How to Raise -...

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How to Raise Successful Kids

Advice From a Stanford Dean, a Navy SEAL Commander, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Dad (Among Others) by Bill Murphy Jr. copyright 2016 Bill Murphy Jr. Free to redistribute for noncommercial use—but, please credit me and link to: www.billmurphyjr.com.

This is Version 1.0. Get the updated version free at www.billmurphyjr.com

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For my baby girl (who sat on my lap as I wrote this sentence).


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Introduction

We all want to be successful and happy. You know what we want even more? For our kids to be successful and happy.

That’s my experience as a relatively new father anyway—and it’s what’s led me to write a lot about this subject for Inc.com and elsewhere.

On the pages that follow, I’ve brought together some of the best advice I could find in my columns on the subject—smart people weighing in on how to raise happy, successful, resilient, entrepreneurial kids.


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It comes not just from me, but instead from top authorities—a Navy SEAL commander, a Stanford dean, Mark Zuckerberg’s dad, and quite a few others. (I added a few other related columns that I found simply fun or interesting.)

Before we dive in, just three quick things:

1. This ebook is free. You’re welcome to share this book, pass it around, forward it, etc. Just please make sure you send the whole thing.

2. If you received this from someone else, you might want to make sure you have the most updated edition. How? By going to billmurphyjr.com and checking out the free downloads.

3. Got feedback? I can’t wait to hear from you. Send me a note at contact.billmurphyjr.com.


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Table of Contents !1.!Want!to!Raise!Resilient!Kids?!Advice!From!a!Navy!SEAL!Commander!!

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2.!Want!to!Raise!Entrepreneurial!Kids?!Advice!From!Mark!Zuckerberg's!Dad!!

15

3.!Want!to!Raise!Successful!Kids?!Advice!From!a!Former!Stanford!University!Dean!!!

24

4.!Want!to!Raise!Happy!and!Successful!Kids?!Teach!Them!to!Ask!This!Simple!Question!!

30

5.!7!Things!to!Do!Each!Day!If!You!Want!to!Raise!Happy!and!Successful!Kids!!

36

6.!9!Things!Moms!Say!That!Can!Make!You!Really!Successful!in!Business!

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!7.!How!to!Raise!Highly!Successful!Kids:!7!Questions!to!Ask!Every!Day!!

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8.!6!Secret!Habits!of!Highly!Successful!Millennials!!

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9.!17!Daily!Habits!My!Dad!Insists!Will!Make!You!Happier!and!More!Successful!!

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10.!11!Habits!of!Highly!Effective!Leaders:!A!U.S.!Marine!Corps!Officer!Shares!the!Secrets!!

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11.!7!Amazing!Kid!Entrepreneurs!Who!Will!Make!You!Think,!Man!What!Was!I!Doing!at!Their!Age?!!

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12.!The!Most!Important!Success!and!Happiness!Rules!You!Can!Learn!From!My!Mom!!

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13.!Want!to!Raise!Super!Wealthy!Kids?!Conceive!Them!Before!May!14.!!

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14.!This!Man!Retired!and!Gave!Up!$13!Million!Because!He!Can't!Bring!His!Son!to!Work!All!the!Time!

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~1~

Want to Raise Resilient Kids? A Navy SEAL Says Always Do This

Resilience is defined as "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness."

There's no surprise that it's a characteristic of some of the world's most successful people. It's also a required trait to endure and succeed in some of the toughest specialties in the U.S. military.


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Over on Task and Purpose (a site for members of the U.S. military) and Fatherly, (a site for--well, fathers), a former U.S. Navy SEAL named Eric Greitens (now a candidate for Missouri governor, by the way) shared his tips for raising children to be more resilient--rules that also apply to anyone who wants to increase their mental toughness. Here's our take on the plan Greitens outlined (you can read his original remarks here and here).

1. Set a great example.

Like any self-improvement program, increasing resiliency requires demonstrating a commitment. And if you hope to inspire others, such as your children, it's doubly important.

"To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, who you are will speak more loudly to your


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children than anything you say," says Greitens. "If they see you always able to pick yourself up when you've been knocked down, that's behavior they're going to adopt intuitively."

2. Take responsibility.

Responsibility here means over everything that you can control in your life. There are things you can't control, sure--but know the difference.

"Teach your children early not to pass the blame or make excuses, but to take responsibility for their actions" says Greitens.

3. Seek to serve others.

Besides positively affecting the rest of the world, service to others emphasizes that life really isn't about just one person (you). It also helps you increase resourcefulness and empathy.


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"Children who know that they have something to offer others," Greitens says, "will learn that they can shape the world around them for the better."

4. Practice daily gratitude.

This is one of the things that the most successful people do under any circumstance.

Expressing gratitude to others improves your performance as a leader and also frames your mind to appreciate the things you've been given. Because, let's face it, even on your worst days, you probably have things a lot better than most people in the world.

5. Let others solve their own problems.

Certainly this doesn't mean letting other people founder or even flounder--especially your own children. However, there's often as much to be gained in learning how to solve


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problems as there is in solving the problems themselves.

"Your children should know that you're always there for them, and that they can call on you when needed," says Greitens. "But give them the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems."

6. Be a mentor--not a savior.

Sometimes the best thing that can happen is to make a big mistake and live with the consequences. However, it's often the case that the mistakes we make as children have fewer long-range effects than things we screw up we get older. So, better to learn from smaller mistakes while we're young.

Moreover, allowing your children to live unimpeded through the consequences of what they choose to do can also have another benefit. It demonstrates that things are rarely


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as bad as they might appear at first blush--and that sometimes good can arise out of bad.

7. Embrace failure.

It's almost a cliché among entrepreneurs, but failure is a prerequisite to success. Nobody accomplishes anything great if he or she is afraid to fail.

"In failure, children learn how to struggle with adversity and how to confront fear. By reflecting on failure, children begin to see how to correct themselves and then try again with better results," Greitens says.

8. Encourage risk-taking.

Risk-taking and failure go hand-in-hand. People who are afraid to lose what little they have will likely never achieve very much more.


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"To be something we never were, we have to do something we've never done," says Greitens.

9. But assert your authority where it's sensible.

Greitens is writing for parents who want to increase their children's resiliency, but this is likely applicable to any situation in which you have some authority over others' actions--as a boss, a coach, or a mentor.

"Not every risk is a good risk to take," Greitens says. Sometimes we all need an experienced, more authoritative person to show us the better way.

10. Express your love for the people you care about.

Resilient people know that they rely on the love and care of others in their communities.


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One of the best ways to reinforce this is to express how you feel to those people often.

In fact, this is a great practice no matter what your self-improvement goals are. Doing so both reassures them and reminds you about the importance of your relationships.


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~2~ Want to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids? Mark Zuckerberg's Dad Says Do These Things Life changes when you have kids. It's a cliché, but I've experienced it myself. You still aspire to great things--but you think more about the life you want for your child(ren), too. One thing I want for my daughter is the chance (if she wants it) to be an entrepreneur. Having


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studied and written about entrepreneurship for years, I believe it means more money, more control over your time, more freedom--and it doesn't necessarily mean starting a business. Mark Zuckerberg's father, Dr. Edward Zuckerberg, did a lengthy interview with a local radio station some time ago, in which he talked about how the choices he and his wife made led his son to--well, to go on to Facebook and become a billionaire. Here are the biggest takeaways from his talk:

1. Model working for yourself.

Dr. Zuckerberg is a dentist. Even today, he runs his practice out of the Zuckerberg family home at 2 Russell Place in Dobbs Ferry, New York. His wife (a licensed psychiatrist) worked as his "overqualified" office manager, he said.


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As a result, young Mark grew up watching his parents take responsibility for their livelihoods and run a business out of their home (as well as use the most modern technology of the time).

"My kids all grew up around the office and were all exposed to computers," Dr. Zuckerberg said. "There are advantages to being exposed to computers early on. That certainly enriched Mark's interest in technology."

(By the way, I'm not doxxing the Zuckerbergs by publishing the address; it's on Dr. Zuckerberg's Yelp page, and he himself references the fact that he's Mark's dad.)

2. Provide security for your kids.

There are plenty of stories of entrepreneurs who grew up with nothing, but it's more likely that kids will grow up to be willing to take risks if they have a stable background behind


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them. In Dr. Zuckerberg's case, he was working to provide that kind of stability long before he even met his wife and had children.

"Growing up Jewish in New York City," he said, "if you had half a brain, your parents wanted you to be a doctor or a dentist."

So, despite the fact that he himself was interested in computers, Zuckerberg pursued what was seen as a stable, somewhat lucrative career--enrolling in 1975 in New York University College of Dentistry.

2. Discover and encourage your kids' interests.

"Probably the best thing I can say is something that my wife and I have always believed in," Dr. Zuckerberg said.

"Rather than impose upon your kids or try and steer their lives in a certain direction...recognize what their strengths are


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and support their strengths and support the development of the things they're passionate about."

In a separate Los Angeles Times story, for example, Dr. Zuckerberg described setting up his son with the tutorial disk from one of his office computers, which the younger Zuckerberg used to learn to code. "He was bored with his schoolwork," Dr. Zuckerberg said, so he let his son "rig up a primitive version of instant messaging that enabled people in different parts of the dental office and the house to communicate via computer." The family called the program ZuckNet.


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3. Show them you're proud of them.

Dr. Zuckerberg talks about his son as having been "a good student" and having "a special affinity for math and sciences."

But he said the younger Zuckerberg, who left home for Phillips Exeter Academy before Harvard, was "a very quiet guy...[who] doesn't like to boast about his accomplishments."

He adds, "I'm proud of his accomplishments and the accomplishments of all my kids."

4. Set limits and enforce them.

According to one summary of his radio appearance, Dr. Zuckerberg weighed in on discipline, too. He said he "didn't believe in physical discipline..." But he added that certain behaviors require parents to let children know, "right there on the spot, this is a behavior that will not be


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tolerated. If you impart your dislikes about certain negative behaviors early in their lives, they will learn to understand what your feelings on certain matters are."

Basically, you can be a progressive parent--but remember that kids are kids. They need you to be their mom or dad.

5. But make sure kids play, too.

It's pretty clear that Dr. Zuckerberg has his avocations and encouraged his kids to as well. (In a New York magazine article, he's described as "a committed diver" who features "murals of coral" and a 200-gallon fish tank in his office.) He said it's something he encouraged in his kids. "I think that extremes in any form in parenting are not good. Children need to be well-rounded. There's a place for work and a place for play," he says.


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6. Balance work and life

In answer to a caller to the radio show who asked about work-life balance, Dr. Zuckerberg came back to the fact that he and his wife both worked from home.

"My wife was a superwoman," he said. "She managed to work and be home. We had a unique situation because my office was in the house. I highly recommend it if it works for your occupation. It did afford the ability to work and be home with the kids at the same time."

By the way, I'm sure you're wondering: Dr. Zuckerberg reportedly held the equivalent of about $60 million in Facebook stock at the time of its IPO; if he held onto it all, it would be worth about $167 million today.


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7. Don't grow old too fast.

When New York magazine interviewed Dr. Zuckerberg, the reporter described him like this:

... short and densely built, with soft almond eyes and a stare he often holds one beat too long, as if he is attempting to stare directly through you. Despite his bald pate, the 57-year-old is notably youthful. He is wearing a blue button-down tucked into Calvin Klein jeans, a thick leather belt, and a smart pair of loafers. A gold medallion of a triggerfish is nestled in the collar of his shirt.

The word that jumps out at me is "youthful." No matter how old you are, model the idea of living for your kids, and refuse to give in to old age.


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~3~ Want to Raise Successful Kids? A Former Stanford Dean Says Please Stop Doing This If there's one thing many parents want more than to lead happy, successful lives, it's to make sure their kids lead happy, successful lives. Now a former dean of Stanford University says many parents' hearts may be in the right place-


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-but they're screwing things up big-time nonetheless.

Julie Lythcott-Haims spent a decade as the dean of freshmen students at Stanford University. In her New York Times bestseller How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, she says the problem is a phenomenon we've been hearing about since the 1990s--one that's now crashing hard into American society: helicopter parenting. She summed up her experience in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times:

Working with the quote-unquote best and brightest, I was seeing more and more [students] who seemed less and less capable of doing the stuff of life. They were


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incredibly accomplished in the transcript and GPA sense but less with their own selves, evidenced by how frequently they communicated with a parent, texting multiple times a day, needing a parent to tell them what to do.

I'd been scolding other people for five or six years. One night I started cutting my 10-year-old son's meat and realized I was enabling dependence on me. I could see the link between parenting and why my college students, though very accomplished academically, were rather existentially impotent.

"Existentially impotent."

Ouch! That may be the most original and cutting insult I've ever heard.

What's more, Lythcott-Haims said it applies largely to some of the most privileged kids in


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our society. Students from less affluent families--who statistically speaking might be more likely to join the military or work while attending community college--seemed to her to be at least as self-sufficient as their predecessors.

But the students she was dealing with as dean of freshmen students, who were attending one of the most elite universities in the world, and who were more likely to graduate and have amazing opportunities, were overwhelmed and unable to function as real adults.

No phone calls?

For example, Lythcott-Haims cited the idea that many Millennials--using her own daughters as examples--seem "paralyzed" by the idea of having to make a simple phone call, because they never had to do so while growing up.


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(Her solution with her daughters was to give them tasks that could be resolved only by making phone calls--"because you need to know how to talk to a stranger on a phone and ask a question.") So what do we do about this? Her advice for parents, she said in a speech reported by the Chicago Tribune, is to "put ourselves out of a job” by doing a few specific things: Remember the difference between "I" and "we."

"If you say 'we' when you mean your son or your daughter--as in, 'We're on the travel soccer team'--it's a hint to yourself that you are intertwined in a way that is unhealthy."

Be your kids' advocate, not their lawyer.

"If you're arguing with teachers and principals and coaches and umpires all the time, it's a sign you're a little too invested. When we're


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doing all the arguing, we are not teaching our kids to advocate for themselves."

Remember that their work is their work.

Don't do their homework, she said. "Teach them the skills they'll need in real life, and give them enough leash to practice those skills on their own. ... Chores build a sense of accountability."

Bottom line, let them try things--and fail.

"We want so badly to help them by shepherding them from milestone to milestone and by shielding them from failure and pain. But overhelping causes harm," Lythcott-Haimes wrote in How to Raise an Adult. "It can leave young adults without the strengths of skill, will and character that are needed to know themselves and to craft a life."


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~4~ Want to Raise Happy and Successful Kids? Teach Them to Ask This Simple Question What do you want to be when you grow up?

Wait, don't answer. It's a trick question. In fact, it might be the trickiest question there is, at least if you want to be happy. (Yet adults ask kids that all the time.)


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Instead, it turns out there's another, much better question to ask--and a much smarter one to teach kids to ask themselves.

Don't ask: "What do you want to be?" Instead, ask: "What do you want to do?" Subtle, right? But swapping out those two-letter words makes a huge difference.

Life-changing magic

I've been reading Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which basically teaches you to discard anything in your life that doesn't bring joy. (So far, I'm six big garbage bags into its implementation at my house--more on this in a future column). For now, let's focus on a very insightful passage near the end:

Think back to your own school days and the things you enjoyed doing. Perhaps you were


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responsible for feeding the pets or maybe you liked drawing pictures. Whatever it was, the chances are that it is related in some way to something you are doing now, as a natural part of your life, even if you are not doing it in the same way. At their core, the things we really like do not change over time.

Happiness therefore comes from the things we do, not the statuses we attain.

So here's what that means for your kids--or even for you.


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They'll know themselves better.

Asking "what do you want to do" requires you to figure out who you really are.

Focusing on what you want to be, on the other hand--a teacher, or a doctor, or a football player, for example--tells you much less. That makes it much easier to wind up confusing what you want to do with what other people want you to do.

They'll control their labels.

It's too easy to reply to the "be" question" with a job title or an occupation, without truly understanding how those people spend their time. Answering the "do" question requires you to abandon labels, and just get at the core activities.

Ask the state bar association who I am for example, and they'll tell you I'm a lawyer--even though I haven't actually practiced law in


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a decade. Ask them what I do with my days however, and they won't have a clue.

They'll find obvious but hidden truths.

In her book, Kondo describes herself as having been flat-out obsessed with organizing and cleaning, even as a very young child. However, if you asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she'd only say that she wanted to get married someday.

It never occurred to her that she could make a career out of the thing she loved doing most--tidying--until after she already had a waiting list of clients and even a couple of bestselling books under her belt.

They'll thrive in a changing world.

Who do you think turned out to be happier and more successful--the young man who 20 years ago decided he absolutely wanted to be a


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newspaper reporter, or the young woman who decided she wanted to write?

Focusing on how she wanted to spend her days, rather than the title or even the industry, makes it more likely she's been able to adapt, and therefore become successful and happy.


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~5~

7 Things to Do Each Day If You Want to Raise Happy and Successful Kids I'm like, a dozen years away from being dad to a teenager, but I was drawn to Christie Halverson's piece about raising teenagers--published a couple of years ago on her blog and more recently on Upworthy. (Plus, I work for what's probably the most influential parenting brand on digital media, and I know a good story when I read it.)


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Her advice closely hews to the best practices we see for leaders in all kinds of contexts. Whether you're a parent yourself, or just think you might become one someday, it's worth checking out. Here are the seven key things she says she's learned to do in order to be a good parent of teenagers.

1. Let your kids know they're loved, "fiercely."

It all starts with love. In fact--spoiler alert--most of the best leadership advice is rooted in love as well. "Love everything about them, even the annoying stuff. Love them for their actions AND their intentions," Halverson says.

"Let them know in word and deed how much you adore them. Daily. Love their wrinkled


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shirts and Axe-body-spray-covered selves. Love their bad handwriting and pimpled cheeks. Love their scattered brains and long limbs."

2. Listen and pay attention.

Much as a respected boss pays attention and listens to his or her employees, Halverson says a successful parent of teenagers has to do the same thing.

"When they walk in the door after school, you have a precious few minutes that they will divulge the secrets of their day with you. Be excited to see them," she writes. "Look them in the eye and hear what they are saying. Make their victories your victories. Be empathetic. . Don't lecture. Just listen."

3. Say yes more often than no.

Be a bastion of positivity--which can improve outcomes and happiness.


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"For the rest of their lives, they will be swimming in a stormy sea with wave-after-wave of 'you're not good enough' and 'you can't do this' crashing down on their heads. If nothing else, I want to be the opposite voice in their lives for as long as I can," she says.

4. Yet--say no often.

Kids need their parents to act like adults, and to save them from their own excesses.

"You need to say no to experiences and situations that will set your child up for harm or unhappiness. Don't let them go to the parties where they will be forced to make a choice at age 16 in front of their peers about alcohol. Don't let them stay out until three in the morning with a member of the opposite sex. Be the parent," she writes.

5. Take care of their physical well-being.


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Okay I admit--that's not precisely what Halverson says. Instead, she's focused on one particular physical need: food.

"Feed them. A lot. And not only them, but their friends, too," Halverson writes. "These bodies are growing and developing at an astonishing rate, and need fuel to do so ... When their friends know your pantry is stocked to the gills with treats, they will beg your kid to hang out at your place. This allows you to, not only meet and know their friends, but to keep an eye on your teen, as well. Make your house the fun house."

6. Don't worry too much.

How often does worry about stuff actually help achieve a positive outcome?

"Don't sweat the small stuff," Halverson says. "[B]efore you open your mouth to yell at them, put yourself in their shoes. Find out about their day first. Maybe they are feeling beaten


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down, and they just need to unwind for a minute and tell you about it. Maybe they're tired from all that growing, learning, working, and hormone-ing. If you waste your chance and yell at them about the backpack or shoes or [insert every other possession they own], they will not open up to you."

7. Have faith.

Or as Halverson puts it: "Stand back and watch the magic happen. If you let them, these glorious creatures will open their hearts and love you more fiercely than you could possibly imagine. ... They are just about the greatest gift that God gave to parents."


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~6~

9 Things Moms Say That Can Make You Really Successful in Business Want to know who knows a lot about what it takes to be successful? Your mom.

My company runs Scary Mommy, one of the most successful and popular digital properties for American moms. I've worked with some truly incredible mom entrepreneurs as a result. Among them: Galyn Bernard and Christina Carbonell, cofounders of startup kids clothing company Primary.


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Since launching last year, Bernard and Carbonell (former execs at Quidsi (parent of Diapers.com), Harvard MBAs, and mothers-of-two) have built a direct-to-consumer brand offering over 50 styles for babies and kids.

They've got thousands of happy customers, and 45,000 Facebook fans following their story. Not bad for a startup trying to get a foothold in a $30 billion industry.

We've worked together mainly because my company runs a marketing promotion with Primary offering discounts on kids clothing, and we've talked about what it takes to build a company while raising a family. Their advice? It often sounds like the smart things moms say to their kids all the time. Here are 9 key examples:


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1. "Be yourself."

Entrepreneurs see the world differently from other people. Bernard and Carbonell understood that. But they said they learned in their first six months "about going all in on who we are, even if it meant being a bit polarizing."

Carbonell told me: "Our initial instinct was to play it a bit safe and not alienate anyone, so we avoided provocative statements about what we believe in and why we started the business. We quickly learned that the opposite was much more effective at attracting like-minded people who really dug our concept."

2. "Don't let it bother you."

If you try to start a business (never mind change the world), be prepared to hear the word "no" a lot of the time. You face a ton of rejection and naysayers.


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"Is it hard to be a woman starting a company? What's it like to be a mom entrepreneur? It's hard to be an entrepreneur, period," Bernard said. "You have to have a thick skin. We laugh at the occasional misguided question we get -- things like, "Are you sure you want to start a company when you have little kids?" or, "Are your husbands funding you?" (For the record, no.)

3. "Play nice."

Don't confuse this with being a pushover--it's just that it's often more effective to build relationships than it is to steamroll people to get things done.

"It's so interesting to us that some people think you have to be an ass to be effective," Carbonell said. "It's just about having empathy--being able to read the nuances of a situation or a person's feelings, and finding the best way to communicate. You can disagree.


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You can be direct. You just don't have to be a jerk about it."

4. "Don't be afraid to depend on people."

There is virtually no such thing as a successful one-person show--especially in business.

"Succeeding in business is about building an awesome team more than it is about having a good idea. We've hired people who have turned out to be amazing superstars well beyond their experience," Bernard said. "We also feel strongly about having a partner you've worked with before. We worked together at Quidsi for years and knew we could trust and rely on each other through all the ups and downs - and still want to have a beer together at the end of the day."

5. "Choose your friends carefully."

At the same time, don't depend on people who aren't dependable. Sometimes, that means


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making do with a smaller team until you find the right people.

"It takes patience. For instance, growing our tech team didn't happen as quickly as planned" during 2015, Carbonell said. "But from past experience, we know it's worth it to be patient and hold out for the right people--the right talent, but even more importantly the right culture fit. Passion and optimism are critical things for us."

6. "Don't give up!"

Just before their first major photo shoot last year, highlighting their products for their website, the New York City area was hit by a major snowstorm. They were relying on friends and family to help them, but traveling was almost impossible--and their photographer, who was from Los Angeles, was running out of time.


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"We had to drive in the snow to the UPS center to pick up the last 10 styles, and then beg the photographer to jam through what felt like one million photos on the last day. And thanks to Taylor Swift on repeat and a LOT of Sour Patch Kids, we managed to keep the kids smiling until the end of the day!" Bernard told me.

7. "Work hard."

There's no such thing as "not my job" in a startup. Whether you need someone to learn digital marketing, hook up a phone system, or clean up the glasses from last night's office happy hour, if it needs to be done, the founders have to do it.

"We're a small team, and our day-to-day is filled with roll-up-your-sleeves work, down to the smallest details like setting up the furniture, managing our inventory, and executing our marketing," Carbonell said. "We joke about our 'departments' as in "My


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marketing department thinks X" which just means I think that. If you're not scrappy, or think you're above certain work, a startup probably isn't for you."

8. "Nobody's perfect. Do your best."

There's no such thing as perfect--but that's okay, because in a startup things don't actually have to be perfect. The important thing is to focus on constantly improving.

"A disappointed customer is the hardest thing. We put a huge emphasis on great customer service, and we keep working hard to improve all the time. We listen very carefully to feedback from our customers. We have about 642 happiest moments though--and every one of them is a note we got from a customer who had a great experience with us," Bernard said.


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9. "Kick ass."

Kicking ass means focusing on what you do and doing that thing very well--not letting up, and not veering off into a million other interesting things that might also be really cool. This might be the most important lesson for succeeding in business, Carbonell told me.

"Primary offers a line of basic clothing for babies and kids in the U.S.," she said. That's a big enough challenge. "At least for the moment, we're not going international. We're not going into other categories. We're not publishing a book we have a really good concept for. ... For the moment, we are just going to try to be the very best place for busy parents to shop for awesome basic clothing for babies and kids."


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~7~

How to Raise Highly Successful Kids: 7 Questions to Ask Every Day

You want to be successful and independent. We all do.

When you have kids, though, it's funny how quickly your aspirations become all about them. What will they do in life? Will they be happy and successful?


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(It's already my experience just six months into this being a father thing.)

Dr. Leonard Sax is a forceful and controversial pediatrician with a national reach. In his new book, The Collapse of Parenting, he spells out several things parents need to do every day to have truly successful kids. Here are seven questions to ask yourself every day (I added two of my own).

1. Do my kids know that I love them?

Everything else flows from this. It's why you care more about their success than your own. It's tricky, though--this doesn't mean simply telling them each day (although that's a good idea), and it certainly doesn't mean giving in to their every whim.

Instead, it's all about honesty and maturity. Can you honestly say that when they're 20 or 30 or 40 or more, they'll recognize that you do


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what you do because you always want the best for them?

2. Am I acting like a parent?

You want to treat your kids like adults so they'll behave like adults--but kids by definition aren't adults. Yet it seems a lot of parents, in the hope of respecting their kids' choices and encouraging them to make decisions, wind up stepping aside and meekly letting their children make adult decisions.

"It's not about the abdication of authority," says Sax, citing the example he's seen of parents who allow their 8-year-old children to make the final decision about what school they should attend. "I know of cases where the kid was clearly making the wrong decision, and the parents knew it but nevertheless felt completely powerless to overrule their child. The child is the one who suffers."


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3. Am I in charge of their technology?

You want your kids to learn to turn problems into opportunities. When they're immature, however, they're likely to turn opportunities into trouble--and in the 21st century, there's probably no bigger minefield than personal technology. We're not just talking about kids stumbling into the netherworlds of the internet and seeing things that are clearly inappropriate; we're also talking about the sheer addiction to screens that even adults succumb to.

"You now find kids at 10, 12, 14, 16 years of age who have their phone in their bedroom at two (o'clock) in the morning," Sax says. "No child should have a phone in their bedroom unsupervised. That's not just my opinion. That is the official teaching of the American Academy of Pediatrics ... You would be astonished, or maybe you wouldn't be, how many parents find that an impossible


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recommendation. They feel that they have no authority over their child in many domains."

4. Do my children have my full attention?

We all have a lot of things going on. The fact that you're reading this column on Inc.com tells me you probably want to change the whole world--or at least plant a flag in your little corner of it. Yet kids often need you to set those ambitions aside to simply spend time with them.

Rule number one, according to Sax? Eat dinner together every single day.

"By communicating that time at home as a family is our highest priority, you are sending the message that family matters," he says. "So many kids are in the race to nowhere, trying to add things on to their résumé through extracurricular activities with no sense of why. They just burn out at 15 years of age."


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(Related: No earbuds in the car. "That time in the car is precious," says Sax. "The time in the car is for you to listen to your child and your child to listen to you.")

5. Am I praising them for things that are praiseworthy?

I was overcome with pride when I watched my baby daughter find her pacifier in her crib and put it back in her mouth by herself. That said, I know I'm setting the bar a bit low with that--the point is to offer support all the time, but offer real praise when it's warranted.

"The first thing is to teach humility," Sax says, because so many kids have "been indoctrinated in their own awesomeness with no understanding of how this culture of bloated self-esteem leads to resentment."


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6. Am I demonstrating a healthy respect for money?

Money is important. Even Bernie Sanders would agree with that. Having it opens a world of choices; not having it forecloses opportunity. But is money more important than everything else? Hint: The world's most successful people don't think so.

"Teach the meaning of life," Sax says. "It cannot be just about getting a good job. It's not just about achievement. It's about who you are as a human being. You must have an answer."

7. Am I letting them be kids?

All of this said, kids are kids, and they should have the opportunity to play, grow, and develop like kids. They're not hard-wired to be focused on success all the time. They're not stressed out about whether they're happy enough (like many adults are).


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A quote from Thomas Jefferson is instructive here: "We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists."

You don't want your kids to be tied up with the same challenges you are--and you certainly don't want them to face their own challenges at too young an age. So ask yourself: Am I able to follow my kids' lead on finding what's important? Am I willing to learn from them?


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~8~

6 Secret Habits of Highly Successful Millennials Nine hours of sleep per night. It sounds like a lot--like a dream, no pun intended. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it's par for the course for Millennials. The folks at SelfStorage.com were intrigued by that statistic and a few others that set the current generation apart from GenXers and


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Boomers. So, they put together an infographic highlighting some of the habits that make Millennials more successful. It's a short list--just six items--but it's intriguing.

1. They sleep a lot.

Here's the stat that started it all: Millennials sleep eight hours and 53 minutes per night on average, according to the Census Bureau. That's way more than previous generations--and certainly more than the seven hours and change that older adults average.

2. They throw their arms around technology.

You know this part, but research confirms it: They've grown up with technology and they're eager to adopt whatever comes next. About 74 percent of Millennials say technology makes them feel more connected and makes their lives easier.


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3. They want to be their own bosses.

They don't mind working for others as long as they're learning, contributing to a worthy goal, and developing their skills. Fully two-thirds of Millennials, however, say they ultimately want to start their own businesses.

4. They're focused on keeping daily activities in line with strategic goals.

Sure, they care about money--but they're used to the idea that they might not make as much as their parents did. Thus, they value other things more. For example, a third of Millennials report that "social media freedom" is more important to them than their bottom-line salaries.

5. They multitask like it's going out of style.

Here's an almost unbelievable stat: Millennials reportedly "switch media venues 27 times per non-working hour," and they're more able to


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process information quickly than older peers (again, because they've been doing it since they were in diapers).

6. They are totally cool with the 24-hour work schedule.

The flipside of valuing flexibility is that Millennials don't mind being plugged into work 24 hours per day--as long as they can do it from wherever they want to be. Nine out of 10 Millennials say they have have no problem checking work email on their phones outside of work hours, and 77 percent say that having flexible work hours makes them ultimately more productive.


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~9~

17 Daily Habits My Dad Insists Will Make You Happier and More Successful The other day my dad sent me an email with the subject line, "YOUR COLUMN." (My dad is sometimes big on all-caps.) It began:

Bill: In the tradition of 12 step programs and your excellent columns, I offer the following for your use, adaptation, or rejection.


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My dad (Bill Murphy Sr., if you're doing the genealogical math) has enjoyed business success as a lawyer who built his own firm, and who has worked for himself since the early 1970s. He and my mom raised five kids together, and they're still going strong. They're devoted to their grandchildren, and moreover my dad is a man who enjoys both his work and the rest of his life. In fact, as I read his email, it occurred to me that he's achieved many of the things that younger people tell me are among their goals in life. (Of course, I've been too close to realize it.)

My dad went on to offer four daily habits, each of which made great sense to me, and which I know he's backed up with experience.


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However, I also know my dad well enough to realize that offering only four pieces of advice isn't exactly his nature, so I racked his brain. Here's what we came up with.

1. Carpe diem.

You know that this is Latin for "seize the day," right? This is the first daily habit on my dad's list. No matter how yesterday went-whether you had great triumphs or whether you wish you'd spent the whole day in bed, remember that every new day is a new opportunity. You can't rest on yesterday's accomplishments, and you never have to repeat yesterday's mistakes.

2. Spend as much time as you can with the people you love.

Your spouse, your kids, your parents, your close friends-whoever they are-make sure that


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you find lots of time to spend time with the people you truly care about. If you want to feel really guilty about this, check out the calculator at seeyourfolks.com, which will calculate how many more times you're likely to see your parents based on past experience and life expectancy. (We'll wait here while you go give them a call afterward.) 3. At the same time, love the ones you're with.

There are many different kinds of love, and here my dad is talking about showing respect and concern for the people you spend your days with. "That is simply, love everyone," is how my dad put it, and he added a quote from Thomas Merton:

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another."


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4. Work hard.

You can't always determine what you get out of something, but you can often control what you put into it.

When I was growing up and I'd be anxious over some school assignment or other project, my dad would usually ask me the same question afterward: "Did you give it your best shot? Then forget about it."

5. At the end of the day, go home.

This one seems simple, until you start to realize how most of us are almost 100% on and accessible all the time now. Now, I'm not going to pretend that either my dad or I truly live up to this advice, but it's a good goal to have.

6. Later, go to bed.

"Get the rest you need. Your body needs sleep-not just 'rest and relaxation'-for it to work well," my dad insists. He's right of course-and


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it's even become fashionable to admit that people need sleep.

7. Get some exercise.

My dad's sport is swimming, and while he came to it late, my dad has the zeal of a convert. A few years ago he did a half-mile open water swim off the beach in Narragansett, R.I. Regardless of what sport or activity works for you, my dad advises, your day will be improved if you do something athletic. Science backs him up.

8. Have a little faith.

As a lawyer-the kind of lawyer who takes on real clients and tries real cases in court-dad has pretty much seen it all. He also has stronger religious (Catholic) faith than most people I know, perhaps in part because he's had his faith tested in many ways. It helps immensely


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if you believe in something bigger than yourself.

9. Learn another language.

My dad studied ancient Greek and Latin in high school. More recently, in his 60s, he decided to try to learn Farsi. Whether you're literally learning another language or simply learning how to do new things and to challenge your preconceptions, the lesson is clear: Keep learning.

10. Read every day.

In a few weeks, guess what I'll get my dad for Father's Day: a book, most likely something on the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller lists. It's what I've been doing for decades, so why stop now? I can't think of many people I've known who read more than my dad. Importantly, he usually reads about things that have nothing to do with his work.


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11. Keep your wardrobe simple.

My dad gave me this advice years ago when I first started working-so of course I completely ignored it at the time. However, had I gone ahead as he'd suggested and bought a handful of white and blue shirts, for example, and worn them every day, it would have been one fewer decision to have to make in the morning. It looks like that kind of simplification worked for Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, anyway.

12. Shine your shoes.

Shined shoes make you stand out these days, because most people are so casual. You can probably substitute something else for this habit. Just pick things that advertise to the world that you take care of small things. So maybe you also take care of bigger things.

By the way, here's a text from my dad a few hours before this column ran:


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"Just read it again. On point 11, change 'one less decision' to 'one fewer decision.' Your grammar is wrong. Then, point out this message as an example of point 12."

13. Tell the people you love that you love them.

Hey, we're back to love. Don't just spend time with the people you love, as advised back in No. 2. Make sure you actually tell them that you love them. For example, when I talk to my dad, he'll tell me to tell my wife that he loves her. Unnecessarily but amusingly, he'll add that I should be sure to mention that he means he loves her "appropriately."


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14. Don't worry.

This is one of those do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do pieces of advice, as my dad is in fact pretty good at worrying about things. That said, worrying rarely improves the odds of good things happening, and can actually diminish those odds.

15. Be kind to animals.

My dad has had dogs since he was little. He treats animals well. His advice? If you want to treat a dog well, treat it like a dog. Don't try to make it into something it isn't, and doesn't want to be (for example, a little human being). Help it become the best possible version of itself.

16. Find good assistants.

For many years, my father had the same, excellent secretary. He taught me long ago that even during the times when you're working by


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yourself, you have to be willing to depend on others for help. The most productive people in the world often succeed because they refuse to do some things.

17. Repeat as needed.

This is perhaps the most important bit of advice on my dad's list, so it's fitting to have saved it for last. None of these items are actions so much as they are behaviors. The first time you commit to them, you won't see results. Over a lifetime, however, they can greatly improve your life. Aristotle put it best: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit."


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~10~

11 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders: A U.S. Marine Corps Officer Shares the Secrets My brother Jim Murphy was in college when he announced he was joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He went to officer candidate school, and became an infantry officer and a platoon and company commander. Ultimately, he led Marines during the invasion of Iraq.


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He came home safely (thank God), got an MBA--and surprised us all again by becoming an executive at big toy companies like Mattel and Activision Blizzard. Recently, he became an entrepreneur and launched his own company: INVICTA Challenge, which makes mobile games, comics and toys about American heroes in history. He's my younger brother, but he's a leader--and I doubt I would have later joined the military myself if it weren't for his example. (Don't tell him I said that, though.)

With the Marine Corps Birthday just around the corner, I asked him to help me share some of his insights on things great leaders know--expressed in the aphorisms I've heard him and other Marine officers say many times.


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1. "Fortune favors the bold."

This is a cooler way of saying that you make your own luck. If you really want to add some gravitas, say it in Latin like Virgil did: "Audentis Fortuna Iuvat." It means that true leaders have a bias for action. The act of moving forward itself can often improve your odds of success.

2. "Pain is only weakness leaving the body."

We have a million of these sayings: "Up the hill, f*ck the hill." Or, "Travel light; freeze at night." It's all about sucking it up when you're faced with tough physical challenges, because going way past your comfort level is part of how you build real mental toughness.

3. "Break glass in case of war."

This is the saying we use to describe Marines who are always in trouble in garrison, but who turn out to be indispensable and brave in war.


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In civilian life, it's a reminder that everybody has something to contribute. Sometimes, they need the help of a great and selfless leader to bring it out.

4. "Hard training saves lives."

A lot of Marine Corps training is fun, but when it's not fun--well, my God. We don't just push ourselves to the limits for the sake of masochism, though. We understand that the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war.

5. "Semper Gumby"

The official Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis--always faithful. However the unofficial motto is probably "Semper Gumby," meaning, always flexible.


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6. "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."

This was Colin Powell's quote, and he was in the U.S. Army--but whatever. The point is that if you can make yourself believe you can accomplish something, just like that you've improved your odds of being successful.

Finding humor in even the most difficult situations makes this a lot easier.

7. "Indecision kills."

This is another of those concepts that's so important that Marines have a lot of different aphorisms to communicate it. Standing there with your mouth hanging open, waiting for someone else to decide for you, usually leads to bad things. That's true in combat, and in life.

8. "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

People often react to crazy stuff in one of two ways: Freeze or charge. The better course is to be disciplined enough to move smartly,


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smoothly, and deliberately. Think smooth--and you'll be way more efficient than the people around you who are spazzing out.

9. "A good plan now is better than the perfect plan too late."

Dwight Eisenhower once said, "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensible," and that's true--but there comes a time when it's time to act. Momentum is its own reward; besides, no battle plan actually survives first contact with the enemy (and no business plan survives contact with the market).

10. "Service over self."

As a leader, you wind up with both privileges and responsibilities -- but the biggest thing you need to remember is that it's really not about you. Instead, your organization is about the people you lead. The classic manifestation of this is that in the Marines, leaders only eat after


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everyone else has. That tradition reminds us, and sets the tone.

11. "What would Chesty Puller think?"

Every Marine learns our history and traditions. Chesty Puller was one of the most heroic Marines--awarded the nation's second-highest awards for valor six times (five Navy Crosses, plus the Army's Distinguished Service Cross).

This rhetorical question is about making sure the current Marine Corps lives up to his standard. You can adapt it easily to civilian leadership. Think of your mentors and heroes: What would they think of the way you're leading your team?


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~11~

7 Amazing Kid Entrepreneurs Who Will Make You Think, Man What Was I Doing at Their Age? One of the recurring themes you find when you interview thousands of entrepreneurs is that many of them started as little kids.


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Years ago you'd hear stories about paper routes and selling t-shirts; more recently you hear about kids who become web developers or power sellers on eBay.

Here are seven such kids whose stories are both inspiring and kinda amazing--and who frankly represent hundreds or even thousands of others just like them.

These are kid entrepreneurs who launched businesses and even turned profits and hired employees before they were old enough to drive--in some cases, before they were old enough to see a rated PG-13 movie.

1. Sebastian Martinez, 5, Are You Kidding

At 7 years old, Martinez has already spent two years working on his company, Are You Kidding, which sells specialty socks.


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"We have been able to already reach the $15,000 that we made last year and are on track to double and hopefully triple our sales this year," his mother Rachel Martinez (the company president) told CNBC.

2. Lily Born, 8 Kangaroo Cups

Now 11, Born developed a three-legged drinking cup, intending that people who have Parkinson's disease (like her grandfather) could use it without worrying about spilling. She raised a little over $6,000 on Kickstarter to put it into production.

"This campaign is not just about bringing a product to production," Lily's father wrote. "it is about sending a message to every parent and every kid with an invention (which is just about every kid) that ... dream can be made real."

3. Ryan Kelly, 10, Ryan's Barkery


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One of the youngest entrepreneurs ever to appear on Shark Tank, Kelly got Barbara Corcoran to invest $25,000 in his dog treats business, Ryan's Barkery. As of this writing, at least the website is still live. "I always loved business," Ryan says, "I had lemonade stands, sold Halloween candy on the bus, I even rented my sneakers to my brother once! I got the idea for the dog treats when we got our dog, Barkley."

4. Mikaila Ulmer, 8, BeeSweet Lemonade

At 4 years old, Mikaila was stung by bees twice, and as she grew older they became a subject she would often research. Now she's selling lemonade to raise money to combat the extinction of honeybees.

"I found out how incredibly important pollinators they are, and that they were dying," Mikaila said. "And I decided to create a product that helped save the bees."


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5. Moziah Bridges, 13 Mo's Bows

Moziah Bridges has made about $165,000 designing bow ties that his mom--the company's chief executive and salesperson--sews and sells.

"We're like fire and ice," he says of working with his mother. "But at the end of the day, we come up with a good solution."

6. Robert Nay, 14, Naygames.com

Nay's first iPhone game, Bubble Ball, required him to write 4,000 lines of code and was downloaded more than two million times within two weeks of its launch. The game knocked the monster hit ''Angry Birds'' out of the number 1 most downloaded free game spot in the Apple app store.

His startup costs: $1,200 from his parents to buy a new Macbook and software licenses. 7. Farrhad Acidwalla, 13, Rockstah Media


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Four years ago, starting with $10 that his parents gave him, Acidwalla, who lives in India, built an online community devoted to aviation and aero-modeling.

He sold it for $1,200 to a fan. Then he took part of his profit and launched an app development company that now employs 42 people.

''Taking initiative is the most important step, so long as it is backed by hard work and dedication,'' he told CNN.


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~12~

The Most Important Success and Happiness Rules You Can Learn From My Mom Recently, my column 17 Daily Habits My Dad Insists Will Make You Happier and More Successful was one of the most popular articles on Inc. This was very gratifying both to me and to my dad, whose words of wisdom inspired the article.


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It got me thinking, though: My siblings and I have also learned a lot of success happiness lessons from my mom, too. So, just in time for Mother's Day, I reached out to my four brothers and sisters and asked them to help me compile a list of the best life lessons we've learned from her.

We had quite a few of them. However, I realized that there was one item on the list that was so simple, direct, and yet profound that it's worth an entire column.

Our mom has said this advice often, in two different but related ways. We heard it while we were growing up, and still do now that we're all adults and my parents have become grandparents.

So, with her permission, I'm focusing this entire article on that one piece of advice (said


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in both ways). If you can follow my mom's precepts, I guarantee that you'll be happier and more successful in life.

"Be in the driver's seat."

Just about every time I went out with friends during high school, my mom would tell me on the way out: "Be in the driver's seat." She meant this literally, figuring that I was a careful kid, a decent driver, and that I didn't drink alcohol or the like. My friends were good people, but she didn't know them the way she knew me.

However, she also meant this figuratively: Control your own destiny. Don't let other people make your choices for you, in matters big and small. This applies in just about every circumstance I can imagine:


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• Don't let someone else choose your career.

• Don't let someone else choose your friends.

• Don't settle in your relationships.

• Don't choose your fashions and passions just

because "everybody else does it."

We're social beings, and so this isn't always easy.

Sometimes it seems we're hardwired to seek approval, to be insecure, and to follow the crowd. Nobody adheres to this advice all the time, but the more you do, the happier and more successful you'll be.


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"Remember who comes first."

Fast-forward to college, when I spent my summers working as a lifeguard. (Thank God I'm just old enough to have missed the generation where everything has to be a résumé-building experience.)

I liked the job a lot. We got to be outside all day in the summer, and the pay wasn't bad.

For the last few years that I did this, my brother and I worked at a lake in a state park that could be quite chaotic. Swimmers actually got into trouble, and we made rescues. Eventually, I got promoted to captain, supervising all the other college kids. We even had a motorboat. It was like a low-rent version of the old TV show Baywatch.


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Every morning on the way out the door, my mom offered the same parting words of advice: "Remember who comes first."

She wasn't telling us to be self-centered but reminding us that if you don't take care of yourself first, you're probably not going to be of much use to anyone. I think of this every time I'm on an airplane now, when the flight attendants say that if there's an emergency, you should put on your own pressurized air mask before helping someone else.

Of course, the irony about my mom offering this great advice over and over is that she doesn't really live it herself. Having raised three sons and two daughters, she certainly doesn't put herself first. Happy Mother's Day to her--and to all the moms reading this!


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~13~

Want to Raise Super Wealthy Kids? Conceive Them Before May 14. We've talked before about how to raise resilient kids, and even how Mark Zuckerberg's father says he raised a super-successful entrepreneur. But this advice about raising successful kids is on another level entirely.

A British website called Gocompare, which offers a tool to compare insurance


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rates, analyzed the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people over the past 20 years. They found some amusing statistics--the percentage of billionaires who wear glasses, for example--and some more serious ones, like the average net worth of those whose wealth is self-made. You can check out some of their findings here. One that popped out at me however, was Zodiac signs. It turns out that a plurality of the wealthiest people on the lists, they found, happened to have been born under the sign of Aquarius.

Cute, right? I mean, one of the signs has to be number one.

But then we broke down the numbers a little more.


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Do rich people have earlier birthdays?

When you account for the unequal distribution of birthdays, 22.5% percent of those on the lists were either Aquarians or Capricorns--born between December 22 and February 28. (If the distribution of birthdays were uniform, each Zodiac sign would account for about 8.3%.)

So: 22.5% versus an expected combined 16.6%. How do we explain the difference? Is their future foretold in the stars? Is it all pure chance?

Maybe. But if you're like me, perhaps you started thinking about the bestselling book Outliers, from a few years back, by Malcolm Gladwell.

One of the most-repeated vignettes from that book is about the fact that a disproportionate number of elite professional hockey players


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apparently share a birthday in the first few months of the year.

Hockey leagues and school cut-offs

Gladwell's explanation? Canadian youth hockey leagues have a January 1 age cutoff.

Thus, the earlier in the year a player is born, the older he is relative to the other kids he plays against. He's likely to be one of the better players on his team, just because he's older--bigger and more mature. Thus, he winds up getting more coaching, more special attention, and more playing time.

Eventually, he winds up becoming a better player than his peers, as a result.

So, let's apply this to the list of the wealthiest people. It's trickier than the hockey example, to be sure. It's by no means a straight line from birth date to net worth.


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And--a big caveat--to my knowledge the data didn't break out those people on the list who were self-made, versus those who inherited their wealth.

That said, schools have to apply similar age cutoffs. Maybe in some systems the cutoff date is January 1; in others it might be September 1. Regardless, across all schools, kids with birthdays in January or early February are likely to be among the oldest in their classes as they grow up.

Result? It's at least plausible that children under the signs of Aquarius or Capricorn are more likely to be slightly older than their school year peers.

It's not a stretch to conclude that maybe something similar to the hockey players happens. They're born earlier, so they're a little more mature. They're treated like leaders. Things might come to them a little


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easier in school, on average--just because they've had more time to grow up than their schoolmates.

Why are you still here?

It's all just a theory of course. But if you were to put some stock in it, maybe you start doing some gestational math... and think a little about family planning.

We tend to think of the human gestation period as nine months, but to be more accurate, it's 40 weeks--or 280 days. The first day of the Capricorn-Aquarius period is December 22. What date happens to be 280 days before December 22?

So… Get off the computer, my friend. Put away your phone. You've got more important things to do. Your future children's net worth might depend on it.


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~14~

This Man Retired and Gave Up $13 Million Because He Can't Bring His Son to Work All the Time

Is Adam LaRoche a hero for putting his family first, or a fool?

Almost every day last year, LaRoche, a first baseman and designated hitter for the Chicago White Sox, took his then 13-year-old son,


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Drake, with him to work. He was there with him at U.S. Cellular Field, where the White Sox play their home games. He even went with them on road trips.

(What about school, you might ask? I certainly did. The LaRoches reportedly had an arrangement with their kids' school--Drake has a younger sister--to allow them to travel with their dad.)

Apparently, nobody minded. Or at least nobody put up a fight. The White Sox even seemed to think it was cute. They gave Drake his own locker next to his dad's, and the younger LaRoche would spend his days snagging fly balls in practice, running errands for other players, and heeding his dad's advice to be helpful and stay out of everyone's way.

This year however, a few weeks before opening day, the White Sox decided they'd had


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enough, and asked LaRoche to "dial back" how often his son was around the team.

"I asked Adam, said, 'Listen, our focus, our interest, our desire this year is to make sure we give ourselves every opportunity to focus on a daily basis on getting better. All I'm asking you to do with regard to bringing your kid to the ballpark is dial it back,'" White Sox president Ken Williams told reporter Ken Rosenthal. "I don't think he should be here 100 percent of the time - and he has been here 100 percent, every day, in the clubhouse. I said that I don't even think he should be here 50 percent of the time. Figure it out, somewhere in between."

In response, LaRoche, who is the son and brother of major league baseball players himself, took his bat and ball and went home,


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so to speak. He retired from the game he's played professionally since 2004.

The current year is 2016, so he of course did so via Twitter.

As the website Deadspin put it, "this is the best baseball controversy in quite some time." And it seems the White Sox really had gone out of their way to make Drake feel welcome. Honestly, it's hard to say whether that makes their decision now more or less understandable.

One key stat might explain the whole thing, however. LaRoche is 36 years old, and hit only .207 last year with 12 home runs. In spring training this year, he batted .200.

As some commentators suggested, the White Sox might have been a little less willing to put up with his son hanging around--and more


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willing to endure a few rough days of media coverage--if it meant getting rid of a poorly performing player with a big contract.

How to Raise -...

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