This holiday season our children ask the proverbial question: What do you want for Christmas? To forestall the tie you’ll never wear or yet another bottle of hand lotion, let’s prepare for a long winter of fireside reading…this month I’ll feature titles you might want to read, and a hint to a little elf may put the book under your tree.

Have you come across Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker? book link I find his work fascinating. He puts out a blog, and has culled those blogs for the best thoughts to include in this book…which is something each of you could do as well via the Chamber program of Book to Blog, but that’s beside the point. Barker provides some fascinating insight on the genesis of success.

A study by Karen Arnold, a researcher at Boston College, is described in detail. She followed eighty-one high school valedictorians and salutatorians to track their continued success into adulthood. The findings were both anticipated…and unanticipated. As you may have guessed, 95% finished college and went on to grad school, and 60% earned, a graduate degree. High school success was a definite predictor of collegiate success. More than 90% enjoyed professional careers, and 40% earned top wages. All of that sounds like success, right?

Don’t stop reading. None of them changed the world. Schools and society reward those who play it safe, follow the rules and fit into the system. None of those people are visionaries. Leaders who change the course of those around them do unexpected things. The Lincolns and Churchills initiate change, not the overachievers.

Barker also enlarged upon a Swedish phrase, most kids are dandelions, but a few are orchids. Dandelions are resilient in life’s most difficult situations, though their flowers are a dime a dozen, completely unremarkable. An orchid now, it needs special care, special plant food, a particular amount of watering and must be protected from sharp changes in temperature. In short, perfect conditions produce an amazing blossom…but what does that have to do with success?

Geneticists have discovered a particular gene in humans that either produces psychological breakdowns of anxiety and depression…OR…leads to greatness in perfect conditions. That knowledge has sparked the “differential susceptibility hypothesis.” It means that “the same genes that lead to bad stuff can actually lead to great stuff in a different situation.” Plainly put: The very genes that produce self-destructive behaviors also underlie human greatness. The outcome rests on how that person is raised, groomed, prepared for greatness.

You may recognize this gene in your own life. As an adult, you have the capacity to be a turnaround expert, and take what has been self-destructive to a new level of success. You may have a child who has these tendencies. Success may rest not on the conventional, but upon the unconventional. Like nurturing a Glenn Gould, your child’s success story may rest upon parental support far beyond the norm…and your child may change the world. I love the way his parents enabled him to change the music world, rather than trying to stuff him into a perfect box in which he would be a failure.

So what is your definition of success? You may be Barking Up the Wrong Tree if you are an orchid, especially if you are raising an orchid. Of course, I love dandelion bouquets as harbingers of spring. It all depends upon whether life has given you dandelions or orchids. Here’s to the success of both.