Perseverance is what will fundamentally change their view on effort, schoolwork, or a future career. But it’s often one of the hardest qualities to nurture; children or teens can quickly become discouraged or lose interest in the face of difficulty.

But notice this: when it comes to playing a video game for three hours straight just to beat a level, there’s no problem. Only, multi-contextual perseverance is much better. So, no, I’m not about to recommend video games as a method to teach this quality—because you’re likely already searching for ways to manage their screen time, which will actually be the topic of my next article. But it’s a similar concept: they need to learn the gameplay to win, although, ideally, the goal is to get them away from the screen.

Perseverance for something addictive, driven by peer pressure and many other factors, is not the same as perseverance in the face of real, prolonged challenges.

Between your teen glued to their game and a YouTuber like Inoxtag climbing Everest, the level of perseverance and effort is on a whole other level.

The solution lies in balancing delegation with an approach that flips the paradigm: they need to be the ones putting in the effort to learn from it.

Classic mantras like “You have to give it your all,” “Nothing comes easy,” or “If you think it’ll just fall into your lap…” simply don’t work, as you’ve probably noticed. We’ve been discussing this for over 20 years, and these old sayings have too much at stake; they define effort as inherently difficult. Right away, it feels like an insurmountable task, and you end up going in circles trying to motivate them.

One effective approach is to encourage them to engage in a challenging activity, ideally a sport or manual task that appeals to them. This should be something in which they’re aware of the difficulty of progressing.

The goal isn’t necessarily for them to succeed. Even failure or quitting can be a perceptual milestone. They need to experience it beyond the conceptual level.

What matters is that they come up against a challenge that requires them to gain skills to succeed, and that they understand this is necessary.

The key factor here is that they’ll need to push themselves and demonstrate perseverance. That’s the real goal.

Football, tennis, or table tennis won’t necessarily allow them to grasp difficulty in the same way, as improvement may come too quickly.

Here are two ideas, though there are many other possibilities:

1. Skateboarding: Mastering even a simple trick like the ollie (jumping the skateboard by a simple leg movement) takes hours, weeks, or even months of practice.

2. DIY Model Building: To get from assembling the car kit to actually driving it, they’ll have to go far beyond what they could achieve with a standard Lego set.

These two activities teach transferable skills that can help in other areas as well.

Their deep motivation should be respected, or they’ll likely lose interest. You have to be ready to let them quit if they find it too hard—and resist the urge to rescue them.

Remember, perseverance is learned through experience. And a bit of passion doesn’t hurt, either.

Here it is: Does a “powerful” question make any sense? NO, and I’ll explain why. This implies there are genuinely dumb questions. In everyday life, we’re all confronted with those, but in coaching… is it really a place for dumb questions?

Notice I added the word “real” — since I know people like that, I thought, well, why not… Because it all comes down to adjectives.

And this applies to all the other adjectives used to describe a question: impactful, foundational, transformative, magical, aligned… even “dumb,” and on this imaginary line, add all the others I haven’t named.

Are you being guided by someone who defines their questions with a qualifying adjective?

I suggest you take a closer look, with all due respect to your coach. If you ever find yourself thinking their question is dumb, and this happens repeatedly, then consider this: there’s a problem. Either it really is dumb, objectively and upon reflection, in which case it might be worth addressing; or it’s your perception; or you’re just uncomfortable with the question. But if it is truly dumb, maybe it’s best to find another coach.

Sometimes it might even be playful, which is a bit different, with an intro like: “I’m going to ask you a really dumb question.”

But question it just as much, if not more, when they say: “I have a powerful question to ask you.”

In my opinion, a coach shouldn’t add any value-laden element to characterize their question.

What matters above all is that the questions remain free of influence.

Each question serves the client, helping bring an important element or an insight into focus. The question is just a bridge, and the coach often doesn’t know where this bridge will lead.

At the very least, the client might have brought up the same idea with a different question.

The coach isn’t there to boast about asking questions a certain way… Even if, in some cases — which they shouldn’t show, although they’re human — they may feel everything aligns and the perfect question has just emerged to help the client realize something.

It’s clear here that simply adding the adjective “powerful” doesn’t make a question powerful; therefore, it makes no sense. What potentially makes a question powerful is what it’s meant to bring forth, and we can’t know that ahead of time.

Everything lies in the art of asking open and neutral questions.

If a coach spends time identifying and labeling certain types of questions, it raises the question of how this shapes or alters their thoughts and what they draw on daily to support you.

If a coach believes there are powerful questions and sifts through them before asking, I’m skeptical. But one thing is fairly clear to me: their line of questioning is biased by their concern for self-performance or competence rather than moving their client forward.

In short, they’re playing “I’m a top coach with powerful questions” instead of focusing on “How can I move my client forward most intelligently and effectively?”

Let’s stay focused on our client’s best interest. Let’s stay humble in our support. We’re simply a guide.

Nothing better to make you choose a coach or advisor like a soda at the convenience store. But how do we, both creators and readers, build ourselves with all these coexisting, silly, and contradictory injunctions that we’re supposed to internalize, intelligently, of course?

Storytelling in the helping relationship, combined with virtue-signaling, versus true legitimacy: a battle already lost? Let’s explore this with a bit of humor.

The goal is to play with perceptions, to wrap up successes, to elevate failures until they seem magical, celebrating diversity, uniqueness, aligning with values—or really any trending concept that’s good to use without delving too deeply into its meaning, even embracing your own contradictions. Yes, being inconsistent is actually encouraged! Isn’t that nice?

We’re also supposed to accept ourselves and show ourselves as we truly are; we must be authentic. “Authentic” as a concept is then conveniently linked—quite contradictorily—to the diktat of becoming the “best version of ourselves,” a question barely explored in depth today. But no problem, it goes down smoothly. Anyway, digging deeper bores everyone, so it’s better to stay on the surface, keep things entertaining.

Storytelling brings people together and is said to boost sales; it’s about creating a world with yourself, where even the most mundane daily life serves as the backbone for your “personal branding.” But, of course, stories run out of steam, so when there’s nothing left to say, it’s helpful to readers to recycle, rephrase, or rebrand what you’ve seen, read, or heard—without citing sources, of course, which makes it plagiarism.

Alternatively, if the solution is to reshuffle sources without questioning them, like “The Four Agreements” — highly popular with coaches for reasons that escape me — that’s not the answer either. Think critically about what you’re sharing: let’s take the third Toltec agreement, “Don’t make assumptions.” This directive is impossible since the brain, in its processes, naturally makes sensory, emotional, or cognitive inferences based on the data it has; you can’t stop it. Even dear Ruiz couldn’t escape it. It’s part of the sense-making process.

Wait, I almost forgot: it’s essential to be inspiring, convey emotions, be unique, vulnerable, impactful, and appeal to the smallest niche possible; otherwise, one isn’t credible.

It’s the transformation of a world where everything must become positive. Negativity is bad. It’s toxic. Even the word itself is unpleasant, as is contradiction. The current top ambassador of this perception-shifting trend seems to be the word “impactful.” I get mental nausea just from reading it repeatedly.

In case they don’t notice, you should tell readers how to consider what they’re reading: to be impactful, make sure you use the word in an authoritative tone in your post or article.

Sometimes, I wonder if personal development, entrepreneurship (both male and female, inclusivity is positive), social networks, etc., won’t drive a large part of the population a little mad or at least excessively demanding. Because many, even while criticizing certain aspects of this trend, seem not to see the void or connect the dots.

Excessively demanding, with potentially devastating effects on all our relationships, since if we pause for a moment and ask a simple question, doesn’t what we expect of ourselves day after day create a standard of representation we begin to expect in others?

The mechanisms of influence in storytelling are well-known, but perhaps the most dangerous aspect is this process of creating legitimacy out of nothing, or even from something false.

When empty, imaginary content holds more sex appeal and visibility than thoughts, analysis, and ideas—or even a Harvard study—hasn’t the time come to reflect?

Training, experience, ideas, method, approach, and thought have all become secondary. And yet, it’s precisely these elements that largely define the quality of support.

Internally at TikTok, they calculated that it takes 260 videos to become addicted. It is unfortunate that authors with a certain level of popularity and trust, like Fanny Nusbaum, who, regardless of her other ideas, published a post on LinkedIn (and no, I’m not going to create a backlink for this post; that would be crazy) advising her readers to embrace new trends and not to shy away from TikTok, to see what’s happening there.

I then posted a comment on this post, expressing my surprise at such advice, given the author's popularity on the platform, particularly mentioning the problem: the platform seems to be well aware of the addiction risks posed by its algorithm, to the point that it quantified the number of views needed to become addicted: 260 videos. “Thus, in less than thirty-five minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform,” concluded investigators from the state of Kentucky who had access to an internal report (source: Slate).

Finally, TikTok has been the subject of much controversy; this is nothing new.

There are some research studies that date back... which each person should delve into as they go, as links may no longer exist.

References:

• Akhtar, N., & Islam, A. (2023). Unveiling the predictors and outcomes of TikTok addiction: the moderating role of parasocial relationships. Journal of Knowledge Management, 27(5), 1245-1263. Available here: https://doi.org/10.1108/K-04-2022-0551.

• (2024). Algorithms, addiction, and adolescent mental health: An interdisciplinary study. American Journal of Law and Medicine. Available here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-law-and-medicine.

We all have that person in our close or digital circle. How do we perceive the wall that is "the other"? Whether it's reflective obscurantism or pride, isn't the inner question for many simply about not losing face? It's amusing to see how some people, in order to avoid feeling out of place, avoid feeling devalued, avoid self-questioning, or avoid admitting their errors in reasoning in front of everyone, double down on their foolishness by pretending not to see or hear. It’s the waiting room of circular communication.

But this also applies, for different reasons, to lies—whether it’s an isolated event or a pathological liar. However, the mechanism differs since the latter seeks to present themselves as better than they are.

And holding on at all costs, no longer listening, no longer responding, no longer participating in the debate—this avoidance (what we call "ignorance" today to avoid losing face) becomes their only solution.

They stick to their posture, their role, their narrative as defenders of a given issue while carefully avoiding engaging with other viewpoints or alternative reasoning on the matter—regardless of the arguments presented. It’s as if there were a real personal value at stake, as if evolving one’s thinking was a sign of being foolish.

However, this cannot advance one’s own thinking, nor inspire others, nor improve human intelligence, and certainly not the debate.

It brings no benefits, except for the individual, who can continue seeing themselves through others’ eyes in the way they desire, thus maintaining the illusion.

You have a major role to play in your child’s development. It is unrealistic to think of school as anything more than a system of compliance that dictates what must be learned, evaluates knowledge, and attempts to produce individuals who fit easily into companies—regardless of the often incoherent and contradictory expectations of both the individual and the business. How can we expect schools to teach students and future citizens about self-assessment, the impact of their future creations, critical thinking, human values beyond superficial niceties, communication, intuition, the analysis of interactions, social phenomena, and, more practically for their future as students, methodology, organization, or career orientation?

Students are often lulled by this dull, repetitive system, preferring to focus on their social lives and interactions, the latest TikTok trends, and gossip or conflicts, which seem much more interesting than an equation with two variables.

The issue with ultra-stimulating environments isn't so much the immediate effect of addiction but rather that it becomes hard to sit with oneself and the world to develop independent thought. And beware—books can be just as much an escape as video games.

Personal thinking will become imperative, dear parents. I encourage you to consider its importance and the ways you can nurture it in your children.

Parental involvement isn’t just important; it’s decisive.

Of course, self-doubt and imposter syndrome are on everyone's mind when assessing this question. But are you sure you have a clear and objective view of the quality or importance of your work?

Steve Godin believes that mediocre work won’t survive in the face of AI, and I tend to agree with him. I’m not going to expand on his viewpoint or mine here because I want this article to focus on awareness, but above all, on solutions and actions.

The first step is that if you’re unsure about the quality of your work, you probably need an external evaluation. This person may not necessarily be your colleague or boss, as their feedback can be biased for various reasons—such as tact, rivalries, or performance management—just to name three, though there are many more.

Next...

Which jobs will be replaced? Everyone has their list.

But creating anything without personal value—which remains to be defined but could include exceptional creativity, significant ideas, or unique experiential insights—is doomed. AI is already doing better than you in such cases.

For decades, your personality has been a major factor for any given position.

Now, more than ever, what cannot be replaced is the unique work that only you can do.

Only humans and their intellectual juice will survive when AI reaches the level of the top researchers, but at 100 times the current speed. So try to imagine the quality of its work. Personally, I can’t get a clear picture of it, especially regarding the daily impact. And anyway, I don’t spend my whole day pondering it.

The day AI replaces you, you won’t be able to simply find the same job elsewhere. Others will be replaced, too, and the market will be saturated with positions no one will be offering anymore.

The point isn’t to dramatize but to push you to think and reinvent yourself today.

Browse through the forecasters’ articles, or ask ChatGPT or Copilot to list the jobs likely to disappear. Cross-reference this information, and if you’re affected, start planning for your next job tomorrow—a Plan B, a lifeline.

If you’re doing a basic or mediocre job in terms of quality, investment, or results, then you have two choices:

1. Move from mediocre to excellent
2. Retrain as soon as possible for a career change

Those who’ve worked with me know that I’ve been advocating this for 20 years: a personal reflection on career orientation or reorientation, driven by desire, based on the foundations and mechanisms that vary from person to person, as well as deep interests, values, and possibly passion, a calling, or a mission, is the most certain way to thrive at work, produce excellent work, and remain desirable in the job market.

Unfortunately, that’s not a guarantee of quality.

On the verge of the revolution AI will bring to the working world, this message still stands, now more than ever.

But I would add an element of quality as a constant priority. And sometimes, quality only comes with experience.

That’s why you need to get started right away.

Don’t put it off until tomorrow; that would be your biggest mistake. When you’re caught up in your daily grind and finally get a moment to breathe, you often just want to unwind, not necessarily think about a project. It’s hard to lift your head up and take action, as you tend to put it off.

Starting now, carve out 30 minutes of reflection each day. Write down your thoughts and progress on this topic, then review them after two weeks or a month.

You offer advice on organization and study methods, yet they don't follow through. Here’s perhaps the most universal piece of advice, the simplest to implement, and one that can have a wide-ranging impact.

There are two major components at play: the relational dynamic and their perception of you.

To flip the dynamic, ask yourself: have you started by listening to them? Do you allow them a free space to speak, give them time with you without any agenda, without goals or objectives? Have you made yourself available without them needing to ask?

Most importantly, do you think they feel understood and heard?

The next time you wonder why they’re not listening to you, maybe the first step is to ask yourself why you’re not listening to them.

Trying to reverse the dynamic can be the catalyst for a beneficial snowball effect on many levels.

The second component relates to how they perceive your competencies based on their experiences and the example you’ve set—not just in specific areas.

After all, things are not always so straightforward. However, your role, your stance, and how they perceive you and what they see as your areas of expertise will influence their willingness to listen.

On this point, there’s not much you can do aside from continuing to learn and demonstrating your know-how—but don’t expect immediate results.

Sometimes, I repeat things that parents have drilled in countless times, but they listen to me, and it brings about change.