O. Dr. Kevin Leman,. Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing
Your Balance, ... You can't buy 'em, you can't teach 'em (at least not very well).
Born to Win Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance
Dr. Kevin Leman
O Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 3
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© 2008 by Kevin Leman Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com Paperback edition published 2009 Previously published under the title The Firstborn Advantage Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leman, Kevin. Born to Win : keeping your firstborn edge without losing your balance / Kevin Leman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8007-3262-2 (pbk.) 1. Birth order. 2. First-born children—Psychology. I. Title. BF723.B5L4633 2009 155.9 24—dc22 2009018956 To protect the privacy of those who have shared their stories with the author, some details and names have been changed.
Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 4
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Contents
Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: Will the Firstborn Please Stand Up? 11 Just who are the firstborns? 1. What’s This Birth Order Business About Anyway? 19 It has everything to do with your place in the family— and your entire life. 2. Who’s on First? 35 Just because you’re the first child born in a family, does that make you the firstborn? Here’s why . . . or why not. 3. The Firstborn Personality 59 Firstborns are achievers. They get things done . . . but there’s a flip side to always winning. 4. Why Firstborns Are the Way They Are 73 From day one, they’re in charge. They always have the thickest photo album. They set the benchmark for every other child in the family. 5. Where Do I Go to Buy One of Those Firstborns? 91 You can’t buy ’em, you can’t teach ’em (at least not very well). A firstborn has innate skills that are hard to beat if he or she is balanced in life. 7 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 7
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6. Has the Critical Eye Turned on You? 109 If there’s anything firstborns struggle with, it’s criticism. Did you have a flaw picker as a parent? Are you a flaw picker? Here’s how to turn that around—for your own and others’ good. 7. The Firstborn Advantage at Home 147 How to use your firstborn skills to strengthen your relationships with your spouse and children (who may be the same or a different birth order than you). 8. The Firstborn Advantage at School 185 How to use your firstborn nature to set reasonable goals and to encourage both yourself and your children as you pursue excellence . . . not frustration. 9. The Firstborn Advantage at Work 219 How you can win at business anytime and all the time. 10. The Firstborn Advantage in Relationships 253 Why birds of a feather flock together . . . but sometimes cause problems in the nest. 11. Making the Most of Being a Firstborn 271 What do you really want out of life? You can break free of your own and others’ expectations. Notes 279 About Dr. Kevin Leman 283 Resources by Dr. Kevin Leman 285
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Introduction Will the Firstborn Please Stand Up?
Just who are the firstborns?
H
ow many firstborns did you peg in the “Guess the Firstborn” quiz? Total up the ones you got right. Okay, got your answer? I’d bet my wife and a couple of my five children on the fact that you were able to pick out all ten, or at least nine out of ten. Now how did that happen? What is it about these firstborns that stand out from the rest? And why? You don’t have to have a PhD in psychology to figure out who the firstborns in the world are. Firstborns are the natural movers and shakers. They’re the leaders. They can accomplish just about anything. Think of the governor of your state, the US senators, the mayor of your town, the president of your school board, the 11
Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 11
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head of the company you work for. Chances are, they’re all firstborn children. If you’re reading this book on an airplane or a commuter train, chances are high that the person across from you doing a crossword puzzle or Sudoku book is a firstborn. If you’re an adventurous sort, why don’t you ask the stranger, “Do you happen to be a firstborn?” Who knows? You might end up with a lively conversation on your hands. Certain professions also seem to attract firstborns. For example, in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, there is a group of twelve anesthesiologists. Nine of them just happen to be firstborns, and the other three are only children—the only children in a family—which are basically first cousins emotionally to firstborns. Is this happenstance, do you think? Or is there something about firstborns that attracts them to the precision required for such a career? Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was a firstborn (the eldest of three children). All of the Mercury Seven astronauts were firstborns. In fact, of the first twentythree astronauts in outer space, twenty-one were firstborns. The other two were only children. There wasn’t a middle or youngest child in sight. The majority of the US presidents have been firstborns.1 Frank Sulloway, a brilliant MIT researcher who wrote Born to Rebel: Birth Order Family Dynamics and Creative Lives, claims that firstborns tend to be more conscientious, more conservative, more responsible, more achievement oriented, and more organized than laterborns, who tend to be more open-minded and willing to take risks and explode cherished ideas and theories. Firstborns stuck with the status quo and 12 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 12
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were very assertive about it. No wonder firstborns are in so many of the top positions of leadership.2 Take, for instance, the 2008 US presidential election. The final three contenders for the biggest job in the world were an only child (Barack Obama—more later on why he’s considered an only child), a firstborn daughter (Hillary Clinton), and a firstborn son (John McCain). There is truly something unique Firstborns are the about firstborns, the leaders of the pack. You may be one of them. Or natural movers you may be one of them and not know and shakers of the it. (More on that in this book too.) world. They’re the But how did they—and you—get to leaders. They can be that way? accomplish just Take a look at your own family— about anything. your brothers and sisters. Isn’t it true that the firstborn and secondborn are day-and-night different? And if you’re a parent today, isn’t it true that if your firstborn travels east, your secondborn will travel west? These differences can be explained by birth order. If you’re reading this book, chances are it’s because you’re a firstborn, or you know (and are driven crazy by) a firstborn. Firstborns can take the world by storm—and accomplish more than you think is humanly possible, because they are exacting and precise. But out of balance they become driven, overly perfectionistic, and critical-eyed. Just imagine a group of firstborns getting together to wallpaper your kitchen. Within thirty minutes there would be blood on the floor, since everyone would want to be in charge. That’s why baby-of-the-family 13 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 13
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folks like me are so needed. Without the balance of middleborns and lastborns, firstborns can become too intense on completing the task “the right way” (translation: “their way”) and lose the relationship. Then they make their own and others’ lives miserable. For instance, take Mrs. Marcourt, the den mother of my Cub pack when I was young. I was actually asked to leave the Cub Scouts because she didn’t appreciate my baby-ofthe-family antics. She had little tolerance for them. What had happened to bring this about? Well, I ask you, if a bunch of boys were coming over and you wanted to serve them chocolate chip cookies, would you place those cookies on your grandmother’s precious china serving dish? I destroyed that dish in one fell swoop. All I was doing was diving for the first chocolate chip cookie. What was wrong with that? Mrs. Marcourt had a lot to say to me about what was wrong with that. And she also told my mother in no uncertain terms what was wrong with that. I didn’t return to Cub Scouts. You see, Mrs. Marcourt was a firstborn. She was determined to do things right, and only she knew what the right way was. (The same goes for my firstborn wife, who starts preparing for a meal on Thursday when company isn’t coming until Saturday.) “But, Dr. Leman,” you’re saying, “I’m not the firstborn in my family, but I sure act like it. And my older sister, the first child born in our family, doesn’t act like a firstborn at all. Why is that?” Why would I call a guy like Steve Martin, who is the youngest kid in his family, a firstborn? And why would I call Martin Luther King Jr., who has an older sister, a firstborn? Because 14 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 14
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you can be number eight in a family of nine, like my mother, and still be a firstborn. You can be number five in a family and still have a firstborn personality. You can have an older sibling, like Martin Luther King Jr., and still have a firstborn personality. “Uh, Dr. Leman,” you’re saying, as you roll your eyes, “you better get some help with math. Things aren’t adding up very well for you. How can you be a firstborn if you’re not born first? That makes absolutely no sense.” Ah, but it makes perfect sense. I’ll show you why in this book. There are a lot of myths floating around about this whole birth order business, and I’m determined to debunk them. All the years of research and study behind the scientific theory of birth order don’t really mean much until the principles learned are actually applied to people like you— to help you understand yourself and improve your life. And that’s what I love doing best. So we’ll take a look at birth order in the family. Although it’s impossible to pigeonhole everyone into airtight compartments, at the same time it’s true that most firstborns tend to display certain characteristics, as do most middleborns and lastborns (or “babies,” as I like to call them). Your ordinal position—the order in which you were born in the family—is very important. It has everything to do not only with your place in the family but with how you live your entire life. But there are other critical variables that greatly influence your birth order as well. As we talk about these, chances are you’ll have an “Aha!” regarding your birth family, your spouse, or one or more of your children. “Now I know why my sister drives me so crazy,” you’ll say. Or, “Now I know why 15 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 15
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my husband acts the way he does.” Or, “Oh, I get it. My son is actually a firstborn. Now that makes sense.” We’ll identify both successes and weaknesses of the firstborn personality. We’ll figure out why firstborns are the way they are. Is it because they got first pick on the genetic material? Is it because of the way they were reared? Or is it a combination of factors? Once you understand how your ordinal and functional birth order affects your personality, you’ll be able to see your own strengths and weaknesses. You’ll realize why you make certain choices, whether wise or poor, in life. And then you can begin to strengthen yourself, to improve on the areas in which you’re weak, and to make the strong parts of your personality even stronger. “Balance is a crucial issue for a firstborn,” says Laura Carter, founder of the First Born Girls Social Club. “Firstborns need permission to be able to relax. We struggle commonly with time management, stress management, and prioritizing because we tend to take on a lot . . . in fact, too much.”3 Does that sound like you, firstborn? We’ll talk about how important balance is particularly to firstborns, and I’ll give you a peek into the heads of those in the First Born Girls Social Club. My guess is that, if you’re a firstborn woman, you’ll find—as the misunderstood Anne did in Anne of Green Gables—“a bosom buddy” in those women. (And hey, maybe someday someone will think of starting a First Born Guys Social Club. But my guess is that no one would show up since “being relational” is not usually at the forefront of a firstborn male’s mind.) We’ll also talk about why firstborns in particular have a heightened sensitivity and response to “the critical eye.” If there’s anything that firstborns struggle with, it’s flaw picking. 16 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 16
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Did you have a critical-eyed parent? (It only takes one to influence you for a lifetime. If you had two critical-eyed parents, you really need to read chapter 6.) Do you struggle with your own perfectionism as a result? Do you tend to pick at others’ flaws? This one single variable—the critical eye—is so critical to the success or failure of a firstborn that I’ve devoted an entire chapter to it. When faced with a critical-eyed parent, firstborns tend to become either pleasers (doing everyone else’s bidding, with no thought to themselves) or controllers (“I’m in charge, and it’s got to be my way—it’s the only right way”). But you don’t have to live daily with that kind of stress—or the power struggle. I’ll show you how to sidestep it. Once you understand your firstborn personality—why you are the way you are and what variables contributed to who you are—you can move forward in confidence to use your firstborn skills to your best advantage at home, at school, at work, and in your relationships. Why do you tend to marry someone of a different birth order than you, but your friends tend to be of the same birth order? How can you motivate your children to do well in school—without frustrating them or exhausting yourself with homework battles? Why are you the only one who is annoyed by the smells emanating from the work refrigerator? How can you win at business all the time? I’ll reveal those secrets in upcoming chapters. As a firstborn, you spend so much time fulfilling others’ expectations. But what about your own dreams? What do you want to do and be? How can those firstborn qualities help you? That’s what Born to Win is all about. 17 Dr. Kevin Leman, Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance, Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission. Born to Win.indd 17
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One last thing before you turn the page. Want to take another shot at guessing the firstborn? Then try these pairs:
1. Matt Damon or Ben Affleck 2. Florence Henderson (Brady Brunch mom) or Martha Stewart 3. Reese Witherspoon or Sheryl Crow 4. Ben Stiller or Billy Crystal 5. Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt See page 57 for the answers.
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