Raising Tomorrow’s Workforce: How early beliefs shape workplace realities

The conversation is about whether it is beneficial to tell children that they can be anything they want when they grow up. Kristin argues that it is not realistic to tell children this because everyone has limitations and not everyone can achieve their dreams. She believes that it is important to acknowledge individual strengths and talents instead of setting unrealistic expectations. Sri, on the other hand, believes that limitations shouldn't be emphasized and that inspiring examples exist of people overcoming obstacles and achieving the seemingly impossible. They discuss the role of nature versus nurture and the influence of external factors such as resources and support systems. They also touch on the potential negative effects of overwhelming choices and societal pressure. So, we're here to talk about a very important and very hot topic in the industry, which you may have seen headlines about. One of the headlines you may have seen is from Kristin Scroggin, whom I'll introduce herself in a minute, and also introduce this topic that is not supposed to be controversial, but that I disagree vehemently with. As many of you know, I'm Sri, I'm the CEO over at Connico, and how can I put this in a professional light? I like to challenge the way that people think, and one of the ways that I do that is just by asking them questions and bringing up new ideas, and especially with someone as passionate as Kristin, that can turn into a podcast, which we're bringing to you today. Kristin, I'll turn it over to you to kind of introduce yourself, introduce this kind of idea about skills and achieving things and accomplishment and learning, and tell us a little bit about how you came up with the idea, and we'll get right into it. Sure, okay. Well, hey Sri and anybody listening, my name is Kristin Scroggin, and I am a generational diversity specialist, and basically what I do is travel around the country and help people understand why their coworkers are so weird. So Sri subscribes to my newsletter, and as a part of my newsletter, I have been doing a series that's called Maybe You Didn't Mess Up Your Kids, and in that, we're kind of taking apart the idea of what social rules and sort of norms that happen across generations, what contributions they have, but maybe it's not just the parents not doing their thing. So in one of my articles, and I was very worried about even sending this one out, because I knew there'd be people that would get their knickers in a twist. And so I specifically am talking about in this idea of should you tell your children that they are great at everything? Should we be telling them that they can be anything when they grow up, that if they just want it bad enough, that they can outwork and outplay and out-hustle everybody, and eventually they can have whatever their dreams are? And my big argument to this always, Sri, is, you know, I want to be a supermodel, but I'm 5'5", and not in perfect shape, so my wanting to be a supermodel is never going to make me do it. I don't have the natural capability, physicality, or even drive to be able to do it. So you came to me and said, hold on, I raised issue with this, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what your problem is with the idea of maybe why you should tell your kids they can be anything? Well, you know, my first inclination there is to tell someone you can't be everything, isn't that inherently limiting? Maybe being inherently limiting is not bad, because it's true that no one can be everything, but does that mean you can't be anything? I like the supermodel example you bring up, and we have yet to see major change happen in the fashion industry, unfortunately, but it is different from what it was even 10 years ago, right? If you look at the way that the industry has adapted, there are people who 10 years ago would have said they could never be. 100%. One of the examples I like to use is astronauts. You know, I always joke that the reason that I can't go through all the rigorous physical training that's associated with taking a trip to the moon, enrolling in the military, a really strict discipline, show up every morning, do all my homework, learn about partial pressures and gases and astronomy, right? Wild wilderness survival, but it's because I'm too tall. But unfortunately, as the world has adapted, that excuse isn't relevant anymore. There are people, you know, who are different. They're different capabilities. They have different backgrounds, and now they're able to train to go to space. I'm talking about actual space, not billionaire space, real space, real astronauts. That's another podcast. But the idea that there is something about you that is limiting, I think, is inherent to humans, right? Is there something, though, somewhere, and I'd like to touch on if this is inherent or learned, but is there something somewhere that inspires people to do even the things which society believes or even they believe are impossible? If you look at, for example, some of these Paralympic athletes, right, who are literally told, you will never be able to play basketball, and they join an Olympic basketball team. And so at a certain point, I almost don't even buy the argument that physical limitations change what we can do. Now, the physics of the universe, of course, if I say I want to fly around like Superman, we know that there are some limitations to this, right? But isn't telling somebody at the start, because of these examples that we can see, isn't telling somebody you can't be anything limiting? Okay, Captain Debate Team, I love where you're going on this, and I like your approach, and I've taught it forever, so I can hang. So my comment that I would say here on the back end is that the fact that you even have the confidence to say this out loud to other human beings shows me that somebody somewhere along in your life has told you that you can be, you can, you should be, you, like, that there's some, you honestly believe it, right? And there's a lot of people that I encountered through teaching college students for years and years and years where, you know, it didn't matter how many times I gave them compliments and said, you're a rock star, and if you push yourself a little harder, they could do it, because they had backstory trauma. So what I would suggest is that, yes, you've got Paralympic Olympians, I'm doing amazing as a communicator right now, you've got Paralympic Olympians, but, like, who were the people in their life? How many people that were injured in a car accident and became paraplegics have never, ever even considered pushing through that? I would say that there's something that's got to be sort of a mix-up, there's something intrinsic to you, right? Like you, Sri, like, nobody's going to tell me what to do by God. The minute you tell me that I can't do it, then personality-wise, I must prove you wrong. And then the other side is that, like, you have to have those lucky breaks of the right people at the right time and the right teachers and parents with resources to get you into therapy, to get you to the practices. So I think that you were kind of ignoring the side of, yeah, you can be everything, hypothetically, but you also have to have people who care and resources to be able to get you to those things. And that's why I think we've run into a bit of a lie, because, in particular, we've told people in America, I would say for at least the past 20 years, you know, if you just want it hard enough, and then you have people who are wanting it really, really hard, and they're busting it, and they're never breaking through to the next ceiling. And then the other thing that I had is I had a lot of students who really thought they were awesome who were not. And I'm sure you've never hired anybody like that ever, Sri, who they came into your office and they were like, I am literally God's gift to engineering. And you're like, maybe you're an intolerable person. So there's that, too. Right? Like, you've got some level of humanness that has to be involved in this, too. And what I would run into, especially with my lot of students, I've run into a lot of parents who said their kids are like failure to launch, right? Like, they can't get out and do anything because they're so overwhelmed with the idea that they should and could be able to do everything, and so instead they choose nothing. They're so overwhelmed with the amount of cereals that they could choose at Whole Foods that they choose no cereals whatsoever. And I think that there's a little bit of that, you know, if the world is your oyster, are they getting overwhelmed by us telling them that you can do anything and you should be able to do anything? And is that a false sense of hope? As opposed to us looking at them and saying, like, hey, this is your talent. Like, you are naturally gifted at this. Like, let's beef this up. Let's go be awesome at that thing. I stink at math. And so the minute they told me I was stunk at math, I was like, cool, I'll be the best writer in the planet. That worked really well for me, where I'm guessing you wouldn't have responded to the you stink at math in the same way that I did. I love this idea that there's something inherent, and the second piece is there's this lucky break, where you're having the right people in your orbit or having the right resources, right? And I think what we know about pretty much everything in life is that there's nature and there's nurture. And I'm sure your research has turned up, who knows how many hours' worth of podcast material on this topic. And let's use the cereal example, right? Seeing 20 cereals, because we know the person is able to pick, the person is able to make a decision, we know that, right? How do we know that not picking a cereal isn't just fear of failure? So I think, oh, you're on to something here, because I mean, you think about all the articles about depression and our younger people and they're being inundated by depression. They're being inundated with social media, and is that a situation? For some people, no choice is the best choice. And then they just basically end up being like, well, I'm completely unfulfilled. But then again, my mom made every single choice for me since I was three. So am I going to own that crap, or am I going to just continue to blame the rest of the world for my failure to launch? So I think you've got an interesting mixture on that. But then, okay, let's go to, let's say that I moved to Sicily, right? And there's one little store that's in town and they carry Raisin Bran and Corn Pops. You know, like, am I going to be fine with both of those because they're the only two cereals on the island? Like, is it potential, the idea that you're being inundated with, you can work anywhere in the world and you can have all the education and you could, like, is there a lack of contentment because you're so inundated with choices and options where now you go to the grocery store and you're like, well, I'd really like to have Great Nuts, but I only have $5 and so I can't afford the $7.50 box. And so boohoo me, I guess I'll have to go to Dollar General. You know what I mean? Like, is it potentially, we've given people so many choices that they are depressed regardless. Right? And you become the engineer, you become the head engineer at Connico and you're immediate, like, well, why the crap am I not the CEO? And Sri's like, because I'm the CEO and I'll die in this web, right? I mean, that's sort of that idea of, and they're like, well, that's not fair, right? Like, I tried hard. I want, I went, took all the same classes as Sri. I sat in the same meetings that he did. And then, and of course, I, as the communication person will be sitting there and say, well, you don't have the impact of Sri. You don't have the charisma, the natural thing that makes people want to follow him. And I can't teach you that. And social media can't teach you that. And so that's inherent. And that's what makes me say the idea of telling people, you know, you could do anything if you just wanted it hard enough is somewhat limiting. Because again, like, if I don't have those natural abilities, why wouldn't you let me find that earlier on in my life and be like, oh, you know what? Yes, you're horrible at math. But man, you would be a killer communicator. And then you could talk to people like Sri and let him do your math, right? That would be my argument, is that find what you're good at, and then you could build teams of people who actually rock at what they do, where you got a lot of people wandering around thinking they're God's gift to every single thing. And you're like, you're barely good at one. Well, that mentality can be problematic. Just look at me. I love this idea of building strength in a team by not having everyone be great at everything, but by having people good at certain things and building a team that succeeds by adding the right ingredients. One of the things that you kind of talked about was, okay, if I'm a member of a team, or if I'm a manager of a team, let's say I have someone on my team who, you know, you kind of describe people who think they're awesome, but they're not awesome. Let's say I have one of those people on my team, or let's say I think I'm awesome, and the feedback that I'm getting is I'm not awesome. Is there a point where I say, I want to make myself more awesome at this, but I guess is there a way for me to realize while I'm making myself more awesome if I've hit my ceiling? How do I know when I need to switch to a different channel, when I need to go on another path? I think this is a struggle, right? And I would have college students, honestly, Sheree, I would have students who would be in my class and they totally thought they were going to be broadcast journalists, right? And then, and eventually after, you know, two classes with them, low work ethic and a voice that would make you want to pull off your own ears, you eventually look at them and say, maybe this is not your thing, babe. And I think that there's some level of us not being comfortable telling people, hey, you know what, maybe this is not your jam, right? But then there's the other side of that. So what, like literally what I do when I'm traveling around is I'm teaching you something to give you the opportunity, to give you the skills and the knowledge to be able to actually do it. So one of the things I tell people all the time is it'll never not pay off for you to increase your communication skills. It will always be a payoff. Every book you read, every podcast you listen to, you're never going to have anybody be like, oh, you said that too well and you were too patient with me and kind. Like nobody's ever going to do that. It's always going to pay off. So there's this other dangerous side you're talking about where people say things like, well, I'm just blunt and that's just how I am and everybody else should have to accommodate to me. You don't want that kind of person on your team either, right? Who is unwilling to grow and develop. And like I tell people in all of my presentations now, when you're hiring, you're looking for people who are teachable and tolerable. Well, that's something that every person who's listening to this podcast can be working on your whole life. How do you increase your teachability? How do you increase your tolerability? You might not naturally be that way, but is that something that you can potentially work on and is that something that you should be encouraging your employees every day to push themselves towards? And that's where I kind of take that idea and I apply it more broadly, right? The idea that it always helps to improve your communication skills, the argument that I use is it always helps to improve your math skills, especially if you're working in our industry, right? But the argument I also use is it always helps to improve your juggling skills. If you think juggling is fun, constantly work on getting better at that, right? Even if somebody tells you you're bad at it. And so this is where I think there's a little bit of me, and maybe you're right, it's inherent. And that reminds me of the story, but when you tell somebody, hey, you're not good at this, the best mentality to have that you're describing is, well, if I'm not good at it now, I'm going to determine how valuable this skill is and I'm going to work to get good at it. But do you think, Sri, seriously, with the amount of people that you know on this planet, how many people do you think that you've looked at and you're like, oh yeah, this is one of those people that's going to fight through. They're going to fight through the negative response, they're going to keep pushing it, they're going to go above and beyond. And how many people just in their nature are going to be like, oh, yep, well, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I think we give people way a lot of credit of being more ambitious than they are, wanting things more than they don't want to do. And I think there's people like me and you, I mean, we wouldn't be entrepreneurs if we didn't have this natural ability. Like, I don't know about you, but I'm this sort of way of like, I could genuinely teach anything. If I had enough time to read about it, I could totally pass it off like I'm an expert on pretty much anything, not afraid to fail. Like, I will bluff my way through this if necessary. And there's a part of me that says, okay, but that's because your mom and dad told you you were the best and the smartest and that people were jealous of you whenever that they didn't like you. You know, like there's all this backstory that gets me to the point where I'm that way, where there's other people like if you even said, okay, will you be in charge of the wine for the Christmas party? They'll spend all the time being like, no, what if they people don't like it? And then I don't have any friends. And then I have to live in a van down by the river. Like, there's so many people that are not like us, right? Am I crazy here? Or are you feeling that? Because I think we do overestimate people's wanting to get better. Oh, I completely agree with that. You know, the direct answer to your question is there's probably 12 people that I've met on the planet. No, not really. That's a lot. I'm really proud of your 12 people. You have good circles. Well, and I think that's where, you know, a little bit of my argument is the difference between a me and a you and the person that's saying, you know, panicking about what wine to pick and complaining about having to pick between the cereal and finding some kind of paralysis in their analysis of the options of what should they do with their career? And what should I get better at? What skills should I develop at? Just freaking pick one. Yeah. And try it. And if it doesn't work and you don't like it, try something else. And if you dedicated all the time that you spend to worrying and decision naturing, what if I build a matrix? What if I really weigh my options? What if I talk to a circle of advisors? What if I read another book? I'm like, stop it. Take all that time and just go get some done. Right. Rip the Band-Aid off. And I think that's where I would almost rather the message be, it's not, we're not saying you can't do anything. You're saying you can do anything. We're being smart and practical and saying you can't do everything. We're telling you you can do anything. But do is the important piece there, right? You have to get off your butt and go do the do. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And I think we talked about this concept before of the idea of confidence rolls is one of the things that I used to tell my students. Right. The idea of you start with a small amount. You start with a pebble worth of confidence. You start with the way I always use it as a snowball. Right. If you start with something very small, just enough to say, you know what? I'm going to just try this. Maybe I'll get a little bit better at it. And then the more that you try it, the more snow it picks up and the more that that snowball rolls. And then honestly, it becomes significantly easier for you to make it till you make it. Right. I mean, I think that I think you have to practice confidence. And that's where a lot of people are in the struggle that they they have that analysis paralysis you're talking about here, where they're so busy trying to think of all the ways that things will go wrong, that they don't take any options whatsoever. But, you know, the funny thing about confidence is, is that when you start it, when you give yourself a little bit of a window and you keep pushing yourself, you pick up more and more and more. And then pretty soon you're looking at around everybody around you and you're like, why don't you believe in yourself? Like, I think I'm good and you think you're good. What's the problem? So I think that this idea of, you know, wherever people are that are listening to this today, wherever you are in your own mindset on where you fall on this, the bottom line is that you do have to start. Right. Like it doesn't have to be perfect. It does have to be done. And I think that's one of the things that people really struggle with. Like I never, ever change it. Not one person in my house can load a dishwasher correctly. Not one, except for me. I'm the only one. Right. But I do not rearrange that dishwasher for a single human being. Right. Because I just need the frigging dishes done. And if there are, for some reason, three or four of them on there that are not washed to my satisfaction, you know what I do? I leave them in the dishwasher and I hit the button again. Because it's not worth the brain space. Right. I just need them done. And I see people like, like one of the pieces of advice that I give people that have brand new babies, for example, I say, you know, don't, don't fret when your partner has them. Like if they're holding and that baby's still alive, like rocking, don't hover over them and be like, don't touch them. Move their head. Don't do this. Go do that. Because what will happen is you'll undermine their confidence and they'll end up, you'll end up holding the baby 24-7 and then you'll be bitter and a giant martyr. So I think that there's some level of that too, where you just have to say like, people are allowed to make their own mistakes in this. Not everything has to be done to my exact standard. Right. Like I never brush my children's hair once they hit like second grade and above. You go to school with messy hair. That's your social collateral. Right. I've taught you how to brush your hair. My, me as a person is not really being judged. We think it is, but it's not really happening. So I think that there's some level of letting people, you know, take their shot, shoot their shot and then encouraging them to, you know, keep trying and feeling a little more confident as it goes through, but not necessarily believing you can do everything. And this is one of the things I know you know, there's a thin line between arrogance, right, and confidence. Very tiny line. And the minute you walk over into that arrogance line, I want to punch you in the throat. Right. But I love confident people. They don't bother me at all. I'm all for confident people. But you better be able to back it up. Yes. People who know me would tell you that it indeed is a fine line. I think that does remind me, you know, of kind of my story a little bit. And I'll give you an example. You know, when I was in high school, we went out just like, you know, looking for stuff to do with the family or whatever. And we went ice skating. And because of a defect that I have in my legs and the way that my feet and arches are shaped, it's impossible for me to wear a ski boot. You know, wearing firm shoes and stuff like that causes a lot of pain and it causes pain on my bones. They're under a lot of pressure. So it's extremely, extremely painful. We went out to the ice rink and I could ice skate for, you know, three, four, five minutes at a time. But even something like rollerblading. You know, if I would rollerblade for 10 minutes as a kid, I would feel bone pain for about 30 minutes where I'd have to sit down while I recovered. And so I couldn't get up to a place where I was able to skate around the rink. And my sister skated over to me. I sat down on the boards and she said, Tree, you just have to accept that there are going to be some things in life that you're not good at. The next thing that I'm about to show you is my brand new ice skates that I just bought. I spent many, many years becoming very good at ice skating. I can now do crossovers. I can skate forwards. I can skate backwards. As soon as she told me that I was not going to be good at ice skating, I knew I was going to get good at ice skating. That is so not me. I would immediately be like, why are you doing this? Why are you causing yourself pain, you fool child? Like, just go do something else. Like, maybe water skiing is for you. Why you got to do snow skiing? Well, and so is there, and again, there's probably hours of research you've uncovered on this, how much of something like that is me just as my little, arrogant, stubborn self saying, you don't get to tell me what to do? Compared to what I fully believe, which is I had the support network, and the people around me told me, if you put your mind to it, you're going to do it. Can I add in that you're an elder millennial? Right? That's another thing, that you were raised in a time period where it was even remotely an option, that you even had permission to go to the ice skating rinks, right? I mean, right? I mean, come on now. I'm out there with us. Right? But you know what I'm saying? But you know what I'm saying? Like, you've got to remember, there's people that are up in your offices that are hardcore boomers, that are Great Depression kids, that are sitting on your boards, who, you know, their parents said, you know, like, no, I will never be okay with you being an artist. You can be a machinist, and that is your one and only option. And if you choose anything else, then you're out of my house, bro. I mean, you had a lot of people that had their parents and their lives, and even just like, you know, maybe you had a parent pass away earlier in your life, and you had to jump in and become the major provider from your family, right? Like, you had a lot of people that didn't have that. So I think this is one of the issues that we have is, you know, when you think about it from a generational perspective, you have people who are in there who were told things. You've got boomers who were there who were like, their traditionalist bosses said, you put in your time, it doesn't matter how smart you are, we'll listen to you five years. And then you can be, you know, junior architect of the world. But until then, you put in your time. And then you've got the millennials who have had, you know, go to Facebook and tell everybody what you had for dinner since the minute they were 11, right? Not only are children allowed to be seen and not heard, they can publish it whenever they darn well want to. So there's a generational divide that also I think you have to consider here is the moment in history, the country you were born in, the world that you are that you were raised in, the fact that there weren't a lot of wars that existed during your time that demanded that you come, you know, that you had to go and fight. I think that we also have to consider that generational and pop culture level when we're considering that you even have the gumption to consider it. I like that assessment of all the factors idea. And it reminds me of another story. As I was getting ready to graduate high school, one of my friends came to me and she was, you know, one of the people who I knew through growing up because my dad was Indian through some of the Indian holidays and stuff like that we would celebrate. And she came to me and the rest of our friends in absolute tears. And we said, what's wrong? And she said, I just found out I got accepted into dentistry school. And we said, that's absolutely incredible. You had to take FATs, additional tests, your ACT scores had to be auto flawless. We said, that's incredible. And she said, I can never tell my parents because the only thing that they would be happy with is if I told them I was going to be a doctor. And that was really eye opening for me because, I mean, look at the success. Look at all the effort she put in. Great person. Great at what she did. Incredibly friendly. Always laughing. Everybody is glad to have her around. A genius. And you're right that this idea about maybe her surroundings or her network was telling her, Amy, that's not good enough. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Well, I had a great time. I personally think that I was 100% right in my article. I love what you brought to the table. But I'm going to hang on in my stubborn, confident, female, zinnial, white, all the worlds that I have the privilege of looking through, that I will acknowledge. I'm going to say that I was right and I smoked you. But it sure was fun. Well, I'm going to also say you were right. And the idea here that I think, now that we've expanded on it, isn't about limiting, right? It's about channeling. Yes. Even if you try different things, find what you're good at, kind of your unique ability. The thing that you're really good at that you also really enjoy. Because that's where you're going to get the most success. If you hate it or if you're not great at it, can you do it? Yeah. Are you going to love doing math every day as your job? No. And imagine if that had been the case, right? So if somebody had told you you're a great mathematician, just stick it out. Think about how happy you'd be compared to now, right? Horribly miserable. Well, I love this idea that it's channeling. And I love the idea that the way that that can be channeled is both in myself or in my teammates, build confidence, right? For me, that means trying new things, get good at it, surround myself with people who are telling me the honest truth but are encouraging me to be good at what I'm good at, right? And in my team, that means I've got to treat them that same way. Yeah. Kristin, do you have any advice if I'm looking to build my confidence, if I want to get my confidence rolling and build that momentum, do you have any advice for what I should do? I would say ask your friends when they think about you, when they think Shree is the best at, Kristin is the best at, when they think of all of our friends, this person is the best at this, ask them. Say, what do you look at and you say, Kristin's the best listener or she's the best storyteller or whatever it is, find what people around you in your circle find is your natural talent and then find ways that you can build upon that and take little opportunities. They don't have to be big. You don't have to immediately launch a YouTube channel on how to be a good storyteller. Little opportunities for you to grow in your skill and continue to push yourself to be the best that you can be. That's the key, right? All you really need to be is the best version of you that you can be. That's it. And nobody else's opinion even really matters on that. All you have to be is the best version that you can be and don't quit. I know you were going to say that like that, I would have said at the opening, the people who just listened to the last three minutes of the show, they would be fine. That's really good advice. Thanks. Kristin, I want to tell you, I had fun today too. Anybody listening, I'm sure you enjoyed this last half hour, but please do go see more of Kristin's work. Especially visit GenWHY.com. I'll spell it. GolfEchoNovemberWhiskeyHotelYankee.com. G-E-N-W-H-Y.com. Go check out all the content that she's got on there. Not all of it's inflammatory, but all of it is education. I want to thank Pierce PR, Bri and Carson. They kind of helped put this together and let me know what I can say and can't say, which is really, really helpful. And we thank everybody who listened. And we can't wait for the next install.