This post by Vivek was a banger this week:

The tl;dr is:

1. The American culture creates mediocrity, but feels entitled to excellence.

2. This is evidenced by celebrating the prom queen above the math olympiad.

3. The antidote is more math tutoring and less sleepovers; more books and less TV.

This post hits hard because it’s how many of my close friends and I were raised

Like many of you reading this, I was a nerd in school: I didn’t go to parties; I didn’t go to sleepovers; I basically just studied, played video games, and played basketball.

The antidote for mediocrity is to expect excellence from your children. But this post is not about studying and working hard — you already know this and will pass on that work ethic to your children.

Just check out my children, on their own, working on their Kumon workbooks on a Sunday afternoon:

I’m writing this right now at the kitchen table of our cousin’s house. They have three kids. The two oldest ones are going to swim practice and the son told me, “I’m going to swim practice, but I have to wait around for 1.5 hours because my practice is after my sister’s.”

“What do you do while waiting around for your sister’s practice to finish?” I asked.

“I do my homework. I do my Kumon!” he said with a huge smile.

This post is about going the extra mile: who are you selecting for your children’s best friends?

Wait, you want me to select my children’s friends?

Yes, yes I do.

I got lucky. My best friends from High School worked just as hard as I did and became doctors and engineers. They now have children of their own and we can raise our children together.

The cousins I’m closest with are doctors, bankers, and entrepreneurs with children of their own. I’m visiting them right now in Chicago so our children can build relationships together.

So it’s by design that I’m sending my children to a Montessori school. Not only for them to get a great education, but probably even more importantly, to make friends with kids whose parents are just as obsessed with excellence as I am.

It’s working already. My children made friends with kids who parents are successful entrepreneurs. We now get together regularly for our kids to play and for the adults to share ideas and workout.

The next step is for our kids to do Kumon workbooks together while the parents hang out.

What are you doing to select the friends of your children?

I’m serious. What are you doing?

And it’s not just about selecting their friends, but the next step is selecting their friends’ parents.

I can tell you right now that even though my parents were divorced, I leaned on the parents of my best friends as mentors in life and relationships. A big reason why I’m here today is because they welcomed me into their home and raised me alongside their own children.

Count me as a future mentor to your children, as I will be leaning on you to do the same.

I will teach my children to be self made millionaires by the age of 20. If you’re here on my email list, then count me in to mentor your children to do the same.

And likewise, I’m going to lean on you to mentor my children. If you’re a doctor, I’m going to ask you to take my daughters to work with you one day; if you’re in real estate, I’m going to ask you to take my daughters to an open house; if you’re a software engineer, I’m going to ask you to take my daughters to your office and grade their code (oh yes, they will learn to code).

Our children will not be mediocre — they will be excellent.