Born
to Win
Keeping Your Firstborn Edge
without Losing Your Balance
Dr. Kevin Leman
O
Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
Born to Win.indd 3
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© 2008 by Kevin Leman
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Paperback edition published 2009
Previously published under the title The Firstborn Advantage
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy,
recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception
is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leman, Kevin.
Born to Win : keeping your firstborn edge without losing your balance /
Kevin Leman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8007-3262-2 (pbk.)
1. Birth order. 2. First-born children—Psychology. I. Title.
BF723.B5L4633 2009
155.9 24—dc22
2009018956
To protect the privacy of those who have shared their stories with the author, some
details and names have been changed.
Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction: Will the Firstborn Please Stand Up? 11
Just who are the firstborns?
1.What’s This Birth Order Business About Anyway? 19
It has everything to do with your place in the family—
and your entire life.
2.Who’s on First? 35
Just because you’re the first child born in a family, does
that make you the firstborn? Here’s why . . . or why not.
3.The Firstborn Personality 59
Firstborns are achievers. They get things done . . . but
there’s a flip side to always winning.
4.Why Firstborns Are the Way They Are 73
From day one, they’re in charge. They always have the
thickest photo album. They set the benchmark for every
other child in the family.
5.Where Do I Go to Buy One of Those Firstborns? 91
You can’t buy ’em, you can’t teach ’em (at least not very
well). A firstborn has innate skills that are hard to beat
if he or she is balanced in life.
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Contents
6.Has the Critical Eye Turned on You? 109
If there’s anything firstborns struggle with, it’s criticism.
Did you have a flaw picker as a parent? Are you a flaw
picker? Here’s how to turn that around—for your own
and others’ good.
7.The Firstborn Advantage at Home 147
How to use your firstborn skills to strengthen your
relationships with your spouse and children (who may
be the same or a different birth order than you).
8.The Firstborn Advantage at School 185
How to use your firstborn nature to set reasonable
goals and to encourage both yourself and your children
as you pursue excellence . . . not frustration.
9.The Firstborn Advantage at Work 219
How you can win at business anytime and all the time.
10.The Firstborn Advantage in Relationships 253
Why birds of a feather flock together . . . but sometimes
cause problems in the nest.
11.Making the Most of Being a Firstborn 271
What do you really want out of life? You can break free
of your own and others’ expectations.
Notes 279
About Dr. Kevin Leman 283
Resources by Dr. Kevin Leman 285
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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5/29/09 8:36:41 AM
Introduction
Will the Firstborn Please Stand Up?
Just who are the firstborns?
H
ow many firstborns did you peg in the “Guess the Firstborn” quiz? Total up the ones you got right. Okay, got
your answer?
I’d bet my wife and a couple of my five children on the
fact that you were able to pick out all ten, or at least nine
out of ten.
Now how did that happen? What is it about these firstborns
that stand out from the rest? And why?
You don’t have to have a PhD in psychology to figure out
who the firstborns in the world are. Firstborns are the natural
movers and shakers. They’re the leaders. They can accomplish
just about anything.
Think of the governor of your state, the US senators, the
mayor of your town, the president of your school board, the
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
head of the company you work for. Chances are, they’re all
firstborn children.
If you’re reading this book on an airplane or a commuter
train, chances are high that the person across from you doing
a crossword puzzle or Sudoku book is a firstborn. If you’re
an adventurous sort, why don’t you ask the stranger, “Do you
happen to be a firstborn?” Who knows? You might end up
with a lively conversation on your hands.
Certain professions also seem to attract firstborns. For
example, in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, there is a
group of twelve anesthesiologists. Nine of them just happen
to be firstborns, and the other three are only children—the
only children in a family—which are basically first cousins
emotionally to firstborns. Is this happenstance, do you think?
Or is there something about firstborns that attracts them to
the precision required for such a career?
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was
a firstborn (the eldest of three children). All of the Mercury
Seven astronauts were firstborns. In fact, of the first twentythree astronauts in outer space, twenty-one were firstborns.
The other two were only children. There wasn’t a middle or
youngest child in sight.
The majority of the US presidents have been firstborns.1
Frank Sulloway, a brilliant MIT researcher who wrote Born
to Rebel: Birth Order Family Dynamics and Creative Lives,
claims that firstborns tend to be more conscientious, more
conservative, more responsible, more achievement oriented,
and more organized than laterborns, who tend to be more
open-minded and willing to take risks and explode cherished
ideas and theories. Firstborns stuck with the status quo and
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
were very assertive about it. No wonder firstborns are in so
many of the top positions of leadership.2
Take, for instance, the 2008 US presidential election. The
final three contenders for the biggest job in the world were an
only child (Barack Obama—more later on why he’s considered
an only child), a firstborn daughter (Hillary Clinton), and a
firstborn son (John McCain).
There is truly something unique
Firstborns are the
about firstborns, the leaders of the
pack. You may be one of them. Or
natural movers
you may be one of them and not know
and shakers of the
it. (More on that in this book too.)
world. They’re the
But how did they—and you—get to
leaders. They can
be that way?
accomplish just
Take a look at your own family—
about anything.
your brothers and sisters. Isn’t it true
that the firstborn and secondborn are
day-and-night different? And if you’re
a parent today, isn’t it true that if your firstborn travels east,
your secondborn will travel west? These differences can be
explained by birth order.
If you’re reading this book, chances are it’s because you’re
a firstborn, or you know (and are driven crazy by) a firstborn.
Firstborns can take the world by storm—and accomplish
more than you think is humanly possible, because they are
exacting and precise.
But out of balance they become driven, overly perfectionistic, and critical-eyed. Just imagine a group of firstborns
getting together to wallpaper your kitchen. Within thirty
minutes there would be blood on the floor, since everyone
would want to be in charge. That’s why baby-of-the-family
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
folks like me are so needed. Without the balance of middleborns and lastborns, firstborns can become too intense on
completing the task “the right way” (translation: “their way”)
and lose the relationship. Then they make their own and
others’ lives miserable.
For instance, take Mrs. Marcourt, the den mother of my
Cub pack when I was young. I was actually asked to leave
the Cub Scouts because she didn’t appreciate my baby-ofthe-family antics. She had little tolerance for them. What
had happened to bring this about? Well, I ask you, if a bunch
of boys were coming over and you wanted to serve them
chocolate chip cookies, would you place those cookies on
your grandmother’s precious china serving dish?
I destroyed that dish in one fell swoop. All I was doing was
diving for the first chocolate chip cookie. What was wrong
with that?
Mrs. Marcourt had a lot to say to me about what was wrong
with that. And she also told my mother in no uncertain terms
what was wrong with that. I didn’t return to Cub Scouts.
You see, Mrs. Marcourt was a firstborn. She was determined to do things right, and only she knew what the right
way was. (The same goes for my firstborn wife, who starts
preparing for a meal on Thursday when company isn’t coming until Saturday.)
“But, Dr. Leman,” you’re saying, “I’m not the firstborn in
my family, but I sure act like it. And my older sister, the first
child born in our family, doesn’t act like a firstborn at all.
Why is that?”
Why would I call a guy like Steve Martin, who is the youngest kid in his family, a firstborn? And why would I call Martin
Luther King Jr., who has an older sister, a firstborn? Because
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
you can be number eight in a family of nine, like my mother,
and still be a firstborn. You can be number five in a family
and still have a firstborn personality. You can have an older
sibling, like Martin Luther King Jr., and still have a firstborn
personality.
“Uh, Dr. Leman,” you’re saying, as you roll your eyes, “you
better get some help with math. Things aren’t adding up very
well for you. How can you be a firstborn if you’re not born
first? That makes absolutely no sense.”
Ah, but it makes perfect sense. I’ll show you why in this
book. There are a lot of myths floating around about this
whole birth order business, and I’m determined to debunk
them. All the years of research and study behind the scientific theory of birth order don’t really mean much until the
principles learned are actually applied to people like you—
to help you understand yourself and improve your life. And
that’s what I love doing best.
So we’ll take a look at birth order in the family. Although
it’s impossible to pigeonhole everyone into airtight compartments, at the same time it’s true that most firstborns tend
to display certain characteristics, as do most middleborns
and lastborns (or “babies,” as I like to call them). Your ordinal position—the order in which you were born in the
family—is very important. It has everything to do not only
with your place in the family but with how you live your
entire life.
But there are other critical variables that greatly influence
your birth order as well. As we talk about these, chances
are you’ll have an “Aha!” regarding your birth family, your
spouse, or one or more of your children. “Now I know why
my sister drives me so crazy,” you’ll say. Or, “Now I know why
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
my husband acts the way he does.” Or, “Oh, I get it. My son
is actually a firstborn. Now that makes sense.”
We’ll identify both successes and weaknesses of the firstborn personality. We’ll figure out why firstborns are the way
they are. Is it because they got first pick on the genetic material? Is it because of the way they were reared? Or is it a
combination of factors?
Once you understand how your ordinal and functional
birth order affects your personality, you’ll be able to see your
own strengths and weaknesses. You’ll realize why you make
certain choices, whether wise or poor, in life. And then you
can begin to strengthen yourself, to improve on the areas
in which you’re weak, and to make the strong parts of your
personality even stronger.
“Balance is a crucial issue for a firstborn,” says Laura Carter,
founder of the First Born Girls Social Club. “Firstborns need
permission to be able to relax. We struggle commonly with
time management, stress management, and prioritizing because we tend to take on a lot . . . in fact, too much.”3
Does that sound like you, firstborn? We’ll talk about how
important balance is particularly to firstborns, and I’ll give you a
peek into the heads of those in the First Born Girls Social Club.
My guess is that, if you’re a firstborn woman, you’ll find—as the
misunderstood Anne did in Anne of Green Gables—“a bosom
buddy” in those women. (And hey, maybe someday someone
will think of starting a First Born Guys Social Club. But my
guess is that no one would show up since “being relational” is
not usually at the forefront of a firstborn male’s mind.)
We’ll also talk about why firstborns in particular have a
heightened sensitivity and response to “the critical eye.” If there’s
anything that firstborns struggle with, it’s flaw picking.
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
Did you have a critical-eyed parent? (It only takes one
to influence you for a lifetime. If you had two critical-eyed
parents, you really need to read chapter 6.) Do you struggle
with your own perfectionism as a result? Do you tend to
pick at others’ flaws? This one single variable—the critical
eye—is so critical to the success or failure of a firstborn that
I’ve devoted an entire chapter to it.
When faced with a critical-eyed parent, firstborns tend
to become either pleasers (doing everyone else’s bidding,
with no thought to themselves) or controllers (“I’m in charge,
and it’s got to be my way—it’s the only right way”). But you
don’t have to live daily with that kind of stress—or the power
struggle. I’ll show you how to sidestep it.
Once you understand your firstborn personality—why you
are the way you are and what variables contributed to who
you are—you can move forward in confidence to use your
firstborn skills to your best advantage at home, at school, at
work, and in your relationships.
Why do you tend to marry someone of a different birth
order than you, but your friends tend to be of the same birth
order? How can you motivate your children to do well in
school—without frustrating them or exhausting yourself with
homework battles? Why are you the only one who is annoyed
by the smells emanating from the work refrigerator? How
can you win at business all the time? I’ll reveal those secrets
in upcoming chapters.
As a firstborn, you spend so much time fulfilling others’
expectations. But what about your own dreams? What do
you want to do and be? How can those firstborn qualities
help you?
That’s what Born to Win is all about.
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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Introduction
One last thing before you turn the page. Want to take another shot at guessing the firstborn? Then try these pairs:
1.Matt Damon or Ben Affleck
2.Florence Henderson (Brady Brunch mom) or Martha
Stewart
3.Reese Witherspoon or Sheryl Crow
4.Ben Stiller or Billy Crystal
5.Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt
See page 57 for the answers.
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Dr. Kevin Leman,
Born to Win: Keeping Your Firstborn Edge without Losing Your Balance,
Revell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009. Used by permission.
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