It takes about nine hours to fly to New York from Italy and that’s exactly how long it used to take when I was a kid, in the seventies. Don’t you find it funny, I ask my son. “All these years and no real advancement in flight technology. I mean, in plane engine technology. Something like that, what do I know? Maybe there have been lots of advancements that we plane-technology illiterates don’t know about and cannot even notice. I’m sure planes are safer today and all that. Maybe it’s wrong to take speed as the only gauge of innovation. Fair enough. But in the seventies I’d have expected that in fifty years we’d be able to cross the Atlantic faster. Well, in all honesty, technology did its part with the Concorde, a supersonic plane that looked like a bird and flew at more than twice the speed of sound. That’s why it’s called supersonic. It means greater than the speed of sound. But they grounded it cause it was too expensive, too dangerous, and too polluting, apparently. I took it twice, you know? Once from Paris to New York, and once from London to Boston. Both times it took slightly over three hours to get to America. Amazing. We’d be in New York by now, if we’d flown the Concorde.”
Hearing no answer, I turn to look at him. He’s fast asleep, head leaning against the shut-down window. Airpods in his ears. Blanket up to his chin. We’re flying to New York together. He’s going to stay for a two-week summer course. I’m flying back the day after tomorrow. I insisted on accompanying him, he didn’t ask me to. But at fifteen (almost sixteen), I thought he could use some guidance, especially in NYC -- not the easiest and safest place in the world. I wouldn’t do that, in principle. Not because I’m a careless, selfish, superficial, insensitive dad, but because I’m generally not protective or keen on giving advice. Not even to my children.
I don’t like teaching others how to live. And I don’t like seeking advice myself. I feel our society has submitted to the idea of having to extract a lesson out of anything that might vaguely resemble a success story. Learning from other people’s accomplishments has become a priority. Also, a multibillion industry. The only caveat being that these accomplishments have to be, preferably, in monetary form. Put bluntly: if you’re not rich, I’m not interested in learning from you.
There’s a big chunk of the publishing industry that seems unable to write or talk about someone's story or experiences without putting a performance-enhancing, money-making lesson at the center of it. Either directly (here’s how they made money; here’s how you can make it too) or indirectly (here’s how the way they sleep, eat, exercise, and organize their life made them more productive, better performers, and ultimately billionaires; here’s how you can do the same). A well-known podcast has as its objective “to deconstruct world-class performers [...] to find the tools, tactics, and tricks that listeners can use”. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. I am myself a regular and enthusiastic listener. But I wonder whether in a world without money, without the need to get money to signal our status/success, without having to continuously measure our performance against some benchmark, these stories would be written or talked about at all.
So why are we so obsessed with finding and applying ready-to-use, failure-proof, one-size-fits-all life recipes? Whether it’s reaching out to high-performers for advice, or devouring every book written by (or on) them, or simply keeping track of their habits and actions, we seem to desperately need guidance. More than ever (we weren’t like that two or three decades ago). And my highly personal (and intuitive) theory is that we need more guidance than ever because (1) we have grown increasingly distrustful of our own judgment, (2) we don’t want to make mistakes (they slow things down and discourage us), (3) we want to compress the time it takes to learn, to achieve, to recover from mistakes (if any), (4) we have an unhealthy relationship with risk (even though it’s uneliminable, we want to eliminate it), and (5) we believe we are all the same, replicable machines (what worked for them will work for me too).
I’m not going to write a scientific paper to delve into each of these five, merely intuitive, reasons. But I think they’re real, and worrisome. And they’ve become more evident in today’s always-on, always-connected world. It’s almost as if getting more connected made us more alone and insecure. As if having all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips made us lose trust in our own judgment. A paradox, it sounds like. And the consequence of this whole state of affairs is that we’ll end up with a world of cookie-cutter would-be performers convinced that success is a matter of replicating the habits and thoughts and actions and lives of those who achieved it.
But here’s the thing: in all likelihood, those who achieved success (whatever you want to measure it by) didn’t do it by replicating others’ actions. They did it because they came up with something new or better themselves, because they took risks, because they weren’t scared of mistakes and every time they’d fall they’d pull themselves up, dust themselves off, and do it all over again. Most of all, they did it because they keep their “judgment muscle” vigorous and well trained.
The only way to train that muscle is by getting into real situations, taking risks, and giving yourself permission to fail. Sometimes you fail, and that’s ok. Sometimes you succeed. But it’s through that process of trial and error, through that constant and continuous risk-taking exercise, that not only do you keep that muscle from falling into atrophy, but you also develop and train it to its strongest potential. And you learn to trust your judgment.
I grew up in an overly-protective family. Dad ran a successful company and we were well off. Everything was easily and readily available. No effort or risk involved. And so it took me a while to realize that I had an atrophied judgment muscle. Back then, it was hard to seek advice independently: there was no internet and the few accessible success stories weren’t packaged and sold to everybody in a multibillion industry. I remember I had just graduated college and one day dad said that I had to go talk to someone he knew (supposedly, a successful guy, a “world-class performer”) to get some advice on what to do next. Dad was an accomplished businessman himself, but wanted me to get exposure to someone else out there. So this guy said that I should do this and that without knowing anything about me, simply because they were the right things to have on my resume. He gave me the equivalent of today’s packaged advice: no matter who you are, if you follow these rules you’d be better off. Without even thinking, I followed his advice and did what he said. And I hated it. So I quit and decided that, from that moment on, I wouldn’t listen to anybody’s advice and use only my own judgment. But I realized that my judgment wasn’t really there to serve me, because it’d never been used before. And that I had to start experimenting for myself, trying things and taking risks that I didn’t even know existed. I had no recipe to follow. I had to create my own recipes. And to do that I had to go through my own failures.
In the taxi on our way to the school from the airport, I was tempted to give my son a list of things he should be aware of, some dos and don’ts, the reassurance that, worst case scenario, he could call and I’d always be there for him. I wanted to tell him to at least double the taxes when leaving a tip. At the very least. Cause you have to leave a nice tip if the guy was nice to you. I know, we’re not used to that in Italy, but that’s how things are done here. You know, I didn’t know that myself when I moved here back in the nineties and so I remember on my first day I took a cab and the fare was, like, $9.75 and I gave the guy ten dollars saying he could keep the change. Before leaving, the guy rolled down the window and threw a quarter at me yelling “I’m not homeless!”. I know, I know: being homeless is a different thing. He didn’t mean it literally. But that’s when I learned about the importance of tipping in America. Especially in big cities like NYC. So, remember, always leave a generous tip. It’s also good for you to see that the guy is happy to know you appreciated their work.
But we talked about football the whole time.
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This observation leapt out at me. "As if having all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips made us lose trust in our own judgment." At a gut level this strikes me as being very true. It actually makes me mad when I see myself doing this. Many times I have a strong feeling about a course of action, or even in writing, just a sense of rightness or confidence in what I want to say, and then I will start collecting opinions, looking up alternative perspectives, wondering if what I'm thinking is really valid or accurate or useful, and then go back and start fiddling with the original expression. I'm even torn on the process of getting feedback on essay drafts. It's impossible to dismiss its value. It always seems to genuinely improve my writing, but there is something going on subtly that akin to this loss of trust in my own judgment in favor of all the knowledge of others. Haven't honed in on the perfect balance yet. But I'm grateful you put this idea into words. There's something here for me to work with.
Man, how do you do it? I just love how you take us from New York and back to the crazy tipping in New York going through parenting and advice and just life in general haha beautiful!
I relate a lot to your story, I also grew up in a somewhat protective family and was given a lot of advice, and then when confronted with real life had a bit of trouble, but as you very well point out, it's a muscle that you eventually (are forced to) develop, and there it becomes empowering. I've always thought that I will try to teach my kids through example, rather than through words (or explicit advice). Which makes me think if it's a loop, that them by lacking this protection and advice will be overly protective and advice-givers with my grandchildren. Ha! We'll see.
Also, loved knowing you flew in the Concorde twice, that would probably make for good stories!
Another gem, Silvio.