Mike Kubic is a former correspondent of Newsweek magazine. In the following article, Kubic examines the
assertions of a 2014 book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of
Cultural Groups in America, which analyzes three specific cultural traits as indicators of success in the U.S. As
you read, take notes on the specific traits the author identifies as indicative of success.
Google the word “happiness,” and the Internet comes
back with 314 million entries. Google another much
sought-after bit of information, “diet,” and you’ll get
468 million responses.
But try “success” and the response is overwhelming:
1.2 million postings, some serious, some facetious.1
Here is the advice of Arnold H. Glasow, a Wisconsin
businessman and humorist: “Success is simple: Do
what’s right, the right way, at the right time.”
Not really helpful?
Amy Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, are
professors at Yale Law School who have done a lot of thinking about success, and how to reach it. In the
preface of their 2014 book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural
Groups in America, they acknowledge the elusiveness of a sure-fire success formula:
“It is one of humanity’s enduring mysteries,” they write, “why some individuals rise from unpromising origins to
great heights, when so many others, facing similar obstacles and with seemingly similar capabilities, don’t rise
at all.”
The Demographics of Success
The paucity2
of convincing explanation for why some people are winners is particularly curious because in
America, there are so many of them. And not only that: there is ample statistical evidence of their success.
For example, Asian Americans are just 5.6% of the population of the United States, but they make up more than
30% of the recent American math and physics Olympiad teams and Presidential Scholars, and have won
[1]
[5]
1. Facetious (adjective) treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant; sarcastic
2. Paucity (noun) the presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts; scarcity
1
25%-30% of National Merit Scholarships. In 2012, Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above
average and a 63-point edge over their white counterparts.
Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, New York City’s selective public high schools that admit students based solely on
a standardized entrance exam, in 2013 offered admission to 177 whites and 620 Asians.
Every second Asian American has a bachelor’s degree, compared with 28% of the general population. Indian
Americans earn almost twice the median household income of the rest of our population. Iranian, Lebanese
and Chinese Americans are also in the top income categories.
Cuban Americans rose in one generation from austere3
beginnings to relative affluence.4 Within four decades
after their arrival, they were twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to earn over $50,000 a year. All three
Hispanic United States senators are Cuban Americans.
Yet another successful group is Nigerians. They make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the
United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian
ancestry. More than a fourth of Nigerian Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with
only about 11 percent of whites.
The striking performance of these and other groups has led many social scientists to regard success in
American as a racial characteristic – an approach that Chua and Rubenfeld consider an error. The authors back
up their position with some impressive arguments. For example, they point out that although success seems to
favor recent racial minorities, it is also characteristic of two well-established groups of white Americans.
One of them is Mormons – members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – who are
disproportionately prominent among the leaders of major American companies. Although less than 2% of the
U.S. population, Mormons hold or have recently held top positions in at least 13 major America corporations,
including the American Express, Black and Decker, Citigroup, Dell, Fisher-Price, Deloitte, Marriott International
and Sears. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, is a Mormon as well as a successful
businessman.
The other equally small but in its own ways even more successful group is Jewish Americans, who account for
three of the current eight members of the U.S. Supreme Court; over two-thirds of Tony Award-winning lyricists
and composers; and a whopping third of American Nobel laureates.
Yet another weighty point made by Chua and Rubenfeld is that the success of the various immigrant groups
tends to dissipate after two generations. For example, the authors cite a 2005 study of over 20,000 adolescents
which found that third-generation Asian-American students performed no better academically than their white
peers. This the authors say, debunks the claim that the group possesses some innate, biological superiority.
[10]
[15]
3. Austere (adjective) having no comforts or luxuries; harsh
4. Affluence (noun) wealth
2
A Different Success Formula
What Chua and Rubenfeld propose is that success is fueled by three forces that are products not of race, but of
culture. One of them is superiority complex, “a deep-seated belief” that the individuals or groups are
exceptional. The second is the opposite – insecurity – “a feeling that what you’ve done is not good enough” and
the necessity “to prove oneself.” The authors’ third trait that is not innate but can be learned is grit: “the ability
to resist temptation,” and to systematically “sacrifice present gratification in pursuit of future attainment.”
However counterintuitive it sounds, the authors maintain that it’s precisely this unstable combination of
superiority, insecurity and grit that generates drive. They support their position by well-known as well as
obscure cultural characteristics of the successful groups. For example, they point out that Jews regard
themselves as “the chosen people”; Mormons believe they are “gods in embryo” who were “placed on earth to
lead the world to salvation”; and Iranians are notorious for their “superiority complex.”
Regarding insecurity, Chua and Rubenfeld believe that it “runs deep in every one of America’s rising groups; and
consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children.” They cite a study of thousands of high
school students which indicated that Asian-American students had the lowest self-esteem of any racial group,
even as they work hard and get the highest grades.
Frequently, the authors say, successful kids feel “motivated to achieve” because of an acute sense of obligation
to their parents. For example, studies have shown that Chinese immigrant parents frequently impose
exorbitant5
academic expectations on their children, making them feel that “family honor” depends on their
success.
Chua and Rubenfeld warn that in isolation, each of the three qualities would not lead to success. They say that
alone, the superiority complex is a recipe for complacency;6 mere insecurity could be crippling; and impulse
control can produce asceticism.7
In their opinion, “[o]nly in combination do these qualities generate drive.”
They conclude that the way to develop the three “success” qualities is through self-discipline and determination
to overcome one’s insecurity. “[That] turns the ability to work hard, to persevere and to overcome adversity into
a source of personal superiority,” they argue. “This kind of superiority complex isn’t ethnically or religiously
exclusive. It’s the pride a person takes in his own strength of will.”
The Triple Package has been praised for tackling a controversial and complex subject and positing a new theory
for success in America. The book has also been panned8
for ignoring such success-driving factors as transfer of
wealth between generations. But the authors’ basic judgment – that the road to winning is paved with grit – is
far from novel, and has a broad support from both social scientists and successful people.
One of them was former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who led his country to a victory during World
War II. He summed up his experience like this: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to
Add 8 quotes from article The Elements of Success By Mike Kubic 2016, that show Emotional Intelligence and it must be in quotation marks Include a parenthetical citation in MLA format after the quote.
1 answer
Here are eight quotes from the article “The Elements of Success” by Mike Kubic that illustrate aspects of emotional intelligence. Each quote is presented in quotation marks and followed by a parenthetical citation in MLA format:
"It is one of humanity’s enduring mysteries, why some individuals rise from unpromising origins to great heights, when so many others, facing similar obstacles and with seemingly similar capabilities, don’t rise at all.” (Kubic)
“The authors back up their position with some impressive arguments.” (Kubic)
“This kind of superiority complex isn’t ethnically or religiously exclusive. It’s the pride a person takes in his own strength of will.” (Kubic)
“Insecurity runs deep in every one of America’s rising groups; and consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children.” (Kubic)
“Motivated to achieve because of an acute sense of obligation to their parents.” (Kubic)
“Alone, the superiority complex is a recipe for complacency; mere insecurity could be crippling; and impulse control can produce asceticism.” (Kubic)
“Only in combination do these qualities generate drive.” (Kubic)
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.” (Kubic)
These quotes highlight the interplay of emotional factors like insecurity, motivation, and the development of self-discipline that contribute to success, aligning them with the facets of emotional intelligence.
