If You Reach for the Stars, You Will Not Find Dirt

Over the past few days, I've had a lot of teenage patients in my practice. Each of them had their own reason for coming in, most of them had colds. The longer you stay in the water, the wetter you get. Towards the end of the week, I started reflecting on today's young people and on my own children. Although they came in because of colds and sore throats, I was trying to psychoanalyze them, to figure out whether they were doing well, whether they were emotionally stable, whether they were happy at school, and what they wanted to do with their lives. Ten minutes of conversation, however, doesn't provide the ideal setting for something like that. At the same time, the clues you can pick up are only subtle and indirect.

Unable to identify each of their exact situations, I started asking myself questions: Are they actually prepared for life? Does the education and upbringing they've received prepare them for what's coming? How was it for me? For me personally, it was a tragedy. School and the education I received at home didn't prepare me at all for life and for what came next. The only thing I was given was a set of guidelines and standards on how to behave in society. Most of them forced me to follow rules. And following those rules led me to finish medical school and have a good career. So my education and schooling trained me to function within a system, a system created by someone else for me. Why didn't I build a system myself? Why did school teach me to follow rules, and why did the rules I followed help me play football on someone else's field? Why did it never even cross my mind that I could have my own football field? It doesn't automatically mean I would have wanted that, but the thought never even crossed my mind. That's the question that has been obsessing me over the past few days.

What are young people doing today? They're at the opposite end of the spectrum. If I never even considered building something beyond the boundaries within which I was taught to function, today's young people believe they can build absolutely anything. Just last night, I watched a video on a French YouTube channel where high school students were being asked what they wanted to do with their lives and how much they thought they would earn as adults. Look at the answers they gave. Judge for yourselves whether their expectations are realistic or not.

“I'd like to become a psychiatrist. €15,000 a month.”

“I want to do a PhD. €15,000–20,000.”

“I want to go to fashion school. In terms of salary, I'd like to earn around €10,000 a month.”

“I want to do business, commerce, Shopify, and things like that. Salary-wise, I want to make €10,000 a month, even more.”

“I don't know exactly what job I want, but something in commerce. At the beginning, as a student, I think €2,000. After that, more. I'm aiming for €10,000.”

“I want to be a TikToker, like you guys, and easily make €50,000. — Per year or per month? — Per month. Cash.”

“I'd like to be a stylist, interior decorator, journalist, or lawyer. I'd like to earn between €3,000 and €5,000 so I can live in Paris.”

Social media, where everyone posts their own version of success, is nothing more than an illusion. Most of the wannabe millionaires online aren't actually millionaires. A picture in a luxury restaurant or next to an expensive car means nothing to me. But there may be teenagers who are influenced by things like that. And that's how the reality they live in becomes distorted. They end up believing that a stylist earns €5,000. In France, that's a doctor's salary. “I want to do a PhD.” €20,000 a month from a PhD? First of all, I don't think she even understood that she needs a field and a profession first, and only then can she pursue a doctorate in almost anything. You can do a doctorate in medicine, pharmacy, engineering, and so on. But because she doesn't yet have a clear direction and can't even name the field she wants to gravitate towards, it's obvious that she has no idea what she wants to do.

These examples clearly show that at least some of today's young people aren't prepared for tomorrow's adult life. To be fair, neither was I at their age. I probably didn't have dreams quite as unrealistic as theirs because, back in my day, I wasn't seeing every influencer on the planet on Instagram. And if I did have unrealistic dreams, I was most likely afraid to express them. I was afraid that if I said them out loud, they would sound so unrealistic that the people around me would laugh at me. What I wasn't, just like the young people above, was focused.

“If you reach for a star, you may not get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.” — Leo Burnett, considered one of the pioneers of modern advertising, founded one of the world's most important advertising agencies in Chicago.

Perhaps the only lesson we can give these young people is to reach for the stars. Even if we know they'll never get there, most of them won't lose touch with the ground, and at least they're heading in the right direction. Suddenly, we transform from people who want to laugh at these childish dreams into business trainers. If we tell them they're just dreams, we'll stop them. And why would we do that? Why would we tell a 15-year-old that it's impossible to earn €20,000 a month? Well, because we ourselves aren't capable of doing it. That's why. I can't make €50,000 a month from TikTok, so I'll say it's nonsense and that they should forget about it. They should go work at the Renault factory for €2,000 a month instead. And that's how we adults sabotage tomorrow's generation. We break their wings before they even realize they can actually fly.

What if we didn't do that? What if we changed the way we adults interact with young people so that we actually support them? “Daddy, I want to earn €1,000 a day as a ballerina.” What if we helped them by asking constructive questions? “That's a very good target. How would you do that? Do you need to attend ballet school? Who is your audience? Where would that money come from? Advertising? Tickets? Private lessons? Brand endorsements? Who would pay that much for you? If someone paid you €1,000 a day, that would mean you'd be bringing €2,000 a day into their business. So what exactly would your role be in someone else's business?”

“You want to do business on Shopify and earn €10,000 a month? Who would buy from you? What would you sell? What profit margins would you have? Why would people buy from you instead of someone else? Could you generate consistent income or only seasonal income? Would it be easy for someone to copy your idea? How would your business model change the way things currently work?”

The more questions we ask them, the more we make them think. The problem is that adults, parents in general, don't have time to play these kinds of games. In the end, it's our fault that children aren't prepared for the future. Not because they don't know what they want. Look at the examples above. They all know what they want. But because we don't ask them the questions that need to be asked, they never learn to ask themselves the right questions. By learning to ask themselves questions, they learn to identify problems. Then, over time, by solving these problems, they realize that with enough effort, any problem can be solved. Those who are particularly business-minded realize that any big problem can be broken down into several smaller problems, and smaller problems are much easier to solve. As a side effect of all these questions comes the desire to focus. The more questions you have, the more focused you become on what you want to solve.

I had exactly this kind of exercise yesterday with a patient. She was telling me how she wanted to open her own hair salon, so we got into a deep discussion that lasted 20 minutes. “Where will it be? How much will you charge your customers? What will your expenses be? How much will you pay for rent, electricity, and staff? Why would people come to you instead of someone else? How much money do you need to start the business? How will you get that money? How long will you have to wait? Will the market change by then? Why do you think you won't give up on the idea when you're faced with hard work?” She had come in complaining about her classmates, the competition between them, teenage recklessness, and all the drama surrounding them, and she left with the idea that she needed to find a job. At the end, I asked her, “Your plan sounds incredible. But what about your rival at school? Does she still seem important to you?” “No, it's just a waste of time and energy to have conflicts with her. In a few years, it won't matter anyway. Thank you for giving me so much of your time and for talking to me.”

I see these kinds of conversations as training for my own children. Everyone benefits here. I try to understand my young patients and help them as if they were my own children, while they help me gain experience and become better and better at solving these problems. I realize more and more every day that today's young people can become focused very easily simply by asking them about their interests. How? Why? Where? Asking about everything in detail. Perhaps we adults would benefit from the same approach. When we come up with stupid ideas, instead of shutting them down, instead of immediately telling ourselves they can't be done, why don't we ask ourselves, “How can I do this?”

“If you reach for a star, you may not get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.”