The Path of Abundance: Why Our Most Ambitious Students Need More

When I wrote Motivate Your Son more than ten years ago, I made a prediction about the future of young people.

I divided them into three broad groups:

10% would be on the path of abundance.

40% would be on the path of struggle.

50% would be on the path of disaster.

These were not meant to be scientifically precise percentages. They represented what I believed would happen as economic, technological, cultural, and educational changes accelerated: a relatively small group of young people would flourish as never before, a large middle would struggle to establish the lives that previous generations took for granted, and an alarming percentage would have serious difficulty launching successfully into adulthood.

More than a decade later, I believe the basic prediction has held up reasonably well.

I’m certainly not happy about that.

Except for one part.

The path of abundance.

There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be Exceptionally Motivated

For the most ambitious young people, I believe we are entering an extraordinary era.

Think about what a talented 16-, 18-, or 20-year-old can do today.

They can conduct sophisticated research from their bedrooms. They can take courses taught by professors from the world’s great universities. They can learn coding, finance, entrepreneurship, design, marketing, engineering, or virtually any other skill that interests them.

They can use artificial intelligence as a research assistant, tutor, editor, brainstorming partner, and creative tool.

They can start a company with little capital.

They can build an audience without access to traditional media.

They can create a nonprofit, publish their work, contact experts around the world, conduct independent research, or collaborate with talented peers thousands of miles away.

A generation ago, access to opportunity was controlled far more heavily by institutions and gatekeepers.

Today, a highly motivated teenager with intelligence, discipline, guidance, and an internet connection has access to resources that would have seemed almost unimaginable when I was his or her age.

That’s what I mean by the path of abundance.

And I am working with several young people on that path right now.

Schools Aren’t Really Designed for These Students

Their parents have recognized something important:

Traditional school, even excellent school, is usually not designed to maximize the potential of the unusually gifted and ambitious student.

This isn’t necessarily an indictment of schools.

Schools have enormous responsibilities, and understandably, a tremendous amount of educational attention and resources must be directed toward students who are struggling.

I support those efforts.

But there is another educational question that receives far less attention:

What are we doing for the student who is already succeeding but could be doing something extraordinary?

In elementary and middle school, these students sometimes become unofficial teaching assistants.

They finish early.

They help classmates.

They tutor the student sitting next to them.

Teachers love them because they’re responsible, capable, and require very little attention.

But think about the irony.

The student’s reward for mastering the material is sometimes to spend more time helping everyone else master it.

That’s admirable.

It isn’t necessarily education.

AP and IB Classes Aren’t the Same as Mentorship

The situation changes somewhat in high school.

Strong students can take honors, Advanced Placement, or International Baccalaureate courses. They can pursue advanced math, science, literature, history, languages, and other challenging subjects.

Those opportunities matter.

But taking harder classes is not the same thing as having someone ask:

How far could this particular student go?

That’s a completely different educational question.

A high school might have five or ten truly exceptional students in a graduating class—young people with unusual combinations of intellect, ambition, creativity, leadership, or entrepreneurial energy.

What specifically is being done to develop them?

Often, the answer is: not very much.

They take the hardest classes.

They earn excellent grades.

They join activities.

They prepare for college.

And to a large extent, they figure out the rest themselves.

Maybe that’s okay.

Exceptional people have always needed initiative.

But I also think we’re leaving enormous potential undeveloped.

This Is Where Mentorship Can Change the Trajectory

This is increasingly where I come in.

I can only work with a select number of students each year in this capacity because genuine mentorship is highly individualized.

I’m not simply helping them get better grades or gain admission to an excellent college.

I’m trying to understand the individual student.

What is he unusually good at?

What fascinates her?

Where does his ambition naturally flow?

What skills should she develop now?

Who should he meet?

What should she read?

What could he create?

What opportunities should she pursue?

What could this student accomplish at 17 that most people don’t attempt until 27?

Then we start building a customized path.

And when the combination of talent, ambition, parental support, and mentorship comes together, these students tend to fly.

I’m Seeing It Already

I’ve worked with young people who have gone on to attend some of the finest colleges in the United States while simultaneously pursuing interests far beyond their formal education.

Some have started businesses.

Others have created nonprofits.

Some have pursued independent research.

Others have developed expertise in fields that most teenagers barely know exist.

The common denominator isn’t simply intelligence.

There are plenty of intelligent people who never do very much with their abilities.

The students on the path of abundance develop agency.

They stop viewing education as something that adults administer to them.

They begin creating their own education.

That distinction will become increasingly important.

AI Will Make This Divide Even More Significant

Artificial intelligence will accelerate both sides of this divide.

For an unmotivated student, AI can become an extraordinarily sophisticated avoidance mechanism. It can write the paper, solve the homework problem, summarize the book, and create the appearance of learning without the student actually developing much intellectual capacity.

But put the same technology into the hands of an ambitious student and something entirely different happens.

AI becomes a force multiplier.

The motivated student can learn faster, research more deeply, experiment more cheaply, and create at a level that previously would have required far greater resources.

The technology is identical.

The difference is the person using it.

That is one reason I believe the path of abundance will become even more abundant.

Parents May Have to Become More Intentional

For parents in Old Saybrook, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Essex, Waterford, Madison, Guilford, and throughout Connecticut, there is an important lesson here.

If you have an unusually talented or ambitious child, don’t assume that because he or she is earning A’s, everything educationally important is being taken care of.

An excellent report card tells you that your child is succeeding within the system.

It doesn’t tell you whether your child is developing anywhere close to his or her potential.

Parents of struggling students have always understood that their children may need additional support.

Increasingly, I think parents of exceptional students will reach the same conclusion—but for the opposite reason.

Their children don’t need remediation.

They need elevation.

They need someone helping them look beyond the next test, the next semester, and even the college admissions process.

They need to discover what they’re capable of creating.

Because in a world where so many young people may struggle to find direction, those who combine talent with ambition, character, technological fluency, and expert guidance will have opportunities unlike anything we’ve seen before.

They will be on what I called years ago—and still call today—

the path of abundance.