How to Do the Woj Trick?

Successful People Are Raised by Principles Not by Chance

Esther Wojcicki is famous for raising three successful daughters: Susan, the CEO of YouTube, Janet, a top-notch medical professor at the UCSF Medical Center, and Anne, the CEO of 23andMe. More importantly, Wojcicki has taught and inspired thousands of students in her well-renowned journalism program at Palo Alto High School since 1984. Her unique parenting and teaching philosophy can be summarized in five words: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness (TRICK).

Nowadays, the world has a strong demand for talents who are self-learners, adaptable workers, critical thinkers, perfect team players, and vulnerable leaders. Parents are responsible for helping their children well prepared for such a strong but rigorous demand from the real world. Wojcicki's TRICK gives parents clear guidance about how to raise successful people who make the world a better place while living a happy and confident life.

Trust

Trust is like a seed of courage. When you trust your children, you plant that seed in the heart of your children. They could feel it and start to trust themselves. Then the seed inside them will slowly grow into courage with which they can do all amazing things that seem impossible to do in the first place. Wojcicki emphasized the power of trust and suggest parents build trust with their children by being honest, humble, caring, and vulnerable.

Respect

Respect is a lubricant in the parent-child relationship. Feeling respected makes children willing to share their inner thoughts with parents and be open to suggestions from parents. Respect reduces the friction that appears in day-to-day interactions and builds a strong bond between parents and children. Everyone wants to be respected, and children are no exception. Children gain confidence when parents are respectful of their ideas and goals. Try hard to understand your children, be available when they need your attention and support, really listen to them with care, and show your appreciation of what they have achieved.

Independence

Independence is the engine of self-learning and leadership. It ignites children’s creativity by giving them the freedom to do experiments and energizes them to hold themselves accountable for their actions. Independence empowers children to make their own decisions and gradually build their leadership skills. Wojcicki strongly opposes the so-called helicopter parenting style by which parents overprotect their children who can’t do anything without their parents’ help. Wojcicki gave her children the feeling of independence and allowed them to take a risk at an early age. Susan, Janet, and Anne all started to prepare for their own breakfast when they were only two years old. Wojcicki also let her children go to the grocery alone at about four years old. “You want your child to want to be with you, not to need to be with you,” Wojcicki said.

Collaboration

Collaboration is the catalyst for breakthrough innovation and phenomenal success. “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much,” Wojcicki cited a quote from Helen Keller. Parents need to help children understand the power of collaboration by telling stories and giving examples. More importantly, parents should encourage their children to share new ideas with others and ask for help from their friends when they encounter difficult tasks. That way, children will appreciate the power of collaboration and actively contribute to a community of people who care about each other.

Kindness

Kindness is the light of life. Everyone loves a sunny day. When you show kindness to others, they feel so happy about it. When people are kind to you, you feel happy as well. Kindness influences people’s life dramatically and makes a leader more successful. Wojcicki teaches her children and students to be generous with their time, connections, and resources when someone needs help. Be a kind person yourself, and then show your children how to be kind to others. Kindness could help your children to go a long way.

Wojcicki has also infused the design thinking concept into her parenting principles. She consistently encourages her children to take a risk and allows them to fail and try it again. By rigorous iterations, her children slowly grasped the key to their own success and built their confidence and skills to meet bigger challenges. In addition, Wojcicki cautions young parents to carefully deal with conflicts in parenting since having kids can be exhausting and is one of the biggest causes of divorce. Being open-minded, collaborative, and resilient in parenting makes a big difference.

Esther Wojcicki has demonstrated that successful people are not raised by principles, not by chance. As parents, we are responsible for our children’s future success. The Woj TRICK sheds light on how to fulfill that responsibility more successfully.