. So who, pray tell, are gritty kids learning from? Almost certainly from their gritty parents.

Creativity, on the other hand, can be more strongly correlated to our genes. But it can also be quashed in childhood faster than grit can be taught. I've always toed the line between "creative" and "A.D.D." My parents, either through luck or wisdom, taught me to channel my creativity into harmless outlets, like role-playing with my friends, writing, and computers. But other kids weren't so lucky. Their parents, rather than "aiming" their child's creativity like mine did, instead they sought to crush it. And they usually succeeded. I remember vividly a day in junior high when I waxed poetic to a friend (who was widely considered the smartest kid in school) about Dungeons & Dragons and he looked at me like I was insane. Pretending to be a medieval warrior? Ridiculous. The look on his face seemed to imply "no wonder people think you're weird."

He's an accountant now. No offense to accountants. But he could have done anything. His contribution to the world is real, and I honor it. But he missed his potential by a country mile.
Of course, his vocation may be as much a product of his humility as a product of his lack of creativity. If ever there were a failure of my parents, it would be in their attempts to curb my ego. Giving some of my traits a long leash meant other not so savory ones rode along for the ride.

And so maybe there's the point: good parenting is about picking and choosing which traits you want in your future adult and fostering those while weeding out (as best you can) the bad ones. Like I said, there is nothing wrong with my friend who grew to be an accountant. It's not the career I would ever choose...but then again I am bursting with energy and creativity and love "the big picture" and not the details. That's just how my parents raised me.
And so it goes with grit and creativity. Having those traits isn't a silver bullet to success. Having great parents is.


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