Empower, Challenge, Conquer: Raising the Next Generation of Warriors
- Jeff Hulett
- Nov 24, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 11
“Tough times create strong men;
Strong men create easy times;
Easy times create weak men;
Weak men create tough times."
————
To break this cycle:
Children need to be raised as warriors.
An introduction to being strong
The greatest challenge is sustaining strength across generations. Studies show that only about one-third of family businesses survive to the second generation. This multigenerational challenge, however, is avoidable.
Success often breeds comfort, and "easy times" can lead to a generation that lacks resilience. While various explanations exist for why children struggle, one undeniable factor is that time—without sustained effort—works against success. And while success isn’t solely defined by business or material wealth, instilling strength in the next generation is a benefit parents can control.
Parents have the power to help their children:
start strong — stay strong — finish strong
Raising warriors ensures that children resist the complacency of easy times and embrace the strength needed to forge their own paths.
This article explores how to build generational strength—whether in family businesses or personal legacies. No matter where you are in the generational cycle,
The future is your playing field and strong starts today.
About the author: Jeff Hulett is the proud parent of four adult children and is happily married to their amazing Mom. Jeff leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.
Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.
How to Raise Warriors
Warrior Parents enter parenthood wishing their children to exceed their success. They raise warrior children AS IF they live in a world below the means of the parent's generation. Relative scarcity, in a supportive environment, helps them learn - as Gene Roddenberry said -- "the effort yields its own reward."
Warrior Children are raised to be passionate, appreciative, and to live by The Golden Rule. Warrior children are willing to put in the work and take success-enabling risks. Warrior children behold their life and resources as gifts. Children of warriors are nurtured in caring environments, as highlighted in Luke 12: "To whom much is given, much will be required."
Warrior Children are raised with failure not only being possible, but children experiencing failure in a way that provides resilience as a great life lesson. They learn to fear failure less - while understanding, leveraging, and growing with failure more. Children of warriors are brought up following the U.S. Marines' motto:
"Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome."
Warrior Children understand life is an action sport. They are encouraged to be curious, test, learn by thinking, and learn by doing. Based on the renowned French philosopher Voltaire, they value that
"perfect is the enemy of good"
Warrior Children embrace that "good" only results by perfecting the pursuit of their imperfect doing. They intuitively know what former President Theodore Roosevelt taught us:
"... the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Warrior Children are raised with love and acceptance. Confidence grows by the child believing they can be themself. As Dr. Suess encourages:
"be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind."
Warrior Children are raised by parents resisting the urge to bulldoze their children's obstacles by wielding the parents' resources. They are instead raised with the parent's wealth reserved to help their children forge their own success. Warrior children learn that skin in the game is the essential way to generate feedback from inevitable mistakes. As the great children's author Roald Dahl said:
“The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.”
Adult children, raised as warriors are encouraged to inspect the unspoken beliefs endowed by their parents. Successful adult children make their parent's beliefs an affirmative choice, not a default assumption. The G.O.A.T. scientist Albert Einstein reminds us
“The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.”
Adult children, raised as warriors embrace their own success AND apply their success in the service of others. As emphasized in 1 Peter 4:
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace…”
Successful adult children,
Raised as warriors,
Raise warriors of their own.
Strong is the family business.
Patti and I were both blessed with strong parents - our children's grandparents. We did not create our children's strength from scratch -- we guided the strengths gifted by our parents. Not everyone is so fortunate. But anyone can start today.
I wrote this as my children were transitioning to be young adults. Patti and I did our best to raise our children. God knows we were not perfect. We do hope our children remember our love and support. We pray their families will grow in the strength of OUR family business.
It takes strength to love strength.
Notes
The lead quote comes from G. Michael Hopf's book "Those Who Remain."
The generational business survival statistic comes from the Harvard Business Review
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