Trees Bend in the Wind

Deb Liu has coached hundreds of product leaders. The pattern she sees in the most successful ones? It's not that they had charmed lives and got promoted every cycle. The ones who succeed are the ones who learned to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

She puts it beautifully: 'Trees are strong because they bend in the wind, because they're tested, because it's cold, because there's conditions. That's how a tree grows strong and tall over many generations.'

We instinctively want to protect our children from difficulty. No hard feedback, no disappointment, no struggle. But Deb's insight is that adversity is the workout that builds resilience muscles.

The best product leaders she's worked with are the ones with the toughest stories - the ones who had the hardest feedback but learned to bounce back. The key isn't avoiding the fall. It's learning that you can get back up.

You can't give your child resilience. They have to build it. And the only way to build it is through practice - through weathering small storms now so they can handle bigger ones later.