THE BIOLOGY OF SUCCESS
Achor said in one talk.
Also worth noting: happiness is a
choice, determined neither by your genes
nor by your environment. How can you
make yourself happier? Achor recom-
mends simple happiness exercises, such
as taking time each day to write down
three new things for which you’re grate-
ful, or sending an email thanking or prais-
ing someone in your life. When study sub-
jects did that 21 days in a row, they shifted
from being chronic pessimists to being
optimists. And success followed.
Others have looked into the role that
helping others plays in your own suc-
cess. Adam Grant, an organizational psy-
chologist at the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania, has studied
the impact of people who make a habit
of helping others, research he described
in his best seller Give and Take. “What
I’ve found over and over again is that the
most generous people in the organization
are both more likely to succeed and more
likely to fail than their peers,” he says.
Those who are too generous run the
risk of enhancing others’ status while hav-
ing their own contributions overlooked.
To avoid that fate, Grant suggests being
careful about when and how you help
colleagues—and whom you help. “The
failed givers are the ones who try to help
all the people all the time with all their re-
quests, and they end up either burning
themselves out or just getting burned,”
Grant says.
The very idea that helping others is a
path to success might seem counterintu-
itive: Doesn’t my success have to come
at other people’s expense? Grant rejects
that kind of zero-sum notion. “We live in
a world dominated by collaboration,” he
says, “so the ability to make a group more
than the sum of its parts, to establish a
meaningful connection with another per-
son—those skills matter more and more.”
For parents, that means one of the best
ways to prepare children for success is to
model giving behavior and to praise chil-
dren when they are seen caring for friends
or helping peers to solve problems. Themistake too many parents make, Grant
says, is trying too hard to “engineer suc-
cess” for their children. In their efforts to
protect them from failure or challenge,
these parents prevent their children from
learning self-reliance and resilience.
“Instead of trying to make sure that
kids never struggle, as a parent, your job
is to prepare them to face struggle and
overcome it,” Grant says.
Parenting style can also have a strong
influence on the types of mindsets their
children develop, says Dweck, the Stan-
ford professor. In a series of experiments,
Dweck had children perform tasks, after
which some were praised for their abili-
ties (“You’re really smart!”) while others
were praised for the process in which they
engaged (“You worked really hard!”).
Those praised for their abilities later with-
drew from tasks when they became too
difficult and became unhappy, but those
who received praise for effort, strategy
and persistence became more engaged as
the tasks became more challenging.
Another crucial factor is encouraging
openness. As Simonton points out, the
single greatest factor affecting success in
a wide range of areas is openness to new
experience. Parents ought to work to ex-
pand their children’s horizons, exposing
them to new areas and experiences.
“What are you doing to expand your
openness rather than constrict it?” he
asks. “Are you encouraging curiosity and
exploration?”
As for Ericsson, who tells the Paganini
story, he says that a key for both children
and adults is to find a teacher who has al-
ready demonstrated success in helping
other students to learn.
Aside from that, children need to learn
that success doesn’t happen overnight—
that achieving at a high level can take
work and diligence. “It’s very helpful for
parents to help their children realize what
it takes for them to actually improve their
performance,” Ericsson says.
That sort of teaching will give children
the tools to thrive—even when a string
breaks. •Parents
who try to
shield or
insulate
children
from
failure may
actually do
more long-
term harm
than good
by stifling
resilience.