Life doesn’t reward us for standing still, does it. Thankfully, we are not like some creatures who must learn to run shortly after birth to avoid being eaten. In fact, compared to any creature, humans get much more time being nurtured before being set lose “in the wild”. It’s hard to think of any creature who spends the first 18 to 20 years of their life developing under the care and nurture of their parents.
One dynamic of this longer development process is that it softens the impact of life’s challenges because our parents absorb much of the responsibility for the outcome of these challenges. Unless intentionally provided, we have few opportunities to learn, apply and reflect upon many of the hard skills and soft skills necessary for career and life success. We also spend much of the first two decades of our life taking little initiative for our own learning. During these formative years, we are receiving and creating...