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This is - frankly - bad advice. Especially for a young child. It's a bad idea to pigeon hole yourself into "hanging around" one type of person or one people wh

This is - frankly - bad advice. Especially for a young child. It's a bad idea to pigeon hole yourself into "hanging around" one type of person or one people who are dominant in one type of trait. The whole reason people build teams is to maximize differing traits to gain the most value from each. You'll gain the most from life from leaning to recognize this as early as possible. In this case, people that "get things done" at youth levels are generally those with strong implementation skills - the "doers" of the world if it were. But implementers are only part of the picture. There are several other personality types that are just as beneficial to outcomes, and by excluding them you exclude many strengths in the name of pure productivity. eykanal leads into this in his comment but I'd like to expand on it a bit. Stereotyping examples here for ease of explanation: People with strong vision and ideas tend to be able to see 10 steps ahead of others. However these people also tend to be horrible at getting things done on their own. Their joy is looking forward, not being in the moment. Without these people however, we cannot move forward. These people will be the ones that think it would be neat to build an Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks in the first place. People with an eye for detail tend to be strong editors/coaches etc. These people might not dream up new approaches or work hard to see them to completion, but they are experts at critique and can notice, for instance, that the toothpick Eiffel Tower could be 3 feet higher if you simply adjusted the angle at which you glued the toothpicks together by 5 degrees. People who "get shit done" often tend to be implementers. They may have seen that toothpick Eiffel Tower in a book or heard about it from a friend, but they went out and got the resources and started putting things together. My entire point: None of these people are more or less valuable than any other. It isn't the skill-set that is the important variable, but the degree at which the person employs their talents that matters. Suggesting your child should "hang around" the implementers while discarding others is basically teaching them that only certain key talents are valuable and the rest are garbage. That type of thinking actually reduces their long term chances of success, because like it or not, no one person can be outstandingly good at every viable human talent. People who realize what they aren't good at will team up with others who excel in that talent and will get much further ahead overall. Accept and reject individuals. Don't evaluate personality types. Some of the most profound thinkers in history were slackers. Some of the best coaches of elite athletes suck at the sports they teach.

jaxn 14y ago
OP here. It was not my intent to pigeon hole people based on their outcomes. Time spent doing is different than creating or implementing. For instance, reading all of the Harry Potter books is getting something done too. Flipping channels on the couch all day, not so much. The skateboard example in my post is also a good one - that is getting something done. Standing around the ramp and pretending to skate isn't. Also, coaching is doing something cool. As for the comment about visionaries. Doesn't that only matter if they can sell their vision? And wouldn't "selling a vision" be getting something done. (I don't mean sales in the $$$ way, just in the sense of transferring the vision to others and maybe inspiring action) Thinking isn't really doing, but sharing those thoughts is. Frankly, the most profound thinkers who never shared their thoughts in a way that impacted others had no real impact on the world.
- run4yourlives 14y ago
  Thanks for your comment. Visionary skills - especially in children - are often discouraged harshly as "slacking" in our productivity obsessed culture. Like any skill, it needs to be nurtured and encouraged. It takes tremendous self-confidence and guts to voice that you see something could be improved. The world is not normally kind to these people. True visionary skill isn't often seen until the college years. Interestingly enough, it's in college that this type of skillset starts to be rewarded. It also needs to be practiced, and this is where I think you react too heavily in your judgement. Flipping channels on the couch all day, not so much. Standing around the ramp and pretending to skate isn't. The fact is that in many cases, there might be a hell of a lot of activity happening in that child that isn't immediately evident to you. The child might be thinking of how it would be really cool to have a laser like that guy in the cartoon and pondering all the things that could be accomplished with such a device. The other kid might be looking at the skateboard and wondering if the board could be shortened half a foot to make landings easier. Yet, you've discarded these kids. They are slackers that you don't want your child to associate with. They don't produce anything after all. That's a poor lesson to teach. Be clear, this isn't to say that there aren't some kids that are just lazy couch potatoes, but the point is that you can only figure this out by getting to know the child. The idea that becomes the seed for your child's life mission could very well come from the person you've told him to avoid. How sad is that?

jaxn 14y ago

OP here. It was not my intent to pigeon hole people based on their outcomes. Time spent doing is different than creating or implementing. For instance, reading all of the Harry Potter books is getting something done too. Flipping channels on the couch all day, not so much. The skateboard example in my post is also a good one - that is getting something done. Standing around the ramp and pretending to skate isn't. Also, coaching is doing something cool. As for the comment about visionaries. Doesn't that only matter if they can sell their vision? And wouldn't "selling a vision" be getting something done. (I don't mean sales in the $$$ way, just in the sense of transferring the vision to others and maybe inspiring action) Thinking isn't really doing, but sharing those thoughts is. Frankly, the most profound thinkers who never shared their thoughts in a way that impacted others had no real impact on the world.

run4yourlives 14y ago
Thanks for your comment. Visionary skills - especially in children - are often discouraged harshly as "slacking" in our productivity obsessed culture. Like any skill, it needs to be nurtured and encouraged. It takes tremendous self-confidence and guts to voice that you see something could be improved. The world is not normally kind to these people. True visionary skill isn't often seen until the college years. Interestingly enough, it's in college that this type of skillset starts to be rewarded. It also needs to be practiced, and this is where I think you react too heavily in your judgement. Flipping channels on the couch all day, not so much. Standing around the ramp and pretending to skate isn't. The fact is that in many cases, there might be a hell of a lot of activity happening in that child that isn't immediately evident to you. The child might be thinking of how it would be really cool to have a laser like that guy in the cartoon and pondering all the things that could be accomplished with such a device. The other kid might be looking at the skateboard and wondering if the board could be shortened half a foot to make landings easier. Yet, you've discarded these kids. They are slackers that you don't want your child to associate with. They don't produce anything after all. That's a poor lesson to teach. Be clear, this isn't to say that there aren't some kids that are just lazy couch potatoes, but the point is that you can only figure this out by getting to know the child. The idea that becomes the seed for your child's life mission could very well come from the person you've told him to avoid. How sad is that?