By Charlotte Alter

Nine families raised children who all went on to extraordinary success. Here’s what they have in common:

Every night for 20 years, Gino Rodriguez knelt beside his three daughters’ beds and whispered an incantation. As rats the size of footballs skittered along the floor of the basement apartment on the South Side of Chicago, he repeated the same five words into each girl’s ear as she slept: “I can and I will.” The message was always the same, and the audience was always asleep…

Read the full story at time.com/superfamilies.
This appears in the September 05, 2016 issue of TIME