Clear Thinking Knows No Age
Last week was the crescendo event of the 2025 FIRST Robotics season. Nearly 50,000 people from 160 countries converged on Houston, Texas for the World Championship. It was an exhausting week of problem-solving competition that saw tears of joy and defeat. For our family, the season started in the fall of 2024 as an after-school sport for my son Owen. While this may not be the most productive time of the day for a group of 8 middle school boys, the timeslot nonetheless worked for everyone. Over the course of four months the boys learned robotics, perseverance and navigating negative team dynamics.
In January 12 regional teams gathered to compete in the FIRST Lego League (a division for younger youth) regional competition. Owen’s team, the Gummy Sharks, placed second with a score of 270 out of a possible 640. While not an impressive score, it was enough to qualify them for the State Competition. A month later the team started the 6-hour drive to Montana State University’s Norm Asbjornson Hall to compete with 35 teams from around Montana. However, a blizzard shut down the interstate, preventing nearly one-third of the teams from competing. Due to the ‘act of God’, the organizers put the names of the top qualifiers into a lottery drawing for the opportunity to represent Montana at the World Competition. The host drew a piece of paper out of a box and read “Gummy…”, Not expecting there was a chance it would be our team I thought “WOW, there are two teams with the word Gummy in their name”, then he said “Sharks” and the boys erupted!
When the team left for Texas last week, the boys unanimously believed they could win the championship despite their robots’ maximum scoring potential of 270 points. It was a full week of watching competition during the day and reading Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish in the evenings. The timing of this brought a unique insight into Parrish’s work, mainly that the Enemies of Clear Thinking don’t know an age.
Emotion
The boys had worked diligently to get where they were. Yet they were faced with emotional pressures that were new to them: early morning call times, late bedtimes, hunger from irregular schedules, constant distraction from thousands of other kids, and rushing from place to place in a new environment. For the first time, they faced many classic emotions that can easily stop us from performing at our best.[1] (In hindsight, it would have been good to do some mental exercises to prepare them for what was coming.[2])
Ego
“Winning” the State Competition had poured unfounded gasoline on the ego burning inside them. With little to no consideration given to the fact that they had been chosen by lottery to represent Montana, their ego had tempted them into thinking they were more than they were.[3] Parrish was correct with the analysis that ego, when left unchecked, “can turn confidence to overconfidence”.[4]
Social
The night before they were to give oral presentations on their robot, they rehearsed in the hotel. During the mock Q/A time a parent asked, “Why did you not incorporate photo sensors into your robot?” A boy answered confidently, “We asked another team about them, and they said it did not work because the competition board was two dark for the sensor to work.” Parrish identifies this fallacy and notes, “when everyone else is doing something, it’s easy to rationalize doing it too.”[5] The teams System 1 thinking had allowed a heuristic shortcut to circumvent an opportunity to tackle a difficult challenge that could have earned them additional points on the gameboard.[6]
Inertia
As the boys observed the other robots made by their peers, they began to realize the simplicity of their robot. Instead of working to change and improve their initial design, they chose the easy route of keeping their very first iteration, a decision that requires almost no effort.[7]
As I waited for the plane in Houston, I walked up and down the concourse, contemplating Parrish’s thoughts on learning from our decisions.
- Making a good decision is about the process, not the outcome.[8]
Scoring in the bottom 5% is not the outcome that anyone wants. Yet the process…the process of learning and clear thinking—is invaluable and knows no age.
[1] Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results (Penguin, 2023), 15.
[2] Eve Poole, Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).
[3] Parrish, Clear Thinking, 17.
[4] Parrish, 17.
[5] Parrish, 24.
[6] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, First Edition (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013).
[7] Parrish, Clear Thinking, 31.
[8] Parrish, 216.
About the Author
Darren Banek
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Darren,
What an incredible and memorable journey for Owen and his team; what a mix of joy, challenge, and deep learning packed into one season! I love how you connected their experiences with the ideas from Clear Thinking, especially the reminder that the true value lies in the process, not just the result. That concept isn’t always easy to learn or accept.
Do you think this season has changed how the boys will approach problem-solving or teamwork in the future? How can you as a parent help them through that journey?