Tiger Woods was arrested on Friday and charged with driving under the influence, property damage, and refusal to submit to a lawful test after he rolled his luxury SUV near his home on Jupiter Island, Florida, while trying to pass a flatbed truck on a narrow road. Police say he appeared lethargic following the crash and showed signs of impairment. A breathalyzer showed no signs of alcohol, but Woods refused to take a urine test.
That is what he is dealing with legally, and I think Tiger is probably now going to get some help. I mean, I certainly hope he is going to get some help. I think the narrative will probably switch back to golf pretty quickly. He won the Masters in 2019. It wasn’t that long ago.
He is getting older, but his life is so big and so grand. It is hard for people not to admire him. He has so many athletic accomplishments. He has beautiful homes. He has a mega yacht. He is dating Vanessa Trump, who is stunning and smart and cool and has some pretty interesting connections of her own.
But here’s the thing: It doesn’t make you happy. We all know that because we talk about it a lot. You can achieve all those mansions, a billion-dollar net worth, all the fancy cars, a yacht, and it doesn’t make you happy. That has to come from you.
And by the way, it takes parents who aren’t just focused on making you into a golf star. It takes parents who are building up that sense of resilience inside of you and the ability to understand right from wrong (like not serially cheating on your spouse and not getting behind the wheel of a car impaired over and over and over again because now you’re endangering not just yourself but other people’s children).
A Different Path
To that point, I was not a serious student in high school. I was smart enough, but I just didn’t care. My dad died at the beginning of my sophomore year, and I was focused more on being with friends and feeling supported and loved. You know the feeling you have as a teenager with your pals? That’s what I was after.
I got into Syracuse University, and I did pretty well there. I started to care more about grades. My mom told me I had to get a 3.0 or she wasn’t going to pay my tuition (she was using my dad’s insurance money to get me through). I knew I better honor that, and I did fine.
Then, I decided I wanted to go to law school. I didn’t get into any fancy law schools. I did get into Albany, which is where I am from. I spent my first 10 years in Syracuse and rest in Albany, so they are both kind of my hometown. I went to Albany Law School and, while I was there, I started to take myself seriously. I finally started to take my academics seriously, and I did well. I graduated toward the top of my class and I made the Law Review. That was important in law school, but none of that was getting me the job offers from the top-tier law firms.
I managed to get a job with Bickel and Brewer, and then, two years into that, I moved on to this very large law firm called Jones Day. Now, how did I get that? Yes, I had experience at a great firm, but I also knew a professor from Albany Law School who had a connection at Jones Day. That professor picked up the phone. No one looked at a resume. No one looked at what I had done in moot court or what I did during my first two years at the other firm. It was somebody at my small, third-tier law school who knew a guy who said, ‘This is a great gal. She is really smart, and you are going to like her.’ He was being kind.
I went in for an interview with that guy, we hit it off, he brought me back for the full range of interviews, I got the job, and my life changed. I was a small town girl from Albany and Syracuse, who saw herself growing up, getting married, and probably living my life in Syracuse, which I really loved. I didn’t know what I would do. Maybe I would hang out my own shingle or maybe be a criminal prosecutor, but I thought I would have a suburban life in Syracuse, New York. But my life changed dramatically because of that one phone call.
‘Schedule the Joy’
This is a long way of telling you that you don’t have to ruin your child’s life in hopes of him or her achieving something great when they are in adulthood – having money, having accomplishments, having love. I could have easily been very happy in Syracuse, New York, doing exactly the plan I originally thought of.
My life got much bigger and went in a different direction. I will confess, that comes with a different set of headaches but also blessings. And I didn’t lose my childhood. I had great times with friends and boyfriends and at the prom. I had the frivolity of going to concerts and parties. And I loved it. All of that went into making me who I am today. I do think joy is important. Schedule the joy.
I am going over my kids’ schedules with them for next year. They have to make some course selections in high school. They are in a competitive school, and there is pressure to take all the hardest classes and get the toughest resume with the best grades. And I keep saying, ‘Don’t do that.’ Yes, challenge yourself and keep yourself busy for sure. But do some frivolous things. Choose some of the fun electives that no one is going to be impressed by. Make some deposits into the ‘you fund’ or everything else gets depleted really fast.
It can’t all be about the sports, the golf, the academics, the discipline, the ballet, whatever it is. You are building a person; you are not building a tee time or a golf handicap. And I just think too often we forget that. We think we are doing it for their own good, like, ‘They’ll get into the best college.’
I didn’t get into the best college, but things can work out sometimes just based on a phone call. One phone call. You just happen to know a guy who knows a guy. And your willingness to speak to that guy and ask for the favor maybe comes from all the socialization you did that made you unafraid to ask somebody for a favor even though you didn’t know them that well.
I just think you have to trust in the process – and the process doesn’t always have to be near-abusive commitment to ‘the thing’ that we have now been told under modern-day standards is going to make your kids’ life better.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,284 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.