Hello, Wealth Mentality Families. Today is a perfect day to get started on your wealth journey!
About a year ago I came across a story on the Facebook page of one of my family’s closest friends that I want to share with you (with permission from the author):
"On December 21st, 1944 during the battle of the bulge, my dad (Wesley Seward) was shot by machine gun fire. All his comrades in the fox hole perished with him. He lay under their corpses for days drinking from their canteens due to so many enemy soldiers coming by and poking the dead to see if anyone was still alive. He spent his Christmas in that foxhole, cold, wet, and with wounds festering. He only came out days later when he finally heard American soldiers speaking English nearby. He had gangrene by that time and spent months in a military hospital. This was back before antibiotics were used extensively. He had permanent nerve damage but still had the use of his arm."
When I asked our friend Heidi if I could tell the story of her father, she was more than willing to let me use it. She even added the following information:
"My dad was a small guy. He was about 5'6" and weighed about 130 or less his whole life. His dad died when he was 14 and he had to go to work in the mines to support his mother. He was the youngest in his family. After he came home from the war there was an old man that had his job. Dad moved to northern Idaho from Missouri so the old man would not lose his job."
Are you kidding me? If we had gone through even a portion of what this man endured in the war, most of us would come home feeling like the nation owed us something, right? Not Wesley—he just picked up and moved his family across the country so another man wouldn’t lose his job. Can you imagine anyone from our generation doing anything even remotely close to this?
Whenever I read stories like this, I am deeply moved by the courage, grit, and loyalty of the great men of the past who were willing to give whatever was needed for the good of others.
Throughout history, we find these examples of men, women, and children who faced insurmountable challenges that would have most of us in a fetal position on the ground, but somehow they persevered in the face of terror and certain death. No one could argue that without these amazing people who were willing to sacrifice everything for the good of mankind, our world would be a vastly different place.
What if the Spartans had decided they could not defeat the Persians at Thermopylae, so instead they stayed home and allowed Greece to be overrun? Would anyone on the entire planet have democracy, personal liberty, property rights, or any of the other crucial ideas developed under the Grecian tutelage?
What if the founding fathers had decided that it was too hard to fight against England? Would we even be the United States of America today? Would we have the Constitution, one of the most important documents in the world describing the foundation of a free society?
If Churchill and the brave men of the Royal Air Force decided that their lives were too important and had made a peace treaty with Hitler and the Nazis, what would the world be like today? Can we even imagine the horror of Hitler finishing his drive to eradicate any and all people who did not fit the ideal of his Aryan nation? It would be naïve to think that he would have stopped with just the Jews, blacks, and gypsies.
The truth is, throughout history the world as we know it has hinged on the actions of a few brave souls. These are the men and women whose stories we tell to each rising generation to remind of them of the past. Luckily, there has always been a group of people with the required courage and grit to do the right thing at the right time.
But why is that? Why were they always there?
I have to wonder how these incredible people were able to do the things that they did. Were they so different from us? Were they born with courage and toughness that we can never attain, or did they become that way through their experiences, failures, losses, and triumphs? More importantly, can those traits be developed in individuals or is it purely a game of genetic roulette?
Angela Duckworth, in her seminal work documented in her book Grit, determined that much of what we call determination and perseverance can be increased in individuals. Grit is a learned trait that all of us are capable of obtaining. That is good news! The fact that we don’t have to be born courageous heroes gives all of us hope that we can make a difference when it matters.
So how do we do that?
Here are five suggestions for increasing our grit, four of which are from Angela Duckworth and one from me (what can I say—she is awesome).
1.Do hard things – People with grit are used to doing hard things. When the last time you did something that was really stretched you? For some people that is a regular occurrence but the rest of us… not so much. I know you and your kids would rather spend your weekends playing videogames and watching Netflix, and you certainly don’t want to hike ten miles, but you need to. Those difficult activities are obviously good for health, but they also teach lifelong lessons on perseverance and grit. Doing hard things will prepare you to do more hard things. We recommend that every member of the family, including parents, has their own hard thing that they have committed to 100% for a specific period of time. In that period of time, they give it their all and do not quit. Of course, each family member should select their own hard thing, it needs to come from them.
To illustrate, let me tell you about a recent experience our family had. Earlier this year, we realized that, as in most of our families, our kids were having it too easy. They needed something HARD in their lives, something they could remember that they overcame. We decided to hike Table Mountain, which sits directly behind the Grand Teton on the border of Idaho and Wyoming.
This beautiful mountain peak provides spectacular views of the Teton mountain range around it. A 13-mile hike with 4,000 feet of elevation gain may not sound like a big challenge for some people, but for our 7-year-old son, it seemed insurmountable. Yet, he, and our two daughters (10 and 12), took on the challenge. We were especially proud of Keller—a little guy without much meat on his bones—who decided before we even started that he would walk the whole way without being carried or complaining, and he kept his promise to himself. When we reached the summit, it was a special moment for our whole family.
No, our kids didn’t battle enemy gunfire or hold off an army. Yet, they gained a little grit that day. Now they know they can do physically hard things, and hopefully they will remember it as they encounter challenges in the future.
That was my personal addition, now on to what Ms. Duckworth says:
2.Find your interest and passion - A gritty person must have interest and passion. They need to enjoy what they do and be committed to their passions. To dedicate time to their interests every single day. Also, a gritty person will understand that interests do not appear overnight, sometimes you have to be patient and wait for your interests to develop and mature.
3.Practice - The next characteristic is the ability to practice. Someone with grit will dedicate themselves to practicing every day, and always strive to be better than the day before.
4.Find your purpose - The driver behind passion is having a purpose. Someone with grit will understand their purpose and why they do the things that they do.
5.Hope - A gritty person must have hope—it’s a critical element of perseverance.
There is no doubt in my mind that in the future, we will face different, but no less critical, challenges as a society than those we faced in the past. You could even argue that we are facing huge opposition to our way of life right now. Our society is changing rapidly according to the whims of a few men and women who control our media, entertainment, social media, and politics. It is downright scary to see how a few people can alter the thoughts of the entire world with just the manipulation of the messages they send directly to each of us (and our children) on a daily basis.
There is no question that the battlefields have moved out of the woods of France and into the virtual realm but they are no less real, and the stakes are no lower.
The only real question is whether or not we can find the courage and grit to fight back. Will we be spoken of in the distant future as men and women of integrity who stood up to the onslaught, or will we slide into history on our backs without even a mention of our presence?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, are we going to teach our children how to build grit in their own lives? Are we going to challenge them to do hard things so they can grow, or are we going to sit idly by while they waste their time on frivolous endeavors?
Only time will tell, but if history is any indicator there are heroes among us. Are you and your kids some of them?