Where Did You Get Your Spirit?

Published: April 8, 2025

We are all some blend of our ancestors’ genetics and the environmental experience we’ve traveled. My mom was a creative and my dad was an engineer. She told captivating stories while he studied the ingredients on a catsup bottle. I got a little of both. But my environment shaped the outcome.

Nature or nurture? Face it, we all become some variation of our parents eventually – unless we see the landmines and decide to make changes. Perhaps the goal is to capture the best of previous generations and avoid the pitfalls of passing our pathology on to the next generation.

So how do you do that when most of the pathology you prefer not to pass along exists in your blind spot? An accountability partner is the answer. Maybe it’s your spouse who annoyingly points out all the words and behaviors that get under their skin. Perhaps it’s your most trusted coworker who has your best interests at heart and is awkwardly trying to find a tactful way to give you sensitive feedback.

Sometimes it’s your middle-of-the-night epiphany when you realize you are stepping in the same pile of dog-do you stepped in before. The source of your insight matters less than the choice about what to do about it. Insight is worthless without action. Action is, likewise, meaningless unless it is sustained.

It’s about how you show up – not under normal circumstances – but under stressful conditions when your blind spots get activated. Make the unconscious conscious. Listen to the whispers that you might be, once again, becoming the parent you were trying not to be. Instead, become the person that your kids, friends, and coworkers will see as a role model.

This is how nurture beats nature.

Photo of Steve Ritter, the co-founder of The Center for Team Excellence

Steve Ritter

Steve Ritter is an internationally recognized expert on team dynamics whose clients include Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and many educational organizations. He is on the faculty of the Center for Professional Excellence at Elmhurst University where he earned the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Steve is the former Senior Vice President, Director of Human Resources at Leaders Bank, named the #1 Best Place to Work in Illinois in 2006 and winner of the American Psychological Association's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award in 2010. Steve provides ongoing workplace culture consultation to many thriving companies including Kraft Foods, Advocate Health Care, Kellogg's, the Chicago White Sox, AthletiCo, and Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.