The paradoxical premise of "THE TRIPLE PACKAGE" is that successful people tend to feel simultaneously inadequate and superior. This unlikely combination of qualities is part of a potent cultural package that generates drive: a need to prove oneself. Groups that instill this kind of drive in their members have a special advantage in America; because contemporary American culture teaches a contrary message--a message of self-acceptance and living in the moment.
That certain groups do much better in America than others is difficult to talk about. However, the package of three cultural traits becomes a source of empowerment unconfined by any particular definition of success. Ultimately, the Triple Package is accessible to anyone. It's a sense of beliefs, habits and practices, that individuals from any background can make a part of their lives or their children's lives, enabling them to pursue success as they define it.
A seemingly UN-American fact about America today is that certain groups starkly outperform others. The death of upward mobility in America has been widely reported in recent years. If you're an American born after 1960, how well you do is heavily dependent on how well your parents did. Yet, the American Dream is very much alive for certain groups, particulary immigrants.
For example, after 1959, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled to Miami, most arriving destitute. By 1990, the percentage of U.S.-born Cuban Americans with household incomes over $50,000 was double that of Anglo-Americans. Although less than 4% of the U.S. Hispanic population, Cuban Americans in 2002 accounted for 5 out of 10 wealthiest Hispanics in the United States---and today are 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic Americans overall to be making over $200,000 a year.
Why do some groups rise in wealth while others don't?
A misconception is that Protestants still dominate the American economy. Today, American Protestants are below average in wealth, and being raised in an Evangelical or fundamentalist Protestant family is correlated with downward economic mobility.
The Triple Package is about the rise and fall of groups. Its thesis is that when three distinct forces come together in a group's culture, they propel that group to disproportionate success. These three cultural forces, taken together, are called the Triple Package:
1. A SUPERIORITY COMPLEX. This is defined as a deeply internalized belief in your group's specialness, exceptionality or superiority. A crucial point about the Superiority Complex is that it is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking; like "everyone is equal to everyone else." Everyone of America's extremely successful groups fosters a belief in its own superiority
2. INSECURITY. Insecurity is a species of discontent--an anxious uncertainty about your worth or place in society, a feeling of worry that you or what you've done or what you have is in some fundamental way not good enough. Note that there's a deep tension between insecurity and a superiority complex. This unstable combination is precisely what gives the Triple Package its potency.
3. IMPULSE CONTROL. Impulse control refers to the ablility to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.
The Triple Package is so powerful an engine of group success because of the first two forces of superiority and insecurity; that together tend to produce a goading chip on the shoulder, a need to prove oneself or be recognized. This "I'll show them" mentality is common among immigrant groups and is one of the world's great motivators.
Source: Amy Chua: The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America