The more we protect our kids, the less we prepare them.
(Hal Runkel)

Hey fellow Daily Pausers, check out this important roundtable discussion I was invited to be a part of on NBC’s “Atl & Co” show last week!

In it we discuss:

-the fallacy of “raising kids”
-the Millennial generation’s challenges as the face adulthood
-the difference between protecting our kids vs. preparing them
-the insanity of the elite college admissions competition

I’d love to hear what you think!

Peace begins with pause,

“There is no such thing as safe sex. There never will be.”

(Norman Mailer)

This week we released our new book for older teens and young adults, Choose Your Own Adulthood. One of the chapters addresses the dangerous college practice of “hooking up.” Here’s an excerpt:

For a long time, I’ve thought the best metaphor for human sexuality is that of fire. In and of itself, fire is essentially good, and a necessary element for human survival. In the right context, within the proper constraints, it cooks our food, warms our bodies, and powers our machines. We cannot live without it. Outside of that context, however, fire is powerfully destructive. Forest fires, chemical explosions, lightning-fire is among the most destructive forces in the world.

Sex is the same way. Sex, I believe, is inherently good. In the right context, sexuality has the capability to connect human beings in the most intimate way possible, bonding them for life. And speaking of-sex has the power to create life itself! Every single one of us is the product of a sexual connection. Like fire, however, sex outside of the right constraints (a lifelong, committed relationship), sex has an immense power to destroy lives. Rape, molestation, disease, death, unwanted pregnancies, abortions-sex is, like fire, among the most powerfully destructive forces in the world.

This us why “hooking up” should be called “playing with fire.”

Peace begins with pause,

“Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.”
(Virginia Satir)

One of the unintended consequences of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of adolescents, if not adolescence itself. See, before all the dads went off to work at the factory, kids were around other adults as much, if not more, than their teenage counterparts. These teenaged young adults were not kids, they were apprentices in either their fathers’ fields, their neighbors’ shops, or their mothers’ houses.

Then all the dads went away, and teens gathered together with each other, and with one adult teacher. This ended up creating the education system we still employ today. This also created a new life phase: Adolescence.

15-year-olds used to be thought of as young adults; here in adolescence we began to think of them as older kids. They used to learn by doing and practicing under supervision and guidance; now in adolescence they learn primarily by reading about and studying others who do the practicing. Maybe this is why our teens ask to be treated like adults, but act like they’re still little kids.

What if we stopped thinking of our teens as kids at all, and started apprenticing them for adulthood instead?

Peace begins with pause,

“We have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and just like with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is practicing adults.”
(Michael Chabon)

I disagree with Whitney Houston; I don’t believe the children are our future. I believe new adults are the real hope for the future. Unfortunately, there are a number of factors seeming to extend childhood, and delay true adulthood, for years. For instance, we’ve become so scared of our kids making mistakes we aren’t teaching them how to make good decisions (and learn from the bad ones).

One prominent researcher says we are witnessing the discovery of a new life phase, that of the “emerging adult.” After adolescence, this guy says, our kids will not become young adults when they turn 20. No, they will then become emerging adults. They won’t become “young adults” until the ripe old age of 30. Maybe then, after their brains have been fully developed for five years, we can expect our kids to make more mature decisions.

I guess none of us should be too terribly surprised by any of this. After all, we’ve all been crying out for a while now that 50 is the new 40…why shouldn’t 30 be the new 20?

Here’s why: Protecting our kids from the responsibility of making choices, until their brains fully develop around the age of 25, neglects how our brains develop in the first place.

By making choices.

Know a “young” or “emerging” adult you’d love to help on their journey toward adulthood? Our newest book, Choose Your Own Adulthood, makes the perfect gift!

Peace begins with pause,

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
(Albert Einstein)

In my experience, certainty is among the least attractive qualities one can possess. People who are always certain—they’re the reactive combatants in every debate, who cannot tolerate open discussion about difficult issues; they are certain they are right and that means, if you disagree at all, you are certainly wrong. If there is one clear cause of every nasty, polarizing argument, it’s certainly certainty.

My best guess is that we simply cannot stand the anxiety of uncertainty. Not knowing is among our most difficult emotional challenges for us humans. We hate it. We don’t like not knowing the results of our tests (medical as well as academic). We don’t like not knowing what somebody’s feelings really are. Perhaps most of all, we don’t like not knowing what to do, which choice to make in a given situation, and what gives us the best chance to succeed. In many ways, that’s why I’ve written this book—to help guide you to make the wisest choices in the face of life’s uncertainty.

And the wisest choice I know in this regard is to be more curious, and be less certain. Give up your need to know anything for sure, and increase your curiosity to learn more about everything, with humility.

Curious people are attractive. Curious people are adventurous and fun to be around. Curious people have good relationships, even great ones, because instead of feeling threatened by others’ positions, and therefore needing them to agree with their certainties, curious people just like getting to know people better.

Get even more curious, and even less certain; it really is the best way to experience the world, and live in it.

I’m certain of it.

[This was another excerpt from our new book, Choose Your Own Adulthood, which hits bookstores today!]

Peace begins with pause,

“He that always gives way to others will end in
having no principles of his own. ”
(Aesop)

Tomorrow is the big day, when our newest book, Choose Your Own Adulthood, hits the bookstores everywhere. It’s a perfect gift book for any teenager/young adult, but it’s also a great way for any of us to experience a fantastic adulthood. Here’s an excerpt:

Ask a hundred people on the street what character values they admire most, and almost all of them will eventually say “loyalty.” It is universally praised as a most likable trait.

I, however, find loyalty to be overrated, as we typically understand it. Overrated and misguided.

Here’s why: when people are undyingly loyal to other people, that loyalty quickly becomes a double-edged sword. Yes, it can keep people closely bonded through thick and thin, but it can also keep people so close they lose the ability to question whether that bond is good for them, or anyone else.

For instance:

• a college student telling her RA that her roommate’s sick, when she knows she simply hungover and needs to address her binge drinking
• a supervisor passive-aggressively “reminding” his direct reports to be loyal when they’re asked to give evaluations to his boss
• parents allowing their grown daughter to take advantage of them financially, even though their gut is telling them to do otherwise, for everyone’s benefit

In the name of loyalty, each of these people are compromising their principles; this is not a recipe for successful relationships. It smooths things over in the short-term, but will invite more and more compromise later.

What we’re really saying here is that in order to be truly loving, and to give ourselves the best chance for great relationships, we do need to be loyal, but not to people.

Loyalty to our principles is a far better path.

Peace begins with pause,

Remember…hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
(Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption)

The opposite of hope is not pessimistic doubt; it’s expectation.

There’s a reason that every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is filled with people trying to let go of all their “expectations.” Expecting everyone and everything to work out perfectly according to your plan has an amazing ability of driving people to drink.

This is different than hope. Like expectation, hope is an attitude about the future, a way of choosing to look upon what has yet to happen. Where hope and expectation differ, however, is in their approach to certainty. People who expect success, based on their lineage, their strategy, and more often than not, the enormous expectations placed on them by others—these folks operate with a need to know for certain how things will work out. “My status plus my skills plus my plan will absolutely equal victory. I know it will happen. It has to.”

Hope sees certainty very differently. Hope is not absolutely sure of what will happen, but it longs for a positive result. It sees a successful outcome as a wonderful possibility, and it will therefore work incredibly hard to achieve it, but hope would never go as far as to predict it, or depend upon it. Therefore, if it doesn’t happen, hope is disappointed, but okay. Hope can be saddened, but it doesn’t lose hope if success remains elusive.

When the expected doesn’t come to fruition, however, the one expectant of certain success looks about as stupid as all the cults over the centuries who’ve predicted the exact date of the end of the world. (you might remember the Mayan 2012 apocalypse, which didn’t happen) And these expectant people feel even worse.

So hope more, and expect less. Hope for the life you want most, and then call yourself to the best choices, the best plans, the best tactics to bring that hoped-for life into reality. Just be careful not to expect it to happen.

[This is an excerpt from our newest book, Choose Your Own Adulthood, a book for young people (and old) longing to experience the best this journey of being an adult has to offer. It comes out March 28th!]

Peace begins with pause,

“Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.”
(Will Rogers)

This may sound crazy, but I want my kids to take more risks. Not necessarily the kind I took as a teen, like jumping off my chimney into my pool (beyond stupid), but the kinds of risks they’d regret NOT taking. Like…

• Starting their own business
• Trying to learn a new skill
• Asking out that girl, or guy, they think is out of their league
• Creating something that might get critiqued
• Confronting someone continually mistreating them

This is a chapter subject of our newest book, Choose Your Own Adulthood, which comes out next week. In it, I cite a number of studies involving interviews with older people reflecting on their lives. As you can imagine, the vast majority of them reported their greatest regrets were the risks they didn’t take.

Probably true for most of us as well. So go ahead, as the chapter is titled, and Risk More, Regret Less.

You won’t regret it.

Peace begins with pause,

“Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.”
(Maxwell Maltz)

Do you believe you’re a good parent? Do you see yourself as a good spouse? How about as a leader, or colleague?

It is so easy to cite all the external factors limiting our success, but how we view ourselves internally is far more powerful than we imagine.

This is why it’s so important to pay attention to our language when talk about ourselves. Or to ourselves.

You are more valuable than you feel. You are more capable than you think.

Peace begins with pause,

Good decisions come from experience; experience comes from making bad decisions.
(Mark Twain)

If I could wave a magic wand over my kids, I would wish they become decisive people. That’s why I dedicated a chapter to the topic in our new book, Choose Your Own Adulthood. Here’s an excerpt:

A little known practice of successful people is that they don’t allow themselves to be paralyzed by the need for more and more information before they make a decision. Successful people have learned to decide more, and deliberate less. I know this sounds counterintuitive. Successful people, after all, are the ones who make the best decisions, so it would seem the opposite is true, that these people are the ones who take their time, gather as much information as possible, and then, after deliberating over this information with wise counsel, finally decide upon the best course of action.

That is true some of the time. But not most of the time. Most of the time, successful people get just enough information to eliminate the obviously terrible choices, choose a path among the remaining options, and then learn and adapt as they go. Once they set out, they will continually adjust course, but they rarely, if ever, change their minds and go back. Unsuccessful people do just the opposite. Unsuccessful people deliberate and ruminate over a decision forever, thinking of all the possible outcomes, and then, reluctantly, make a choice. But they’re still not done: even after making the decision, they hesitate to act on it, and often they are quick to reverse course and change their minds.

What’s the answer? Decide more, and deliberate less. Make a conscious choice to be a decisive person, knowing that deciding on a course of action is not the end; it’s the beginning. This is because just like an airplane’s flight plan, taking off in one direction gets you going, and then you will make helpful adjustments in the air—adjustments you couldn’t have made had you stayed stuck on the tarmac. To use another metaphor, all good boat captains know you cannot steer a non-moving ship. More important than the initial direction is just getting going in the first place.

Peace begins with pause,