Jennifer Wallace | When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It

Srini Rao

Jennifer, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks for taking the time to join us.

Thank you so much for having me.

Srini Rao

It is my pleasure to have you here. You have a new book out called Never Enough When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic. And as I told you, when I emailed you, this is probably my favorite book that I've read the entire year. And I felt like one of the most important books I've read this year. But before we get into the book, given that I kind of see you as a social scientist, I wanted to start by asking you what social group were you a part of in high school and what impact did that end up having on what you ended up doing with your life?

Jennifer Wallace

Oh, that's a really good question. So I would say I, I mean, the social group, I was part of, I went to an all-girls school, and I was part of a group that was affectionately known as the Six Pack, there were about six of us, and I always straddled, you know, I was part of that group, but I also had, you know, other friends in other groups. So,

I would say the group I was in, the girls were more popular than I was. I was sort of, I think it's David Brooks who calls it from the inside edge. So I was sort of part of it, but also enough removed that I could sort of watch it and see it. And, and anyway, I'm sure we'll get into this, but freshman year of high school, I felt I,

my first high school was a big public high school and I very much felt invisible. Like literally invisible. I felt like no one would really notice if I was in class or not in class and then I transferred to a smaller school where I felt valued by my classmates, by my teachers, by my school generally.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, so a couple of questions come from that. One, I wonder, what is the sort of social hierarchy like when you're at an all-girls school, when it comes to high school?

Jennifer Wallace

Thank you.

Jennifer Wallace

Hmm. Well, what's great about it, what I really loved about it was that the hierarchy was different. You know, there was the hierarchy of academics. There were hierarchies in sports. There were hierarchies in musical theater. There were hierarchies, you know, in popularity, kind of, but not really. I mean, it was very much a school where

everyone could find a place to fit and there wasn't one hierarchy. Does that make sense?

Srini Rao

That does make sense. And that's not very common in say a public school, at least from my knowledge, it's pretty clear. Granted, a lot of this kind of stops mattering after junior high. I feel like in junior high, it gets really amplified. When your parents are the most horrible people in the world, and you think you know everything and you don't know a damn thing like you know, the amount of fights over, you know, nice clothes and stupid things that ultimately don't matter. But talk me through the trajectory that

Jennifer Wallace

Yes.

Srini Rao

of has led to this, but we'll come back to that because I think it's very related to the idea of never enough. I mean, I want to look at that in, you know, different stages of growth, but what was the trajectory that led you to doing this work and, you know, choosing to write this book from high school to now?

Jennifer Wallace

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Wallace

Yeah, so I, when I was growing up, this is a very telling fact of my childhood fact. When I was a child, I grew up in a suburban town in New Jersey that was near the Short Hills Mall, which is like a huge mall, and they had a fountain where you could make a wish. And from middle school on, I always had the same wish, which was

to know everything about everything. So even in fifth and sixth grade, this was what my wish was. Other people were wishing for dogs and I was wishing to know everything about everything. And so that led me to a career in journalism because what I realized was that I will never know everything about everything, but I can find people who know everything about the things I wanna find out about. And so boy do I love my career. I love...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Jennifer Wallace

speaking with people who have spent their entire lives, you know, focused on a very narrow slice of life and gaining their wisdom and sort of curating it for audiences. So anyway, so that, so I will say that the impulse to want to know everything about everything led me to journalism. And then what led me to this book is that I am a mother of three teenagers.

And I was reading this research about how students in these competitive high schools around the country, public and private schools, were now officially an at risk group, according to national policy reports. And as the mother, as I said, of three of these teens, I wanted to find out what I could do. And so I went into writing this book, you know, scientists call it knee search, social scientists, you know, when you research topics that are relevant and important to you. This book was really written.

I wrote it for myself, I researched it for myself, and as much for my reader as for me.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So one thing that I think is fascinating, you mentioned this desire to know everything about everything. And it's funny, because I have a nine month old nephew. And one of the things that's been really fascinating is he actually seems to be displaying that right now. Like every time somebody is doing something, he looks to see what they're doing. If they come into the room, if he hears a sound in another room, like when somebody is brewing coffee, his head turns. But the funny thing is that in sational, sational curiosity seems to get

drilled out of us with age and you seem to have maintained it. Why do you think that is and how do you get it back? It's gone.

Jennifer Wallace

Hmm. I think, well, I've always been very deeply interested in human behavior and why we think the way we think and why we act the way we act. And because of that interest, you know, no matter what phase of life I'm in, I want to know why I'm doing and thinking the way I'm thinking. And, you know, I want to know myself more and I want to know the people around me more.

and I want to know what makes people tick. And so that was, you know, I think that's been sort of the core driver. And I think it's never gone away because, you know, my life is always changing and I'm always looking at this, you know, uncertain future and trying to figure it out and meeting new people who challenge my beliefs. And I don't know, I think it's just a core element of who I am.

Srini Rao

What role do you think our modern education system plays both in fostering and drilling this curiosity out of us?

Jennifer Wallace

Yes, I think we are. I think, you know, there are, up until now, we've had this education model, this factory model, right, where we, you know, educated people by a bell, certain subjects, everyone had to know the same thing. We are now, I believe, entering this really great age in education, particularly post COVID, where

We have an opportunity with technology and with how hyper connected we all are to give students opportunities to solve real world problems and use, sort of learn the things that they would be learning anyway, but giving them a real context for why they need to learn them. I feel very fortunate to have been allowed into lots of different schools around the country in researching this book.

and seeing just how much schools are reinventing education. And it's very inspiring. And I will say my daughter, who I think has this very insatiable curiosity, she's now a sophomore in high school. When she was in seventh grade, she turned to me and she said, this is the year that kids stop liking school. This is the year when grades start to matter.

And I thought, she's kind of right. There's a time when the curiosity can guide you, and then we are told what we need to be doing, what hoops we need to jump, what path we need to take to get there. And it can beat out the creativity.

Srini Rao

Well, how in the world did we get into this place where we have such a prevalent achievement culture? Because I think it's important to kind of look back at how we got here before we go into what we do about it.

Jennifer Wallace

Great. Well, so I was wondering the same thing when I started researching this book. Why was my childhood so different than my children's childhood? And so I called economists and historians and there are lots of reasons why the world is so different today in terms of education and competition. But the one that really resonates with me and I go into a bit of depth in the book about this.

are the macroeconomic forces at play. So when I was growing up in the 1970s, life was generally more affordable. Housing was more affordable, healthcare was more affordable, higher education was more affordable. And, you know, parents could afford to be a little more relaxed in their parenting because there was slack in the system. A student could zig and zag a little bit and the parent would still have the belief that they would,

do well in life and be able to maybe even do better than their own childhoods. There was this idea in our culture that each generation with hard work could do better than the next. And that seemed to be true up until pretty recently. And now we have the crush of the middle class, we have globalization, we have hyper competition. And what is keeping parents up at night, whether or not we are aware of it, is that we are

are these economic forces in our environment, we are absorbing the fact that the economy is uncertain, the job market is uncertain. What are we preparing our kids for and how can we make sure they land on the right side of the divide? So parents are absorbing these fears and anxieties about the future economy and they are becoming what researchers call social conduits.

and sort of passing that fear and anxiety in trying to prep their kid in their parenting behavior. So parents become more controlling, and this is research done by a researcher at Yale and at Northwestern, and they have this very good book called Money in Parenting. And they talk about how across cultures and across time that you can see

Jennifer Wallace

different parenting styles emerging, depending on the macroeconomic forces of the environment in which they're raising their kids. So in today's environment, with hyper competition, parents are more controlling than maybe in the 70s when parents could afford to be a little more permissive and still believe their kids would land on the right side of the economic divide. So this is not in any means blaming parents. I am a parent right there in the trenches with my readers.

But this is just to offer parents a context to why we might be parenting the way we do. You know, I think what I had and what I, before researching this book, was that I had personalized these forces instead of zooming out and looking at my parenting in the larger context of our world. And that's what I hope to do with this book.

is to give parents a broader context. I'm tired of the finger pointing, there's enough blame to go around. And I think it's time to stop blaming and start putting things into context. And recognizing that the pressures our kids are feeling are bigger than any one family, any one school, and any one community.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, so you brought up culture and context. And I remember in my very first email to you when I told you how much I like the book, I mentioned that every Indian parent should read this book, because I feel like a lot of what you're talking about was largely have most Indian kids, at least even in my generation, not your kids generation, were raising their kids already. I mean, and I think context, of course, plays a role in that, as I mentioned on the show before, you know, like for the longest time, I questioned, you know, the advice my parents gave us to pursue stable, secure.

careers, but when I understood it from their context of growing up in India, when life outcomes were binary, it made completely sense. So for me, it was like, okay, well, this has been the way Indian parents have parented forever. So I'm curious, like, you mentioned across cultures, this seems to be a pretty common trend now. Like I'm curious to look at this from different cultures, just being somebody who's an Indian American, where being raised with an achievement mindset was kind of the default in our household.

Jennifer Wallace

place.

Jennifer Wallace

Well, I think you put your finger on it. I mean, I write a little bit about a friend of mine who's raising his daughter in Norway. And while real estate prices have gone up and competition has increased, what Norway offers parents is a real safety nets, as opposed to here in the US where parents are tasked with...

you know, creating individualized safety nets for each of their kids. I mean, this is why we parent intensively. We parent intensively because we don't believe we have a larger structure that we can depend on. And so we run ourselves ragged, trying to safeguard our kids' status. Actually, researchers call it status safeguarding. And I will sometimes joke with my husband now, and I will say,

He'll say, what are you doing? I'm like, just a little bit of status safeguarding. We'll be down in a minute. And it's, you know, signing my kid up for activities or, you know, a tutor if they're falling behind in a class. And in Norway, my, my friend does not have the same kinds of pressures that we do here.

Srini Rao

No.

Srini Rao

So early in the book, you say that the psychologist Eric Erickson pointed out that an adolescent's most crucial task is attaining a sense of personal identity, but that process is undermined when adolescents feel they must be high performing or perfect to be loved. And so I wanted to look at this idea of never enough at different life stages, particularly adolescence, college, and career. But let's start with adolescence, because I think you brought up the example of feeling invisible.

Jennifer Wallace

Hey.

Srini Rao

Because I think that the sense that I needed more, you know, like nicer shoes, you know, nicer clothes, all of that. The first time I ever remember even thinking about things like this was right around seventh and eighth grade. Uh, and it was kind of insane how much of my, my like mind did this sort of, you know, desire for status within a social hierarchy that's completely irrelevant in adult life mattered.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes, well in seventh grade the researchers point out that that's when social comparison really picks up. And you know it makes sense. We don't form our sense of self and identity in a vacuum, right? We form it, you know, in many ways seeing how the people around us treat us. The idea of self-esteem as being a kind of social barometer.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Jennifer Wallace

And so it would make sense that you would want to fit in. You knew what the hierarchy was and you wanted to meet it. There were certain people in your mind who mattered more. And those are the people you wanted to model. And so that makes perfect sense to me. I mean, what the researchers say, you know, in seventh grade as sort of a warning sign for parents is that when your child is very preoccupied,

and very envious and it gets in the way of friendships and their own mental health, that's a major red flag that something is wrong and it's time to address it. So anyway, seventh grade, yes, that is when we are forming ourselves and we are sort of keeping an eye out on who matters the most and how can I matter to.

Srini Rao

How have you seen this play out in the lives of your own children, particularly around that stage?

Jennifer Wallace

Um... Well, I'm trying to think. I...

Jennifer Wallace

I mean, seventh grade, so I could talk about myself in seventh grade as their mother before I researched this book. I remember my oldest son, you know, I felt like it was my job as a parent to find the right activities to, you know, spot his passion. You know, everyone else around us seemed to have, you know, all the other parents seemed to have found out what made their kids uniquely tick like this.

the soccer star, the chess aficionado. And I remember it was time, every September I'd be getting the afterschool activities and fretting, am I signing him up for the right things? Do I have too much on his calendar? Do I not have enough on his calendar? And I write in the book about one particular moment of parental frenzy when he was in middle school and an interest that he really had from the time he was really young.

was playing with Legos and playing with blocks. And he would notice architecture whenever we would travel anywhere, he'd be pointing out facades. He was really interested in, you know, traffic patterns and how, you know, what causes traffic, what doesn't. And he had this interest in industrial design. And I would take him, you know, groceries, food shopping, and he would be fixated on that little thing that cuts the plastic bags in the produce section.

and wanting to see how it cut the bags apart. And I was like, what am I, how can I be fostering this like passion in my own child? How can you foster a passion for architecture and design in a seventh grader? And so I Googled, you know, intro to architecture and design classes, and I started calling the top of the list and I called the Cooper Hewitt, which is part of the Smithsonian.

here in New York City and asked if they had any intro classes. They chuckled. No, they didn't. And I went down the list and I finally found one school did bite and they said the class was really geared toward high school students, but if I sat next to my son, he could enroll. And so when my seventh grader walked in the door, I said, guess what? I have enrolled you in an architecture class. And he looked me straight in the eye and he said, Mom,

Jennifer Wallace

I love architecture, please don't ruin it for me. So what I will say is my children are very verbal and I think they have done a good job of buffering me when maybe I have taken things too far.

Srini Rao

How does this differ across genders when we think about this idea of status and status safeguarding? Because I remember when, when Cal Newport was here, he was sharing some of the research on the effects of social media and how much we were seeing sort of mental health issues and even suicide attempts for young girls, like pre-teens, you know, due to sort of this need to like basically present this image of themselves on social media. And I remember even seeing a, a segment on the news and maybe it was on Trevor Noah.

Jennifer Wallace

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

We're talking about plastic surgeons literally are having young girls come to them and say, I want you to make my eyes look like they do on my Instagram filters.

Jennifer Wallace

It is something that I have not struggled with as a parent, but I could imagine it being deeply troubling. Where it breaks down with gender is, you know, it's really in the, with boys, the status is a more direct aggression, generally speaking.

Well, for girls, it is more indirect, and that can play out in really ugly ways. In terms of social media, I find myself more in the middle. I do believe social media is a problem, but I also think for many kids, particularly in rural areas or places where they don't have access to other kids like them.

it can very much be a lifeline. And I have seen that. So I'm not one of these people who blankedly throws out social media and says, it's no good for kids. But I am a parent who with both my sons and my daughter, probably more with my daughter, I've talked about their online lives as much as their offline. I take those relationships just as seriously.

and those interactions seriously, and we talk about it. And I don't, I ask them about how they're using it, why they're using it. I, you know, they know so much more than I do. So they get to play the role of teacher with me. And so I'm not someone who's gonna come down and say, you know, we should be banning social media. I think we need real parameters.

And it would be great if parents and schools could sort of band together to create standards of behavior online. So anyway, I'm not sure that I answered your question there.

Srini Rao

Yeah, you did. I mean, I remember reading somewhere that if you were, you know, sort of a teenager in high school and you don't have a social media presence, you effectively are socially non-existent in high school. Like it's an important part of your actual social life.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes, it is. And again, I think as parents, and this was advice I've gotten from experts in the field, parents need to take these online lives seriously. We need to ask questions. We need to ask our kids, when do they feel good? What's good about it? What's bad about it? Asking their advice. I will tell you that the students I met and interviewed for this book are extraordinary.

Teenagers are extraordinary. They are so wise. They see so sharply. They are amazing critics of the environments they are living in. They are so much wiser than I was in high school. I'm stunned by it. And I'm so privileged to be able to tell their stories.

Srini Rao

Speaking of high school, let's talk about how this all impacts high school. Because you say that when we perceive that there are not enough resources to go around, our brains default to a scarcity mindset, a one track fixation on what we lack that can cause us to miss the bigger picture. When essential resources like food and shelter were once constrained, the scarcity mindset served as an evolutionary advantage, focusing our attention on what was most important for survival. This same focus gets triggered in how we perceive uncertainties such as when we think our child might not have a shot at a good college.

And, you know, I feel like the child inherits the parents' mindset around this, because the thing I remember from watching the college admission scandal documentary was the reactions of those kids when they did or didn't get in. And, you know, it was like a matter of life and death with the way you know, you say, I don't know if you've seen it, but like, you can see the YouTube videos. And I'm thinking to myself, man, like, I don't remember anybody that I went to high school with.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes.

Srini Rao

having either kind of reaction when they did or didn't get into the colleges they applied to.

Jennifer Wallace

100% when I was growing up, it was, you know, we all tried to get into a good school. We went for the leadership positions. We worked to get hard grades, but it was not, it did not define us the way it is defining childhood today. And it's so unhealthy. And frankly, it's not even accurate. I mean, this is what is so shocking to me is that, you know, the decades and I, I

get into this specifically in the book, but decades of research and our high school kids need to know this, that where you go, and Frank Bruni said it brilliantly, where you go is not who you are in his book by the same title. The decades of research point to the factors that actually matter to financial success, midlife, career success, and well-being. And it is not

the status of a college. It is not the prestige of a college. It is not whether it's a big public university or a small, expensive private university. These things don't matter. The things, do you wanna know what does matter? Cause I found this totally fascinating too. And it's actually, think when I tell you these things that mattered according to the research, think about the people in your life and whether

this was true of you or the people in your life. So the things that mattered, the people who were the happiest and enjoyed the most wellbeing in midlife, career success and financial success, had several factors in common. They had a professor who knew them well. They had a meaningful internship. They were involved in at least one extracurricular activity.

The internship that they enjoyed were over multiple semesters, so that they could take what they were learning at school and apply it. Those were the factors. And when you boil it down, what it comes down to is this idea of mattering. These students who did well felt like they mattered on campus, that they fit.

Jennifer Wallace

that they belonged. And what I have done, and I have a son who is applying to college next year, I am so focused on helping him find the right fit, because not only will that help with his mental health, but I know that's what will set him up for future success, in really any way he wants to define it.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I mean the idea of fit is something that I look back at and I remember that I was having a conversation with a friend the other night who I went to Berkeley with and I said, you know, looking back now I think it was the wrong place for me. It didn't fit, but it was Berkeley. So that's why I went.

Jennifer Wallace

Hmm. I know and I think a lot of kids, I mean, I am reading now that colleges are accepting students for the sophomore year. So if you're a senior in high school, colleges will come back with an acceptance letter for sophomore year because they know so many kids are dropping out after freshman year. So, and those kids who are dropping out, I mean, it's the wrong fit.

As a parent, I think the best thing we could do to safeguard our kids is to help them find that right fit. And really, it is about the student. It is not about the brand name. That's a hard sell.

Srini Rao

It is a hard sell because you know what? We have had Scott Galloway here who had a really interesting take on this. He said, colleges now are luxury brands effectively, like when you're talking about the elite institutions. But he did say something to that also that when you look at these brands, he said the reality is that they open certain doors. Like I can tell you from the experience, like I'll contrast the two experiences for you. When I was an undergrad at Berkeley, the companies that came to recruit were

Jennifer Wallace

me.

Srini Rao

pretty much who you would think. Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, Google, you name it, right? Because you're talking top-notch students from one of the best public schools in the country. You know who recruited when I came to Pepperdine to do my MBA? The electric company.

That's the only one I remember. And it was very clear to me that Okay, wait a minute, like, so like, I'm in agreement with you as somebody who went to what is arguably an elite institution. At the same time, I can tell you that it did open doors that were not open to people who didn't go to those institutions.

Jennifer Wallace

I would argue with you that yes, it might open the first door, but when I look at and other books have gone into this at greater depth than I like, for example, Frank Bruni, there's one school, I believe it's in his book, that looked at which school had the most CEOs of company, Fortune 500 CEOs, University of Wisconsin.

Srini Rao

Ha ha ha.

Jennifer Wallace

So I think it was his book. But so my point is, I think if you want to be a Supreme Court Justice, currently where you go to law school matters, the prestige of your law school, if you want to work in investment banking, if you want to be an academic at an elite institution,

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Jennifer Wallace

I think there are certain jobs where that prestige matters. But I also know very successful people. Like you, I went to a elite college. And many of the people I went to college with, their lives did not turn out as they had planned. And people that I know who are the most successful by any measure,

who enjoy their jobs the most, who are making a great living. They've gone, like my best friend went to a college in Ohio, I cannot pronounce, and she's one of the most successful people both in her career and in life that I have ever met. So as a parent, what I'm looking at is building a student, a person, a human that has a deep sense of worth.

who knows what their strengths are and who knows how to use them, that to me matters and that they have and can enjoy strong mental health, that matters in the long run so much more than the prestige of any college.

Srini Rao

Well, look, I mean, you're right about the fact that it opens a first store because I got fired from every job I had after that. So it didn't mean a damn thing. But in relation to what you said, one of the things that you say is that children absorb constant message from our achievement culture that they need to be thin, rich, smart, beautiful, athletic, and talented to be worthy of likes, love and attention, like beautiful soldiers, our kids comply with these crazy demands over time to internalize them. So how do you do, you know, what you say we need to do with that as the backdrop that we're dealing with?

Jennifer Wallace

Hehehehehehehehehe

Jennifer Wallace

I think that is a great question. And I think because we know that's the backdrop, every effort at home needs to focus on their worth outside of the system. And so I'm going to give you a few things that I think parents and people who love children can think about. One is advice that I got from a very wise mother that I interviewed. And she was...

fixated on the idea of really hammering home in her kids that their self-worth doesn't matter, isn't contingent on what they achieve. So when they would come home from school, if they got a bad grade or they got cut from the A-team or they were being iced out by a friend, she would go into her wallet and she'd grab a $20 bill. She would ask her teen, you know, do you want this money? And the teen would say, of course. And she says, okay, hang on. She would crumple it up.

She'd put it on the floor, very dramatically, squash it with her foot, and then dunk it in a glass of water. And then she would hold up this soggy, dirty $20 bill, and she would say, do you still want it? And the child would say, yes. And she said, like this $20 bill, your value doesn't change when you are dirty, when you fail. Your worth is your worth. And I think about that story.

because our kids need, the idea of your worth is so, can be so sort of high brow and we need as parents to make that thinking visible any way we can and we need to hammer that message home often. And another way that I, at home, that I sort of implement this idea,

interviewed Rick Weisbord, who is at Harvard's Making Care In Common. And he gave me advice that was really a light bulb moment for me. He said, the self becomes stronger less by being praised than by being known. And so at home, I spend a lot of my parental energy letting my kids know that I see them and I see what makes them unique.

Jennifer Wallace

and what their strengths are. And so for example, I'll talk, you know, every birthday, we go around at our dinner table and we say one thing we love about the birthday boy or girl, not the thing we love the most, just one thing we love, just something we love about them. It might be my son's sense of humor, it might be, you know, how he always puts his work aside to help a friend or to help his sibling when they're struggling with something.

So in our home, as much as I can, I focus on their inherent strengths. So like another example, report cards. A lot of schools now also give a narrative. And so, you know, having Rick Weisbord's advice in my head, I now annotate those, you know, few sentences, summaries, and I'll say, oh my gosh, I see this too. If parents aren't sure about their kids' strengths,

And actually most adults are not sure of what their natural strengths are. They can go to a free online survey. It's called the Via Strengths, the Via Character Survey actually. It was developed by Marty Seligman and Christopher Peterson who are sort of the grandfathers of positive psychology. And they have an adult version and they have a child version of these surveys. And so everyone in my family has done it and it's free.

and we all know what our strengths are. And I help point out my kids' strengths when they are struggling, when they're hitting an obstacle. And I say, which one of these strengths could you use to overcome that? And it's been a really helpful resource for our family.

Srini Rao

Well, speaking of this idea of worth, one of the things that you say is, perceived parental criticism, which a parent may subtly wield in an effort to mold and control child's behavior, is linked to poor mental health outcomes. The consequences of associating love with achievement can last far beyond childhood. It can set up our children for a lifelong pattern of accepting themselves only with strings attached. I'll be worthy when I get straight A's, lose 10 pounds, get 100,000 followers. In a world that values achievements, our kids don't need their adults in their lives to push for their excellence.

what they need to hear is the opposite that their worth is absolute and their value to us never fluctuates. And as I was reading that, my immediate thought was, well, so do the adults in the world need to hear this? Because you talked about the good grades thing. In our family, you didn't come home with bad grades. It just literally, in an Indian family, you come home with a report card.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes

Jennifer Wallace

Thank you.

Srini Rao

Nobody puts a report card in the fridge for getting A's. They don't give a damn when you get straight A's. It's like, oh, okay, great. But if you get a B, the question is, why didn't you get an A?

Jennifer Wallace

You pointed to something that I found the most surprising in my research, and that is the adults. And I will say the number one intervention, whether when you have any at-risk or struggling child, this is decades worth of resilience research, the number one intervention is to make sure that the primary caregiver, the parents,

to make sure that their mental health, their well-being, their support system is intact. Because a child's resilience rests on the resilience of the adults in their lives. And the adults in their lives resilience rests on relationships. And if the adults in the house feel like they only matter when, when the adults in the house

are struggling with self-worth, they cannot be that steady source of support for their kids. And so the number one takeaway for me in this book was, you know, we're often told as parents to make sure you put your oxygen mask on first. But really what we need to do is to surround ourselves with the kind of rich, meaningful relationships, people who see us.

and know us and love us unconditionally so that when they see we are struggling, they will put the mask on for us. And what I found in my research in these affluent, sometimes affluent, mostly affluent communities was not that the adults didn't have friends, it's that they didn't have the bandwidth or the time to invest in their relationships.

so that their friendships could be a source of support for them when they needed it. And, you know, we talk a lot in recent years, since COVID, about the struggles, and they are real, of our children and their mental health. What we really need to start focusing on are the struggles, and they are real, in the adults of those children's lives. And we need to shore up their resilience so that

Jennifer Wallace

we could be the sources of support for the kids in our lives.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So I think that, you know, you and I've talked about the fact that, you know, you have a book coming out. Uh, I know because I, you know, you know, I've chatted lengthy at length about your book prior to this conversation. And I was thinking about my own experience with going through publishing and, you know, we have these goals in mind, like we want our book to reach a lot of people. So I'm wondering how you think about this idea of never enough as you're, you know, sort of like on the eve of a book launch where you want this book to be successful because

part of me is like, okay, is it going to be enough? Like, obviously, you don't want nobody to read the book because I remember I had the same exact experience like thinking to myself, like, okay, and that feeling of never enough. It was like, okay, a two book deal with a publisher, not enough. venture funded, you know, by like a venture fund, still not enough. Like, I was like, wow, is there ever an end to this? So I wonder, are you how are you thinking about your own ideas in the context of your own experience that you have coming now?

Jennifer Wallace

Thank you.

Jennifer Wallace

Mwah.

Jennifer Wallace

I will say that there were many days in writing this book that I will say to myself, oh my God, it's never enough. It's never enough. I could be doing more. I will say, yes, I want this book to get into people's hands. And I want this book to make an impact on people's lives the way researching it made an impact on my life. How will I measure my success?

I will measure my success by the impact that it makes. And, you know, in my book, I have a whole chapter on values and how values impact wellbeing. And I could want, you know, blindly to make, you know, one of the best sellers lists. Sure, I want that, but what I want more

is I want the impact. And so that's how I'm looking at it. So I'm doing everything I can to spread the word because the research that I have in this book, the psychologists, the researchers, they have so much wisdom that is in this book. I want it to get into people's hands and I want people to live better lives. So that's how I measure success.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I think that my takeaway from that is that we don't just have to measure success with things that we can quantify. Because impact is not necessarily something you can quantify.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes, that's exactly right. That is exactly right. And you can't control things. You know, I can't control how the book lands on people. But boy, the feedback has been very good so far and I am so grateful for it because I poured everything I could into this book.

Srini Rao

Let's talk about these two ideas of conditional regard and unconditional love. You say to be clear, conditional regard and unconditional love aren't mutually exclusive. Conditional regard is determined by a parent's behavior and a child's interpretation of it. So talk to me about that.

Jennifer Wallace

Yeah, so every parent that I interviewed, and I know in my own life, everyone loves their children unconditionally. That goes without saying. The problem is that our kids don't always feel it. And the way they don't feel it is because of what you just mentioned, conditional or unconditional regard. And that means that no matter what action your child takes, no matter what grade they

no matter their achievement, you regard them the same. And that is, so let me just show you how it might show up as conditional. One boy I interviewed told me that his parents don't overtly pressure him, but when he gets a report card that is less than stellar, his parents take a few days to comment on it, and he's like, that tells me they're unhappy.

So it is, they are, our kids are very smart and they can read between the lines. And that's why it is so important to make our love for them explicit. And you talked about Scott Galloway. He wrote this great book, The Algebra of Happiness. And in it he has a quote.

growing up, the difference between knowing someone loved me, think, wait, sorry, let me start again. Scott Gallaby wrote in his book that affection was the difference between thinking someone loved him and knowing that they did. And so for me, the, the unconditional regard is not just by

what we say, but the warmth that we display our children every day. Ever since reading that Scott Galloway quote, I now very much am outwardly affectionate multiple times a day with my kids. And one psychologist I interviewed said, to give your child that sense of unconditional love and unconditional regard, to greet them at the door like a puppy does.

Jennifer Wallace

A puppy doesn't judge you. They don't care whether or not you worked out or you ate too much or, you know, whether you got the promotion at work or you just got fired, they are greeting you at the door the same no matter what. And I think about that when I greet my kids every day. I, you know, before researching this book, I might've, you know, if one of my kids had a big test, I might've said, I had to go. And now I lead with lunch.

Instead of asking them how it went, I say, what did you eat today? What did you do? What was gym like? What did you guys play? I emphasize things that have nothing to do with achievement.

Srini Rao

So one other thing that I'm really curious to hear your perspective on. So I remember my parents, obviously, like as I mentioned, pretty much expected that we would get straight A's. But the funny thing is I realized later in life that expectation actually became incredibly beneficial because I realized what they did was they unintentionally instilled intrinsic motivation in us. Like, you know, you've just written a book, you and I both know, that nobody is holding you accountable. You sign your contract and, you know, six months later they expect a manuscript. Like, it's on you.

That was incredibly beneficial, but I didn't realize it then. But the downside, of course, was it's like trying to find this balance between being intrinsically motivated to do this thing, while also seeking their validation.

Jennifer Wallace

Yes, so I talked about, I interviewed Lisa D'Amour, who's a child psychologist and so wise, and you know, I was asking her what can parents do to help with that motivation in a healthy way? What can we do? And she said parents shouldn't be fixated on outcomes. Instead, we can help give our

Jennifer Wallace

So we can define in our house, here's how homework gets done. You can have a small break after school, but before social media, before the TV goes on, before play, we get our homework done. We sit at our desk uninterrupted. And so the advice that was given to me and that I've implemented in my own house is that as a parent, I can set guardrails and have standards about how work gets done.

instead of fixating on shiny outcomes. Does that make sense? And the expectation about how work gets done and a work ethic is something that I think we can help instill in our kids without tying it to an A. Because guess what? Your kid could get an A by cheating. Is that what you want? Or do you want your kid to get the A because they knew the steps that it could that it would take to do that? To ask for help from the teacher?

Srini Rao

us.

Srini Rao

That's true.

Jennifer Wallace

to ask for help from a peer, you know, spending the time, knowing how to break their time down, knowing how to use their time wisely, uninterrupted. Those are skills.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm, yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to finish with what might be a gigantic question, which you might think would lead to another episode. So if it comes to that, so be it. But you say that when we grew our children from birth to focus on developing their exceptional selves by, say, taking extra Mandarin classes, we crowd out other activities that were once marked important by society, such as being a contributing member of their community.

Jennifer Wallace

I'm sorry.

Srini Rao

Researchers have a hypothesis in a hyper competitive, individualistic society. You must be narrowly focused on your goals just to make it. If you're worried about your own economic future, you have less bandwidth to be concerned about others. This toxic culture promotes radical individualism and self-reliance, not just in adults, but in our kids too, and encourage a kind of mandate to think about yourself first. So with what you've just written there in mind, if somebody came to you and said,

Jennifer Wallace

Peace.

Jennifer Wallace

Thanks for watching!

Srini Rao

the head of education policy in the United States, and we're asking you to redesign the entire system from the ground up. Out.

Jennifer Wallace

Oh my gosh, I would love that. I mean, I don't have the credentials to do it, but I will tell you. Here's where I would start and what I've started in my own home is helping my kids find their strengths and finding a genuine need in the world and helping kids meet that need.

Srini Rao

Well, I mean, you'd probably be better at it than Betsy DeVos, but you know.

Jennifer Wallace

So when we talk about protecting our kids' mental health, one of the best things we can do, besides rest and sleep, is to help them to become contributing members of their family, of their schools, and of their communities. And how do you do that? You do that by helping your kids identify their strengths and then teaching kids how to identify a genuine need in the world.

and helping them make that leap. Because what I have found and what I am now encouraging in my own home, I no longer wanna solve for my kids happiness like I used to before researching this book. I now wanna solve for their mattering. How can they show up to the world and get social proof that they matter and feel like they matter? They do that by helping others.

And so what I would do with education is I would help develop this four other mindset. It's not only a way of, you know, encouraging healthy achievement, because you're achieving not just for yourself, but to help others, the bigger picture. It's also better for our society. So, you know, the way I'm talking about this is not some radical new way. This is the way that we have sort of as a society of

almost always thought until recently for the greater good. And so I would start going back to the greater good because not only is it good for society, it's good for our kids.

Srini Rao

So I have one question I realize I didn't ask you that I wanted to touch on, and that was looking at this across income demographics. How does this play out in lower income communities?

Jennifer Wallace

Yes.

So the book I explained to the reader early is, I look at, because this is the newly named at-risk group, I look at the top 20 to 25% of household incomes in this book. So it's families that can choose where they live for the most part and can choose the kinds of schools that they put their kids in. But what is happening is that the bar of what achievement is.

is raising every year and becoming really out of reach for kids whose parents can't afford to keep up. Can't afford because they don't have the time because they're working two jobs. Can't afford it because they don't have the financial resources to keep up. So it's hurting our kids, but it's really hurting all kids. This hyper, hyper competitive environment we are raising our kids in.

Srini Rao

Well, I've heard about preschools where kids need to interview. And I am only learning about some of this because my sister has a nine month old and they're already talking about, you know, the next school after daycare. And I'm like, wow, you have to start thinking about this now.

Jennifer Wallace

Yeah, yeah, it is. In certain affluent communities, they are, yeah, they, their group, one woman I interviewed talked about how she was looking at daycares for her kids, for her, for her newborn. And she went into a daycare facility in Brooklyn. And above all of the cribs were college penance.

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and she asked the nursery director, you know, what is this all about? And she said, oh, well, we hold ourselves to a very high standard of care here. So it is the achievement creep has reached all the way down into kindergarten and even before. Yeah.

Srini Rao

It's amazing. I feel like I could talk to you all day about this. There's just so much here. As I told you, I read at least 100 books every year. And this is the one that was my favorite this year so far. I think it's the most important book written this year. And for people who are listening, you should absolutely read this book. It's really eye-opening. I want to finish with my final question, which is how we finish all our interviews. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Jennifer Wallace

I think what makes people unmistakable is mattering, feeling like they are valued and that they add value to others.

Srini Rao

beautiful. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, the book, your work, and everything else that you're up to?

Jennifer Wallace

Excellent I have a website Jennifer what is my website? Oh my god I don't even know what it is. What is my website? It's Jennifer B Wallace. This is really pathetic. I'm a bad promoter. What is my website?

Srini Rao

Heheheheh!

Jennifer Wallace

Okay, so to find out more of my writing and more about the book, you can head over to jenniferbwallace.com or follow me on Instagram at jenniferbwallace or on Twitter or LinkedIn. And thank you again so much for having me. This has been a great conversation.

Srini Rao

Absolutely, my pleasure. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.