I have read a very interesting review recently of a book that has just been published in the US.  The book is called “The Triple Package: How three unlikely traits explain the rise and fall of cultural groups in America”.  The book is all about how certain ethnic, religious and national origin groups do better in America than people from other groups.  While it is not generally accepted to make such statements, they have indicated how for example with Jewish people only making up 2% of the population of the United States, they still account for one-third of all the Supreme Court Judges, and about one-third of anyone who has ever won a Nobel Prize in America, let alone their dominance in industries such as Hollywood.  The book says that this is not just because this is about rich parents passing on what they know and various advantages to their children. The same can be seen in certain Mormon families as well as Indian and Chinese families and the children of Korean and Vietnamese who go to America are also exceptionally upward mobile.  

The book says that these groups all share three traits and that you need these three traits if you are to be successful.  They say that some groups, whether it is racial or religious, are better at putting those beliefs into their families than others and that is why they enjoy greater success.  Those three traits are that firstly you have to have a superiority complex – a belief that you are exceptional and that your family is exceptional. The second trait contradicts that somewhat and one needs to be insecure – a feeling that what you have done is not good enough.  The last trait is that of impulse control – the ability to resist reward now and always aiming for a bigger reward later. 

They say it is strange to think about the superiority complex and the inferiority complex together, but it is exactly that sort of unstable combination that generates the drive within a person which is so necessary to succeed and the review describes it as “… a chip on the shoulder, a goading need to prove oneself.”  It is apparently one of the many reasons that immigrants to America, or to any country, often succeed the best because they say that there is a world of difference between parents telling their children how much they love them, and they never need to worry about anything or as immigrants typically tell their children, “If you don’t do well at school, you will let down the family and end up a bum on the streets.”  Feeling superior would make you feel complacent but feeling superior with an insecurity generates what they call a longing to rise.  Drive is certainly something I should write more about because as an employer you have a front row seat noticing differences between one’s staff, a small number of whom have that insatiable drive to keep rising and many of whom are fairly complacent.