Today, 33% of all public high school students are dropping out. Of those who graduate high school, upwards of 70% desire to obtain a college degree. The majority do not. And of those who acquire a college degree—of deflated value—within five to ten years 70% are no longer working in a field related to their major. Some of this is acceptable, but there should be much more fulfillment and greater movement toward the American Dream. So what is happening to the dream? First, let’s define what it is or, more specifically, what many believe it is founded in, and then we will get into the particulars.

For most, the American Dream is founded in a solid education resulting in a four-year college degree (or that’s the perceived belief, yet only 28% of the population has a bachelor’s degree). So the question must be asked, exactly what does “education” mean? If you are looking to obtain something, it is always best to first and foremost get it clear as to what it is you are attempting to accomplish. This begins with definition. If you want to “love,” you better know what that term means, more specifically what it means to you, an individual definition. If you want “joy” in your life, “happiness,” “challenge,” “reward,” whatever it may be, you better get your definitions down before you even begin to set specific outcomes or goals. This all limits to the greatest degree any unnecessary aimless drifting, which happens all too often for many seeking an education as well as in obtaining goals in general. And another reason to get your definition is because an “education” is often defined for you (by government, parents, college) without your thorough understanding–which often works to the disadvantage of the educated. More on this later.

So what is “education”?

First of all, let’s take a look at what the government defines as education because it is the one that offers or mandates primary and secondary education. Post-secondary, college / university, is a separate issue. Today, the main emphasis is on science and math to supply workers for careers in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). Since this is government sponsored education, it is about feeding the economies and not about the student, a key point I’ll focus more on later.

In 2006 George Bush announced the American Competitiveness Initiative because the need for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the 21st century is great. A main focus of education from the start has been to feed the economies, of course. America needs to make money and compete with other countries for that money via trade to maintain and improve living conditions. And training students in math and science is good, for according to the National Science Foundation (2004), half of all U.S. economic growth in the last 50 years is a result of scientific innovation.

However, what needs to be addressed here is the point that only about 5 percent of the workforce is currently employed in STEM fields. This is something that few if any are talking about, and it creates a major issue for the individuals being educated. Because of the great need for graduates in science and math to feed the economies, opinion leaders and the general public alike see these disciplines as important, of course. Generally, as you can see here, what is taught mostly in public high schools is math and science, and linguistics: three science classes (biology, chemistry, physics; alternatives are physical and life sciences), five math classes (pre-algebra, algebra I, geometry, algebra II, and trigonometry), four English classes, a few from the social sciences (world history, U.S. history, government, economics, and accounting), two years of physical education, and maybe some health and wellness classes.

The needs of the country should not be overlooked or slighted. There is a great push for STEM field workers for good reason, for the Business Roundtable (2005) believes that if current trends continue 90% of all scientists and engineers will reside outside the U.S. And since detail is critical to understanding, or being able to see a clear picture through detail and definition, here are the fourteen most burgeoning fields: Advanced Manufacturing •  Aerospace •  Automotive  •  Biotechnology •  Construction  •  Energy •  Financial Services  •  Geospatial Technology  •  Health care •  Homeland Security  •  Hospitality •  Information Technology  •  Retail •  Transportation.

Most of the information above comes from a report that was prepared by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration by Jobs for the Future (2007). To repeat, what the country needs is important, those competent in science and math; however, in an AP-AOL News poll 4 in 10 said they hated math, and I’m sure of the remaining 60% there’s not a lot of love being given complex equations. As a college instructor with over ten years experience, to get a bit of a pulse on students and their majors, over the years I’ve taken informal polls of incoming freshmen to see how many are math or science majors. Most of the time, if I’m lucky, I get one or two in a class of thirty, which makes sense, for there are currently excessive openings in STEM fields.

However, the question must be asked, of those who don’t hate math and can at least stomach it, has learning occurred? And if it has, is it being applied and to what degree? (More on this momentarily) It certainly would be nice to know if our taxes are going to good use, for we are so concerned about our children going to school, but do we really know what they are taking with them upon graduation or our ROI?

For most students, any math beyond arithmetic or a basic understanding of science is generally wasted; for really, there is little chance that even a lukewarm reception of science or math will take one far in a career and / or life. Even if most don’t use math in their careers, there are always the pro-math group that will say math is important by arguing, for instance, that one needs higher math to determine the size of one’s garden, the family budget, how to lay out the back patio and so on. The belief that a great number of high school grads will apply higher math (beyond arithmetic) to at-home applications is putting too much faith where only faith may be. Or in other words, not likely. For most people, according to uber-successful marketer Dan Kennedy, are selfish, lazy, and they’re right, meaning; once again, they are not motivated to extend themselves mathematically. Just think of the average person you know and how much they use math. You do the math.

Regardless, everyone’s been exposed to math in high school, at least from algebra to geometry to some trigonometry and pre-calculus. But to what end? Is there any surveying going on post-graduation to see how much of what has been learned (and what has been learned?) is used? Needed? Desired? Of practical, everyday, career or personal use to the graduate? Once again, I’m not saying math is unimportant, nor science. What I desire for the student is to have a more realistic understanding of math and science’s place in education. And remember, it’s the education the student defines, not anyone else. So if it’s in the student’s definition, fine. If not, fine also. The student decides. I’m basing this in the belief that we live in a free country where we are free to make our own choices.

But let’s get back to the student that doesn’t hate math and can at least stomach it, has she learned?

Most believe that because a person graduates high school or college that “education” has taken place. However, if the motivation is external, as in main interest being grades, one may get the grade but not learn, a lot of that going on. In addition, if the student is not interested in the material or doesn’t use it, it will dissipate and disappear in a short period of time. The “stickiness” of education or lack thereof is a critical part of the process that few consider. If you’ve seen that show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? you know what I speak of. It’s got little to do with “smarts” but more to do with interest and frequency of use. Even if the student has interest in what she is learning, if it is not used on a regular basis it is forgotten all too quickly. So don’t think that because your child is being exposed to particular subjects that she is getting an education, in the sense that the knowledge is retained and used for the long term. Or, for that matter, that the high school grad knows how to apply the knowledge using the much maligned critical thinking. For most that get an “education” it is study, test, purge with little understanding as why the material has been learned or how to apply it.

To support, I remember going with my wife to classes offered by the state to help our son overcome his delayed-language learning issue. We attended for several months faithfully with about ten other couples. We learned the material, applied it somewhat, and once the class was over soon forgot all about it. And this is the typical response for even people who are mature and responsible, never mind young and inexperienced. I see my seventeen-year-old daughter finishing off assignments like a hot potato, tossing them to the side as soon as possible to be forgotten and never visited again, if she can help it. And being in education for over twelve years, mostly at the college / university level, it is something I often see, hear about, and have been told directly by students.

We can’t merely give the inexperienced great knowledge with little to no practical understanding as to its reason for being, first and foremost, nor an understanding of what to do with it all after its been learned and expect them to retain it never mind use it. Basic motivation says that to get someone to go somewhere, first they have to know where they’ve been, where they’re going, and what they need to do when they get there. We are giving knowledge like a gift to never be unwrapped, seen, or utilized. A sad state of affairs indeed.

Getting back to secondary education’s main purpose, to entice more to become science and / or math majors, so therein is the injustice of a STEM based education. Many are called but few are chosen to serve. So what of the 90-95% who don’t fit the bill?

As I’ve mentioned before, we should not negate the critical need for students to fill STEM jobs (again, many going unfilled at this minute), but a critical point to consider is that a student may not be made for the STEM fields. And if this is true, trying to insert someone somewhere where they don’t belong is counterproductive, regardless of need. For in the long run, if a person does not like what she is doing, she will not do it for long, not very productively, at least. I and tens of thousands of others have been there. My advice is just don’t do it, nor should students be conditioned to believe that if they don’t fit into the STEM education system that they are dumb or should worry excessively about fitting in.

Unfortunately, this excessive focus on science and math often conditions schools and their leaders to excessively force students to learn or comply with little subjective, logical reasoning. I heard of one case where a student attempted to pass a particular math class some six to seven times to no avail. This is an utter waste of time, for the student either has learning disabilities that must be addressed or no aptitude or interest, so pass the class to what effect?

But there are critical needs for certain general knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are essential for most everyone looking to maintain an income today.

Today’s needs are certainly different from those established during the Age of Enlightenment in the mid-nineteenth century when the concept of a free education for all arose, an education model that is still used today. Early in our country’s history, education meant preparing workers for their place in the nineteenth century economies, along with some understanding of civic pride and responsibility. If you were “educated,” you were considered scholarly—good communication skills, knowledge of the classics, and an understanding of civic responsibilities. But even though the pace of society has increased, needs changed, internationalism a cold, hard fact our education system has changed little.

Today’s classrooms are still focused on dispensing material to passive students who merely accept what is given as necessary and needed in their lives or by those who do little thinking about the why’s and how’s of their education. Some say that these “children” are not ready for such independence, but that is old-school thinking of a slower, less complex time. Things have changed. Back when government first mandated education, free at the point of delivery for everyone, it was all about the Industrial Age, mass production and manufacturing were king. Today, things have changed considerably. Today, creativity is king, that which requires greater student participation and autonomy, for greater creativity, knowledge acquisition and retention, responsibility, accountability, and so forth.

Today, half of all jobs ($1.7 trillion of GDP) come from the creative sector. And with the traditional classroom of listen, study, learn and regurgitate, there is little massaging of critically needed creative and critical thinking skills. Today, many workers are creatively designing for entertainment technology, devices and applications, like never before. Today’s workers can create software for gaming systems, phones, and computers. They can create movies, like those who work at Pixar. But it’s not just animators who work there. Pixar also employs mathematicians and scientists to get those amazing, almost more real than real life pictures. But there’s more than just STEM field jobs that require creativity. There is diversity in how one may earn their way today like never before. It is the most exciting time to live and earn.

What are some of those fun, exciting, fulfilling creative jobs?

Life or career coach, Ferrari driving instructor (Really!), chocolatier, magician, disc jockey, sports writer / broadcaster, standup comic (did that myself for five years), cruise ship performer (I roomed with one who has his masters in mathematics from UCLA; makes about $2,000 a show and does dry land corporate gigs too), wedding planner, theme park designer, food or movie critic, interior decorator / designer, PR / marketing, movie / commercial director, meeting and event planner. And the list goes on and on. You can get creative yourself. That’s the beauty of this entrepreneur based society that allows each individual to follow his or her passion to great effect.  I have one client who has a passion for organizing. She tells me that when she gets a juicy job, like organizing an entire house, she gets so excited she can’t sleep at night. Now that’s not a job but a passion.

Certainly some of these jobs or careers are not traditional or difficult to make lucrative, but that shouldn’t be the reason to stop. I have met and know many very successful people who have given up very good incomes in more traditional jobs to do things they love, like selling wellness products, mustard, and scrap book building techniques. Odd as it may sound, these people moved away from their traditional jobs with very good pay for a good reason; they wanted to follow their passion. Considering that mortality is very brief, it’s much better to follow a dream to say it didn’t work out instead of should have, could have on your death bed.

But times have changed as well. No longer is it safe merely to go after the money via a job; for the job is dead what with corporate downsizing and an increase in contract and temporary work to cut costs. Today, a worker must become an entrepreneur of one creating great personal value, skills, knowledge, attitude, character to ensure a career in these economically unstable times. Jobs and economic sectors will come and go, but the worker must be a constant. And this is what each person above focused on to obtain their success. It is the only way to survive today. You must get much more than just mere tip-of-the-ice berg knowledge at college, you must build a personal foundation of great depth and breadth. I often say that most college students even upon graduation are still missing 60-70% of critical knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to succeed today.

However, many in the workforce merely pick from the existing job menu. And that’s fine for some, but not for many. Because too many are educated via the external–such as what society deems acceptable, parents, or peers, or even colleges–and not based in intrinsic desires or the individual’s desires and needs, the college student gets into trouble. Some students may just go to the college catalog and choose from there. Or some may attempt to satisfy deficiencies by seeking jobs that will provide respect, prestige, or status. All of these are greatly attempts at failure, for greatest motivation comes internally or intrinsically utilizing one’s unique talents, abilities, gifts to mastermind a plan not merely to gain income but to provide opportunity for growth, challenge, and purpose. According to motivational expert Dan Pink, the following three elements are the main features of motivation and achievement: autonomy (freedom of choice), mastery, and purpose. The worker cannot find long-lasting, sustainable success, happiness, and joy, even, without focusing on the self, or self-interest, in an effort to master a skill to obtain great personal purpose. This can only be found through optimizing freedom of individual choice. How can anyone find mastery or great purpose doing that which one feels lukewarm about never mind hates?

I find it sad that in a creative, problem solving, entrepreneurial based society, the development of entrepreneurial skills in education are virtually ignored. We don’t think in these terms because government sanctioned education has conditioned us to think language, math, and science. What of teaching comfort with chaos, dealing with uncertainty, taking risks and enjoying them, confidence, persistence and tenacity, acceptance of failure and the ability to learn from it. Some of these attitudes and skills would also be very useful for employees too, amongst many others that should be taught that are just discovered by chance by most in the workforce, often many years into existing careers.

There’s even a popular notion of skipping college education and learning more career specific skills via classes and hands-on training or apprenticing.  In many countries in Europe, students co-op their education, roughly 40-70% attend school and work, taking a few years not four or more years to train for a place in the workforce. Far too many students obtain mere knowledge and theory and not critical attitudes and skills needed today. A great place to learn them is in the work environment itself. In addition, there are many higher education experts who see this as a waste (see Bryan Caplan’s statement below).

I worked with an English woman who didn’t go to college, who was the VP of MIS and she found it odd that so many Americans have a college degree. Neither I nor most of the programmers I worked with had a college degree and we were making very high end salaries as programmers and programmer / analysts. She said, and I quote, “The only people going to college were specializing in fields like medicine, law, and engineering.” The cost of college is twice the rate of inflation. Total loans spent have increased in the last three years by 25% going from $440 to $550. Going to college is no place to find yourself or if you get a degree you damn well be sure that you use it if you’re going to spend thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.

Because of all these issues with education, some are coming up with alternative forms of achievement, such as Tim Ferris, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, who wrote “8 Steps to Getting What You Want Without a Formal Education.” He speaks to the fact that most jobs (80%) are obtained via networking and only a small percentage (20%) via adverts in the newspaper and on the Internet. He speaks to not only getting a job but building a career by going to the informal job market or networking, establishing your own credentials via experience and research, that employers require skills not degrees. Ferris is basically saying that unless your need specific training–such as one needs to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer–there are alternatives.

Here are a few more looks at education issues and the debunking of myths and mis-notions about the same from the experts at The Chronicle of Higher Education from the article “Are Too Many Students Going to College?”

Charles Murray, political scientist and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute: It has been empirically demonstrated that doing well (B average or better) in a traditional college major in the arts and sciences requires levels of linguistic and logical/mathematical ability that only 10 to 15 percent of the nation’s youth possess. That doesn’t mean that only 10 to 15 percent should get more than a high-school education. It does mean that the four-year residential program leading to a B.A. is the wrong model for a large majority of young people.

Marty Nemko, career counselor based in Oakland, Calif.: All high-school students should receive a cost-benefit analysis of the various options suitable to their situations: four-year college, two-year degree program, short-term career-prep program, apprenticeship program, on-the-job training, self-employment, the military. Students with weak academic records should be informed that, of freshmen at “four year” colleges who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their high-school class, two-thirds won’t graduate even if given eight and a half years. And that even if such students defy the odds, they will likely graduate with a low GPA and a major in low demand by employers. A college should not admit a student it believes would more wisely attend another institution or pursue a non-college postsecondary option. Students’ lives are at stake, not just enrollment targets

Richard K. Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and professor of economics at Ohio University: A large subset of our population should not go to college, or at least not at public expense. The number of new jobs requiring a college degree is now less than the number of young adults graduating from universities, so more and more graduates are filling jobs for which they are academically overqualified.

Bryan Caplan, associate professor of economics at George Mason University: There are two ways to read this question. One is: “Who gets a good financial and/or personal return from college?” My answer: people in the top 25 percent of academic ability who also have the work ethic to actually finish college. The other way to read this is: “For whom is college attendance socially beneficial?” My answer: no more than 5 percent of high-school graduates, because college is mostly what economists call a “signaling game.” Most college courses teach few useful job skills; their main function is to signal to employers that students are smart, hard-working, and conformist. The upshot: Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn’t encourage it.

Caplan: College attendance, in my view, is usually a drain on our economy and society. Encouraging talented people to spend many years in wasteful status contests deprives the economy of millions of man-years of output. If this were really an “investment,” of course, it might be worth it. But I see little connection between the skills that students acquire in college and the skills they’ll need later in life.

Murray: A large wage premium for having a bachelor’s degree still exists. For everything except degrees in engineering and the hard sciences, I submit that most of that premium is associated with the role of the B.A. as a job requirement instead of anything that students with B.A.’s actually learn. The solution to that injustice—and it is one of the most problematic social injustices in contemporary America—is to give students a way to show employers what they know, not where they learned it and how long it took them. In other words, substitute certifications for the bachelor’s degree.

Murray: Who should pay for students to attend college? Ideally, students themselves. If that means delaying college for a few years to save money, so much the better—every college professor has seen the difference in maturity and focus between kids straight out of high school and those who have worked or gone into the military for a few years. The ideal is unattainable. But somehow we’ve got to undermine the current system whereby upper-middle-class children go to college without having to invest in it.

Murray: We have a moral obligation to destroy the current role of the B.A. in American life. It has become an emblem of first-class citizenship for no good reason.

Caplan: From a moral point of view, far too many students are going to college—just as far too many people stand up at concerts.

So what are some of these critical skills, knowledge, and attitudes that today’s employers want but students aren’t getting at college?

Most employers are looking for good communication- critical thinking- and complex reasoning skills (that which so many students lack; therefore, the majority of employers now pass over U.S. undergrads for the demanding jobs to hire those with masters degrees or foreign educations). But there is more. Since today’s graduate will change careers, not just jobs, some three to five times over a working lifetime, he or she will need to learn how to think critically, creatively, and intuitively like never before.

And I know I just mentioned creating your own business or situation, but unless you are really motivated (because it’s hard out there), best to get some experience and connections under your belt before doing so, thus a job.

As mentioned previously, half of all salaries and wages in the U.S. come from the creative sector ($1.7 trillion); therefore, it is critical to be a creative problem solver / solution finder, a creator of original ideas, a creative leader–creativity being at a premium today. In addition, the very nature of the system in which we work, capitalism and its creative destruction—destruction and creation of jobs, even economic sectors—resulting in greater turnover in these most economically turbulent times, requires one to be creative. The presence of capitalism’s creative destruction is a good reason to not merely follow job trends in choosing work, never mind a career. For soon the inherent better service / product nature of capitalism will result in, for example, Net Flix making video stores like Blockbuster obsolete, Amazon forcing Boarders to close its doors, or technological advances empowering musical artists making record companies much less significant. Therefore, one must be more agile in one’s ability to not only problem solve on the job but between jobs, even between careers, or moving from one career to the next several times over.

Students must learn how to be self-educating, for more than ever before education is not institutional but individual. With corporations staying leaner than ever before in a turbulent world job market, the new worker must see herself more as an entrepreneur than employee. The individual must be 100% accountable for his education, career(s), and life like never before. She must also emphasize such skills as being adaptive, open-minded, and self-reflecting like never before. Reliance on the government for education, a single job stream for solvency, and educational institutions for guidance and all one needs in today’s complex world no longer applies. Today’s worker must be an entrepreneur, a company of one, regardless of whether an employee or employer.

So let us get more into the specifics of these ever important skills: critical, creative, intuitive thinking.

Critical thinking is the ability to go beyond surface meaning, being able to look between, above, below, and around the lines to greater, greatest understanding, evaluating and judging, going deeper, deepest to more thorough problem solving. It’s all about learning to ask the right questions.

Creative thinking is at the foundation of critical thinking; it is divergent thinking, being able to see many possible solutions to synthesize current knowledge, understanding, and experience to create a bridge of new understanding to solution.

Finally, there is intuition, creation’s cousin. Intuition, or gut instinct, is a source of understanding or insight that resides outside the individual’s conscious mind. Some say the intuitive lies inside us in the subconscious. Others say intuition lies outside of us in the divine. Regardless, because of the current increase in knowledge, complexity, and speed of change in many fields, one can hardly rely on the limited rational mind, that which has evolved little and has not kept up with the rapid technological advances.

“Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data” John Naisbitt, best-selling author, future studies

“All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas” Immanuel Kant

“The only real valuable thing is intuition” Albert Einstein

“Without creativity, knowledge would not exist” Albert Einstein

No amount of education, knowledge, or understanding will help us in many situations where problem solving is critical, for we have relatively remained the same in our capacity to take in, process, recall, and retain information while knowledge is forever increasing and technological advances proliferate. Keeping track of all this information and dealing with these rapid advances in technology adds stress, enhancing our limitations.

Consider the following example.

Because of the ever increasing knowledge gains in medicine, for example, one would think this naturally to be a good thing. The logic being that with increased knowledge there is increased chance for remedies to disease and injury. However, quite the opposite has occurred. Knowledge has increase and technology has advanced, certainly; however, the human instrument over that same time period has remained relatively the same in its extreme limitations to take in, process, and recall all this new information.

According to Dr. Atul Gawande (endocrine surgeon Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; associate professor Harvard Medical School), “Scientists continue to report important new genetic findings, subtypes of cancer, and other diagnoses—not to mention treatments—almost weekly. The complexity is increasing so fast that even the computers cannot keep up” (The Checklist Manifesto 23). He goes on to state that it’s not just clinicians that suffer this fate but “software designers, financial managers, fire-fighters, police officers, and lawyers.” Because of this, Dr. Gawande came up with a simple, yet elegant solution: the checklist. Einstein said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius–and a lot of courage–to move in the opposite direction.” Dr. Gawande imparts an important aspect of problem solving here. His simple solution has proved to be quite useful.

The above is one reason why 90% of employers rate “written communication, critical thinking skills,  problems solving and complex reasoning as very important” (Academically Adrift). To process and analyze information, problem solve, and communicate in today’s complex and knowledge swelling world, one’s mind must be in tip top shape. However, most undergraduates don’t have the above mentioned skills and because of this are often overlooked for the more complex, better paying jobs.

Way too many students come to class today without the necessary curiosity and passion needed for learning and problem solving that is critical in today’s highly complex, quickly changing, and vast world job market. But if there is a desire to think well, to discipline the mind, it is only through consistent reading, reflecting, and researching that today’s successful student will be able to find some semblance of career(s) security. Processing, manipulating, managing knowledge, the continued working of a well-tuned mind muscle must be flexed in these complex, quick paced, multiple-career times. Great achievers have done as such, but it’s more important today to the average worker than ever before. There is greater opportunity than ever before, but the destruction and creation of jobs–jobs that are generally more interesting, rewarding, but demanding and complex than ever before–demand one to be prepared and in top notch condition.

Now that we’ve gained some additional insight, let’s go back to secondary and post-secondary education and take a more detailed look at current issues and concerns.

As mentioned earlier, the number of high school dropouts has reached epidemic proportions (one out of three public school students), for many are bored or don’t see the relevance between what they are learning and the real world. They know something is wrong, not quite right, but can’t put a finger on it. And few are helping them to see what is truly afoot, that their government is focusing on STEM field jobs thus only two of the eight intelligence types (linguistics and math or logic), and if certain students don’t fit the bill, it’s their loss. This is an extremely limited education considering the variety of lively options that lie outside STEM fields. And of those who do graduate and go onto college, more and more are not graduating, or if they are graduating, they are not learning.

So what’s happening? Let’s take a deeper look.

There are more career, life, even entertainment options than ever before. There is great diversity and liveliness in today’s experience, what with television and its hundreds of channels and entertainment options; movies with tremendously appealing and fanciful visuals; the interactive Internet with its social media and video sites in which the average person becomes the involved creator; the wide variety of theme parks; and so much more. Yet to a great degree, we still teach our children the same knowledge we always have with little curriculum modernization in content or delivery, as well as to the greatest degree keep our kids in a passive, non-creative, lack of control state of being. Autonomy, as a reminder, is that which enables not only greater learning but optimized knowledge acquisition and retention, creativity, and personal accountability and responsibility, that which is most needed by today’s worker / entrepreneur. To feed our economies today, we must enable this active, creative, reflective student in the class room. The passive student is passé. In one experiment by a Duke University professor, she had students interact on a blog, commenting on each other’s writing. Interestingly, she found that without the teacher there, or having to do more restrictive, less interesting, less subjective essays, they thrived, doing some of what she discovered was their best writing.

With all this stimulation and the need to sit for hours in boring classrooms, should we wonder why so many kids in recent years have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder?

In our secondary schools, if children are found not to be interested or able to pay attention in class, an attention deficit diagnosis is assigned and the appropriate drugs prescribed, drugs that often, like most drugs, have serious side effects often creating outcomes worse than the alleged disease they are attempting to remedy. Even in general society, if one is depressed or unable to focus and concentrate, drugs are often seen as the answer. The number of over-the-counter drug commercials on television and in print media today reveals our nations comfort with the prescription. Apparently, there is a great disturbance in our youth. They can’t sit and listen, and they are so discontent with education that they are dropping out in record numbers. What is going on?

Considering that the third leading cause of death for those ages 15-24 is suicide, one must ask the question, why? There is an excess lack of motivation, hope, and commitment to education today. A great cause for suicide is a lack of understanding, a sense of drifting without purpose. In 2011, Academically Adrift came out speaking to the issue of the serious decline of higher education. A key point from the book that I’d like to focus on here is that “students stay in prolonged states of directionless shift, delay characterized more by indecision than motivated reflection, confusion than the pursuit of clear goals, ambivalence  than  determination” William Damon, psychologist.

Anyone who is young and inexperienced, who is “directionless,” full of “indecision,” “confusion,” and “ambivalence” has a greater tendency than not to lose hope. What needs to be done is to provide that hope, meaning that we need to define, explain, and inform what this thing education is really all about to the deepest level possible, the nature of the economic system they will work in, and possible difficulties and encounters in career and life that will arise. A more informed person is a more secure person; knowledge is power; and so forth.

I provide that service to my college students and clients, and you’ve never seen such an attentive, rapt group, learning things that are fundamentally true and critical to understanding to lessen indecision, confusion, and ambivalence, but unfortunately are rarely addressed. Students, the young and uninformed, need to know more about the second most important commitment to time, money, and effort that they will make in their lives–career only second to family. If we are not as transparent as we can be about education, giving as thorough an explanation to its in-and-outs in minute detail as possible, then we do them a great injustice and disservice. We are simply contributing to their confusion, ambivalence, directionless, and indecision.

Contributing factors to public high school dropout rates also has to do with the economy, where financial survival takes precedence over education. One of the core issues being the economy, of course. Education takes a back seat when mom and / or dad lose their jobs and the only chance of survival is the of-age children going to work. But the high divorce rate doesn’t help either what with there being two households to pay for rather than one. I could go on, but these are some of the major concerns.

At the college level, maximizing the student’s understanding of education and what it means is imperative, and the economy’s effects are equally as upsetting to college students, but there are some concerns regarding higher education that differ from those of high school.

What are some of the key issues affecting students today that are directly related to colleges and universities?

Some of the low graduation rate and diminished learning can certainly be blamed on universities that reward faculty more for scholarly pursuits than teaching under-graduates, but students must take some of the blame as well. The learning that is not happening can be attributed to students who have learned to “manage” their education, often taking easier classes or teachers who require less work for good grades or those that can be manipulated by students. Most of this change has occurred over the last couple decades as a result of money changing hands. Instead of money going to universities, now it goes to the inexperienced student-consumer in the form of financial aid, students who often merely go to college by default because it is the thing to do or that which his or her parents, peers, or society has advocated. Thus the student is not properly motivated and sees “college” as an obstacle to simply be navigated as quickly as possible (Academically Adrift).

But another reason for this is that no longer is a degree seen as a “sure thing” to a job and steady career; as a matter of fact, as mentioned previously, there are more with degrees than there are job openings that require a degree. This in itself is creating a lot of anxiety, doubt, and confusion.

The above lack of learning has resulted in more and more employers complaining that those with a U.S. bachelor’s degree do not have the necessary critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing / communication skills needed for more complex, demanding jobs. As a matter of fact, it has gotten so bad that many employers in the states have relegated rudimentary non-technical jobs to those with U.S. bachelors while hiring those with graduate degrees or from foreign sources for more rigorous, higher paying positions (Academically Adrift). I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.

So what’s the result of all this?

Many business leaders are concerned that today’s graduates don’t have the skills to ensure economic competitiveness. As mentioned previously, it is technology and science that drives the U.S. economies. STEM careers require complex and critical thinking skills. But even educators believe that recent organizational changes have undermined core education functions.

“Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should. Many students graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers . . . reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems” Derek Bok, former president of Harvard

“The quality of student learning in U.S. colleges and universities is inadequate, and in some cases, declining” Secretary Commission on Higher Education: A Test of Leadership

It’s complex and may take years before any substantial inroads are made by colleges and universities and the government into solving core issues, if they come at all. Here is a quick look at why change is not forthcoming. The statements all come from “Where Will Innovation Begin?” by Jeff Selingo, editorial director of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mel Schiavelli, a former provost and interim president at the College of William and Mary, and a former provost at the University of Delaware, has recently come up with an innovate approach to higher education. He is the president at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

First, there are “No departments. Academic departments are silos built by faculty members to further their research and careers.” Second, no tenure. And finally, no frills to cut costs: no campus (a single building), sports teams or dormitories. When Seligo asked Schiavelli if any of these innovations or similar ideas could be used at other existing universities, he states “So much of the debate about higher education in this country is driven by R1 research universities and their research needs. It’s not about teaching, and it’s not about the needs of today’s students.”

Seligo also states that “innovation just can’t happen at new universities. The last thing this country needs is more universities.” But because many administrators are afraid of losing students or investors, change, if it does come, will come too slow and too late for many students.

But the problem is that students in college now, and those shortly to come, don’t have the luxury of waiting. And that is why I and others in the private sector are coming forth with solutions today. It is critical that students are, first, made aware of the core issues of education—defining what the govt. and colleges define it as, and then specifically matching the student’s basic talents, gifts, abilities to the student’s definition of education—discovering what employers needs are, and then matching the student to the particular career, industry, and specific environment she can thrive in while supplying her with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes for adaptability. Making students the center of understanding, creating greater awareness of the true nature of education, and setting them up as self-sustaining, self-educators not mostly reliant on institutions is critical to not only overcome current education issues, but to enable their ability to thrive in these complex, volatile world job market times.

What’s the effect of not enabling students NOW with the tools they need to succeed?

“Many students come to college poorly prepared for highly demanding academic tasks . . . But, more troubling still, they enter college with attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors that are often at odds with academic commitment” Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift

It is critical that students have a razor sharp, focused plan based in a solid understanding of the current education and economic environment, so that they can obtain maximum motivation, stick to a plan and carry it out. In addition they must have extensive hands-on and book knowledge about their chosen occupation, the educational requirements, and future demands for chosen occupation, as limited as that foreknowledge may be.

But what also has to be instilled in students are a serious understanding of values, morals, and ethics. These things used to be taught, like what you saw in The Social Network, the Winklevoss’ treating Zuckerberg with kid gloves even though he is the offender. They felt it wasn’t like a “Harvard man” to attack another Harvard man.

Colleges and universities used to teach values but have not done so for some time. Therefore, we can look at an indicator of how this has affected students. Consider that from 1963 to 1993 admitted cheating of students went from 26 to 52%. Employers do not want those steeped in cheating, cutting corners, and dishonesty working for their organization. So it is critical that students learn necessary values for today and the future: honesty, accountability, appreciation, awareness, commitment, completion, consistency, cooperation, decisiveness, duty, efficiency, fairness, generosity, and so forth.

So what else is there regarding education that is wreaking havoc with today’s student? How about the financials of the here and now into work and retirement?

Considering that total college loan debt has gone up 25% from 2008 to 2011, $440 to $550 billion, should give you a clue. Today, like never before, the American Dream is not being fulfilled by college but destroying it in debt. More and more grads are running not only into insurmountable debt, but with the rise in the cost of living and tax rates, decrease in savings rates, and deflated salaries that experts say won’t recover until 2021, it is getting more and more difficult to get by on merely a job alone. How many students getting into a major have even a clue what their chosen career will provide for the short- and long term into retirement? Students should at least have some idea of the financial situation to come, as only a common courtesy to the student, of course.

But what do students know about achievement and success? Overcoming difficulties and trials in work and life that they will certainly have? What about setting goals and understanding how to overcome failures so as to not give up? Learning how to ask the right questions for greater problem solving in career and life? Overcoming poor, debilitating habits and weaknesses that will take down a career or life quicker than you can say, failed thinking? Learning proper attitudes needed to achieve and maintain success? How to be productive, accountable, pro-active, committed, persistent, present, self-sustaining, self-educated, motivated, focused, self-inquiring (the intuitive to greater, greatest achievement, happiness, and joy). And more.

What are the three key principles to greatest motivation and achievement?

According to motivational expert, Dan Pink, they are autonomy (ability to maximize self-choosing), mastery, and purpose, as mentioned previously. To obtain the later two you need the former. And as one looks to mastery and purpose, she will find her innate skills, abilities, talents, gifts, and desires and fulfill them in a purpose that will be discovered to greatest happiness and joy, to the tune of not only the family and self but all those she comes in contact with. And as she does so, she will discover the inert in her, character and passion, not previously seen but only learned of by taking risk in serving self-interest to the maximization of the individual and all those she comes in contact with. And as she does so, she begins to expand, exponentially if she learns to always challenger herself and grow in this power evolving universe to produce greatly for self and the hundreds, thousands, millions she comes in contact with as she grows as nature desires it, exponentially coming to the aid of self and society as best she can.

Most fail because they never prepared “themselves for the harsh lessons the Creator set for them on life’s path to strengthen their spirit and make them fit for life. Unlike the warrior who accepts harsh discipline as a privilege and honor, these people are like pieces of grain caught in a millstone, ground down by the wheel of life in agony and pain” Chin-ning Chu, author of Thick Face Black Heart

We all desire magic in our lives; it is an innate desire for all, yet few believe it can happen to them. It is always for someone else. But in those quite times, during the day or at night before sleep takes over, we know deep in our hearts that we all desire the greatest, deepest, most satisfying, life quenching fulfillment that we could ever imagine and more. It is out there for everyone. Belief in it must be practiced over and again, as Neo did in the Matrix. He is the One or savior, but upon asking the Oracle if he is she states, “You have the gift, but you seem to be waiting for something,” as most of us are. But we all must be brave and reach forth, to practice in our minds, as Neo does in virtual reality or the matrix, and then take it to the real world, as Neo does later in the trilogy taking down a machine with the wave of a hand.

It is all up to us and it is within us, so we must be to the greatest degree self-educating, self-sustaining and maintaining. We must look within to find our genius, our unique roadmap to success and greater, greatest achievement.

Don’t let life happen to you, let you happen to life. If you are selfish, lazy, hopeless, fearful, doubtful, anxious, shy, unproductive, irresponsible, immature . . . practice overcoming. I have. Growing up I was shy, introverted, hopeless, anxious, angry, depressed, suicidal, addictive, but I overcame through taking the hard road, the challenging road turning 180 degrees from fully unproductive to maximized productivity of unrelenting, razor sharp, focus, commitment, integrity, and honesty.

“Most commonly accepted standards of behavior are arbitrary, and the arbitrators themselves are often flawed individuals who, under the guise of virtue, have perpetuated their own weaknesses and fear” Chin-ning Chu

Be aware of truth in perspective and understanding. Become an empowered seer of truth and understanding so that you are able to do whatever you know you need to do to obtain your goals, righteously and honorably, without allowing what others do and say detract or hinder you in any way. YOU are in charge, for people will believe what you broadcast to the world, and what you broadcast, that which everyone sees first and foremost, is your inner value. Your character, intelligence, spirit, and soul. Create value in yourself and pass that value onto the world. Don’t take short cuts or any one else’s’ path. You are unique and put here for a reason. Discover it. Nurture it. Embrace it. And follow it to the greatest life imagined. But don’t focus on what makes you feel good but what will make you great, which often entails great sacrifice and doing the unlikeable and unwanted to greater character, empowerment, and strength.

Good luck. Good education and career. And god bless.

If I can help with anything, please don’t hesitate to call.

Peace!

Values Clarification Exercise

Values are who we are. Not who we would like to be, not who we think we should be, but who we are in our lives, right now. Another way to put it is that values represent our unique and individual essence, our ultimate and most fulfilling form of expressing and relating. Our values serve as a compass pointing out what it means to be true to oneself. When we honor our values on a regular and consistent basis, life is good and fulfilling.

With knowing values important life decisions are easier to make and outcomes are more fulfilling when the decisions are viewed through a matrix of well-understood personal values. However, the process of clarifying values is often difficult. It frequently makes people intellectualize and fantasize, whereas the preference is look into one’s life and uncover the values that are already there, the day-to-day actions and interactions. That’s one of the reasons selecting values from a list seldom works: the list becomes an opportunity to vote on the most desirable or socially acceptable values, rather than serving as a mechanism to identify who we are. Selecting values from a list reinforces the intellectual urge to figure it out and get the words right. Values are observable; they live in the world. Thus, people don’t benefit from picking their values from a list. The task is to view one’s life in such a way that values are revealed.

Sometimes people can’t seem to get a perspective on their values. Here coaching works well in such cases because the coach can ask questions and provide scenarios that take clients into their lives rather than into their heads. Values clarification coaching allows clients to examine and articulate their values in a safe yet courageous environment. The exact wording will matter to the client in the long run, but what is most important in the short run is that the approximate label for the value resonates with the client. As a practical matter for coaches, values clarification is enormously helpful in learning to know clients, and in helping clients know themselves. Coaches and clients use values to help facilitate fulfilling choices, to strategize appropriate actions, and to recognize situations in which values are an issue.

Many clients nevertheless struggle with finding the right words. They are constrained because they feel they have to find the perfect word and the value has much more emotional meaning than the definition of a single word allows. In fact, each individual has his or her own unique meaning for each value. We may have different meanings even though we use the same word. Earlier techniques were mentioned that can minimize vocabulary anxiety. The first tip is to use a pencil with an eraser. Clients often experience a sense of reluctance when values have to be written in ink. The coach can emphasize the advantages of using a pencil so the client realizes that it is not important to get it right the first time. The second tip when doing values clarification is to use several words together to form a string describing the value. Separating the words with slash marks makes the string easier to read. For example:

Integrity/Honesty/Walk-the-talk

Integrity/Whole/Congruent

Leadership/Empower/Collaborative

Leadership/Decisive/Powerful

When creating the values string, ask the client to place the most significant term at the beginning, such as “Integrity” and “Leadership” in the examples above. Point out that it may take several months to come up with a fairly complete list of values. Since values show up over time in our lives, it is unlikely that we will be able to capture them accurately and completely in one sitting. Values that are fully defined and elaborated on become a powerful tool in pointing clients toward fulfilling choices as they approach a major crossroads or get off track. The coach facilitates the process of identifying values by proposing various scenarios to the client. The following scenarios will give you a place to start. Experiment with these and continue to explore other methods for allowing clients to see their values.

A Peak Moment in Time

Ask the client to identify special, peak moments when life was especially rewarding or poignant. It’s important that the time frame be quite limited—a “moment”—or there will be too much in the experience to allow the client to pinpoint specific values. When the client has a specific moment in mind, start probing: “What was happening?” “Who was present and what was going on?” “What were the values that were being honored in that moment?” Acknowledge what you are hearing and keep probing, periodically testing words to see what values resonate for this client. “That sounds important.” “Is there a value of accomplishment or achievement in that experience?” or “You light up when you describe that day. It sounds like you were honoring a value around nature and a value of connection. Does that sound right?” There will be a stronger response when the words ring true. Ask the client to expand on the first word. “What does ‘accomplishment’ mean to you?” “What words elaborate on your value of connection?” Keep looking at peak moments, seeking experiences the client found particularly rich and fulfilling.

Suppressed Values

Another way to isolate values is to go to the opposite extreme, looking at times when a client was angry, frustrated, or upset. This will often lead to identification of a value that was being suppressed. First, have the client name the feelings and circumstances around the upset; then flip it over and look for the opposite of those feelings. For example, the client might say, “I felt trapped, backed into a corner. I had no choices.” The coach might then say, “Trapped, cornered, without choice. If we flip that over, it sounds like there might be a value around freedom or options or choice. Does that sound right?” For the coach, it’s not so important that the vocabulary be right—it’s important that the words feel right to the client. To further illustrate, the coach might say, “So you felt frustrated when they kept spinning their wheels, doing the same thing over and over again? Is the other side of that a value for creativity or innovation?”

Many of us have created our lives in such a way that we automatically and easily honor many of our values without even being aware that we are doing so. Therefore we may not recognize them as values until something gets in the way. The key here is to point out to the client that every upset or moment of distress is likely to signal that a value is being suppressed.

Must-Haves

Another way for clients to identify their values is to look at what they must have in their lives. Try it yourself. Beyond the physical requirements of food, shelter, and community, what must you have in your life in order to be fulfilled? Must you have a form of creative self-expression? Must you have adventure and excitement in your life? Must you have partnership and collaboration? Must you be moving toward a sense of accomplishment or success or be surrounded with natural beauty? An underlying question for the process is What are the values you absolutely must honor—or part of you dies?

Obsessive Expression

We are all capable of obsessive behavior—insisting on honoring a value, inflating it into a demand rather than a form of self-expression. You’ve probably had an experience like this in your own life, such as when your roommate’s value of orderliness became an obsessive demand for perfection. Our friends and families often do us a service by pointing out the obsessive expression of our values: “You are so controlling!” “All you think about is your students.” “You want all the attention.” These statements might point toward a value of personal power/leadership, of learning/ growth, and of recognition/acknowledgment. Have your clients examine those times when they take certain values to the extreme. “What is it that people say about you? What do you say about yourself?” “What is it that people tease you about or that drives them crazy?” There are important values here that have mutated for some reason. Look for the value, and don’t focus on the mutation.

The Values-Based Decision Matrix

One of the most potent tools for making fulfilling life choices is the Values-Based Decision Matrix. This matrix is launched during the initial values clarification process. (Please note that the listing of values may take several months to complete.) After you and the client have brainstormed a list of values, ask the client to rank the top ten values in priority order. Then ask the client to score his or her sense of satisfaction—the degree to which he or she is honoring each value—using a scale of 0 to 10. Most clients find this exercise very revealing, and they are often shocked at what they learn about themselves. Generally, the coach pays particular attention when a client indicates that a score is below 7. This is a likely place for coaching, since low scores mean the client might be putting up with an intolerable situation.

The coach may want to revisit this process from time to time to keep the client grounded in his or her sense of self. Over the years, we have noted that when things are going particularly well in a client’s life, the scores typically are high. When the client is struggling or is at a low point, the values matrix can help determine where corrective action is needed. When a client is facing a major decision, such as whether to make a job change or start a new business, or even to have a child, the Values-Based Decision Matrix can be particularly revealing. Ask the client to score his or her values today. Next, ask the client to project out two months, a year, or sometime in the future: “Imagine that you did make the change. Anticipate and write down what your scores would be if you did. Next, imagine that you did not make the change and record those scores.” This exercise will provide the client with useful insight about making a fulfilling choice.

Why is all this happening? Well, let’s begin with the beginning.

To begin to understand what has happened, we have to go back to the sixties with open enrollment or allowing anyone into college. Community colleges have done it all along, but in recent years four-year universities and colleges have followed suit. This has resulted in many students slacking off believing that hard work isn’t necessary to get into college. Unfortunately, along with several other factors, it has resulted in the majority of students entering community college not being able to meet accepted standards in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

In addition, at the secondary level power has shifted from the teacher to the student in the classroom. From my two years of experiences and conversations with other teachers as a K-12 substitute teacher, along with dozens of stories told to me by friends, family, and graduate seminar students getting out of teaching, the lack of control in the classroom is killing the teaching profession. According to a recent survey, three out of five going into teaching use it only as a stepping stone to another position or profession, as my lawyer friend did several years ago. He told me that the majority of teachers at his school were either new or ready for retirement—few in-betweens, for the reason stated above. He was even told by one of the experienced teachers, “Either you’re going to do what the students want or you’ll quit.” At an assembly, he asked a student to behave. The student’s response? “You can call the cops if you want. You can’t do anything.”

But there’s more to the story than loss of control in the classroom and liberal ideals. There’s the reality of the economy, a considerable rise in the cost of living and decrease in the savings rate, along with a great number of divorced parents now being financially responsible for dual homes—main reason many students drop out is to help the single-parent pay the bill. According to a report titled The Silent Epidemic by John Bridgeland (CEO of Civic Enterprise, a publicity group that lead a 2007 national dropout summit), 80% of students surveyed said they dropped out because of a need for “classes that are more interesting and provide opportunities for real-world learning.” As a father of a sixteen-year-old in advance placement classes (her homework level is equivalent to that of a college student), I see the impractical, irrelevant materials being studied and ask the question myself, “What’s this got to do with anything?”

Most schools don’t take into consideration real-world economic situations. Since most grads going into the workforce will have three to five, and some experts say up to ten career changes, the real need is for learning how to learn, think critically and independently, and creatively. This is not the industrial age nor is it the information age, it is the recommendation age where people are in critical need of the aforementioned skills. Considering that half of all wages and salaries are currently being made in the creative sector one can see that sitting passively in a classroom in which undesirable material is forced on students without explanation as to its need and application is problematic. Where is the motivation for the student?

More than ever before schools need to be student centered in the sense that the student gets to know himself / herself thoroughly (intelligence and personality types, strengths / gifts, weaknesses, values, and so on) and advisers / teachers work to an outcome of specific match between knowledge, student, and career. Reliance on archaic methods that no longer apply in a dynamic work and economic environment isn’t going to work; the way our children are educated K-college needs to be revamped, scrapped, or parents must take a greater role in educating themselves as to new needs and take a greater personal role in the educating of their children.

But that’s only part of the picture. Most graduates, even college grads, according to employers are lacking real-world skills and attitudes that are critical in today’s turbulent world economy. Employers complain of new-hires lacking the ability to work to deadlines and work well with peers, entitlement issues, inability to see the bigger picture, and so on. But there’s more. Recent grads also lack an understanding of the lengthy commitment a career demands. If the employee does not have a passion for what he or she is doing, especially in these economically trying and hyper-competitive times, then the chance of lacking the energy, commitment, and focus to maintain said career will result in unemployment. There is a way to be irreplaceable, but most of the “educated” lack 80% of what is needed to succeed in today’s employment market.

There are no easy answers, but relying on government or school systems to figure it out is dangerous, for the pace at which change may occur–and there is no promise it will happen–is too slow for your child’s current needs.

If you’re interested in what is needed, please contact me for further information. Your child’s financial and emotional welfare depends on it.

Hmmm, OK, here’s the rub. The method mentioned above is very similar to that which I used one time (key word here, “one”) in making a “career decision;” well, kind of. I was working on my undergrad degree while supporting myself with a decent paying job, but I decided that I wanted to work from home so I could apply the forty-hours-a-month saved on drive time to my studies. So here’s what happened.

I found a job where I could work from home managing a high-end startup’s data base, for I used to work in the computer field and had the experience. So I sat down and made out a pros / cons list. There were roughly thirty-six pros and six cons. I knew my objectives, had gathered relevant information, identified alternatives, made out my list and came up with an answer which according to the above method seemed clear cut and obvious. So I quit my job and took the new job according to this, shall we say, scientific decision making process.

But there was one problem.

Even though all the data and analysis pointed to the answer stated above, something in my gut told me “Don’t take the job.” Was my gut right? Should I scrap all the “scientific” method? We’ll see shortly how this intuitive or gut instinct plays out in decision making on a small and large scale.

After quitting my job, attempting for weeks to get set up at home with office equipment from the new company, I realized that it wasn’t going to work. My boss, or the owner of this startup, turned out to be a flake. I ultimately ended up going to small claims court with three other potential new employees only to have the startup owner counter sue us by taking us to superior court.

My attorney advised me to just drop the case, for even if I won (which could end up costing thousands more) the chance of my ever collecting the money was slim. So I ended up being out some $5000 in lost salary, lost time, and a lost job. I eventually got my old job back, but my using this more academic-type or technical decision-making process turned out to be tremendously costly.

Moral of the story? Now I listen to my gut all the time, and it has served me tremendously without fail.

So you thought you were going to come here and learn some specific, academically rigerious methodical skills that would aid you in your decision making? Well, I can give you some help there, for it does take a certain level of discipline, critical thinking, and thorough analysis to get to the point where you use your gut, but at the core, at the foundation is the critical need to develop one’s intuitive understanding to make key decisions.

But the bottom line is that after you’ve learned how to look at what’s out there, who to trust and what to trust in your research (part of the critical thinking that is more cold, hard, academic or scientific), ultimately you are going to be the most successful in skills competencies or competency skills (being effective) when using intuition or gut instinct.

Not sure? Here’s a few examples for you.

Donald Trump speaks of going with his “gut instinct.” At one point, after he had lost millions, he was feeling quite low and had no desire to go out. He received a call that there was a party in New York City close to where he lived at the time and the caller had invited Trump. The caller also mentioned that in all likelihood there was going to be several bankers in attendance. When your business is not doing well, you end up owing a lot of money, and it’s usually banks who are calling to collect on outstanding loans, which Trump had several of.

He initially thought that going to the party would be the worst thing he could do. Even when things were going well, he did not attend parties frequently nor see a need to. And considering that he felt down, not in a party mood, it was raining and he had no driver so he’d have to walk, and that there would be bankers in attendance who he probably owed money to, why go? But amazingly enough, a strong gut feeling told him he should. Trump frequently relies on his gut and it hadn’t let him down yet, so he went.

Upon arriving at the party, he actually began to feel better. He sat down and talked to people, and before he knew it he was lost in conversation. At one point, he realized that the person sitting next to him was someone he knew, infamously. It was not only a banker but one whom he hated vehemently and had said many bad things about publicly. But what came next was the most unexpected thing. They began to hit it off amongst the barbs being shot back and forth, and ultimately it was this banker who helped him most in getting him back up on his feet financially.

This is certainly not something that could have been planned for or an event that could have come about using any type of formal or academic decision theory. And I can tell you that I have used this “gut instinct” or intuition for decisions large and small, and it has rarely failed me and has certainly produced greater results than using hard decision theory. Consider that some of the greatest minds have used scientific decision theory to great failure and you’ll see great truth to my statement.

But here we are not talking about leading a company or a country. We are talking about assessing skills or decision making skills to aid you in personal choice, specifically here career choice. But after you’ve made that career decision using your gut instinct or intuitive understanding, you might want to continue to use it on the job. Case in point:

There is a gentleman by the name of Mohamed A. El-Erian, co-CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, one of the largest investment management companies in the world. He formerly served as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, a firm that manages the university’s $35 billion endowment. Nice resume, huh. But I mention him for a reason.

He puts great stock in the intuitive or gut instinct.

In his book, When Markets Collide, El-Erain makes a revealing statement: “I will uncover many of the understandable reasons why otherwise rational and well-informed investor can be late in recognizing important turning points and be prone to mistakes” (2). His point being that here’s some highly intelligent individuals who have had their scientific decision making models fail them. There are always things that happen that can’t be foreseen.

Even Stephen Hawking, our modern-day Einstein, says that no theory is absolute, or no theory can be proven absolutely true because we just don’t know enough. We have limits in the extreme when it comes to knowing all or looking into the future, I hope you know. But back to my point.

With the global market changing so much, more countries coming on board as they move out of communism, this has created the new or unexpected or what El-Erain labels “noise.” The point he makes is that this noise or newness should not be simply dismissed or ignored. Another skill for those looking to enhance skills competency or competency skills is to keep an open mind to new idea and to be tolerant of the same. Those of the greatest minds remain nimble in their thinking allowing for creative new possibilities. This being how Einstein through his theory of relativity was able to take established thinking that had been accepted for decades and dispense with it, even though it was that of his hero and mentor Sir Isaac Newton.

What often happens while attempting to make decisions is that one will or can never know enough to make a decision based solely on existing knowledge or data. And this often results in paralysis of analysis where the individual gets so bogged down in needing to know for sure that he does nothing at all. But our friend El-Erain has something to say about this.

There are those who develop instinct, gut feeling, or intuitive understanding , and it is these people, the Bill Gates, Donald Trumps, and Edward Cowen’s of the world who know of its great worth. Edward Cowen you say?

El-Erain discovered early in his career not to ignore “noise” and that he should “ask whether there are signals within the noise,” meaning, open your mind and don’t block out the new or unknown to discover the answer. As a young analyst, he met a man named Edward Cowen who taught him the lesson above. El-Erain mentioned that Edward’s “instincts were so sharp that they more than complemented . . . his rigorous training in economics and a command of finance mathematics.” Yes, his instincts were equally important to that of his knowledge, a critical point.

El-Erain continues: “Indeed, he illustrated back then what work, particularly in behavioral finance and neuroscience, has confirmed: The importance of instincts, especially during periods of market stress.”

Those who excel and exceed the majority, or who exceed most in their competence skills, certainly do their homework, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty must go where science, theory, and math cannot: the intuitive gut instinct.

This by far is one of your most important decision making skills in not only finding the right career but making the best and most accurate decisions within that career, especially in times of stress when everyone else is looking to the known while you look with acceptance and understanding to the unknown and unfamiliar to discover your answer. And in developing this skill you will be one of the few, the sought after.

Here’s to your success.

Today, most know of Da Vinci as a painter, but he was much more than that.

Da Vinci was a mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, and writer. Many of his ideas were considerably ahead of their time. He envisioned a helicopter, a tank, solar power, a calculator, and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. His ideas were so advanced that most could only be left to linger in theory. However, some of his inventions were used in the 15th century, such as a machine for testing tensile strength wire. As a scientist, he advanced knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

But is da Vinci an exception who can’t be touched? What really made him so unique? Where does the secret lie?

In this day n age of the specialist, we are not advised to be a Renaissance man or woman. We are told not to be a Jack- or Jane-of-all-trades. But if we listen to the popular notion there’s a good chance we are doing something really wrong. According to Napoleon Hill, we need to be careful who tells us what:

“Who said it could not be done? And what great victories has he to his credit which qualify him to judge others accurately?”

Hill also said of failure:

“Every failure is a blessing in disguise, providing it teaches some needed lesson one could not have learned without it. Most so-called failures are only temporary defeats.”

Da Vinci would agree, for he did not see failure as something to stop him or even slow him down.

Da Vinci’s extreme contributions to many fields only rival that of the great Michelangelo. Ironically, it was it was a fierce competition with Michelangelo at the end of da Vinci’s life that nearly put him out of commission. But it was his belief in himself, in his vision, that kept him going.

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.” da Vinci

Was da Vinci the great man he was, the great discoverer, the great Renaissance man, merely because he was born that way? Or did he have to earn it?

“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.” da Vinci

Did da Vinci make discoveries or was he made by them? How much of his effort, his desire, pealed back information and knowledge that was there merely waiting to be discovered? How many of his discoveries were made simply through unrelenting desire to learn, to see the truth, to uncover that which was already there?

But a more important question is, can you do the same? To what degree?

But before we can attempt to answer that question, let’s get the word “discovery” clearly defined in our mind’s eye.

Discovery: the act of revealing; disclosure.

It doesn’t say the act of making something from nothing but to “reveal,” to “disclose” that which already exists. As in radio waves being merely revealed not invented or put there. As in the laws of gravity being revealed not imagined and then placed by man for discovery.

What can you discover? How do you do it? Let’s ask da Vinci.

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” da Vinci

But what is “perception”?

Perception: mental grasp of objects, qualities, etc. by means of the senses; awareness; comprehension. The understanding, knowledge, etc. gotten by perceiving.

Da Vinci was the great envisioner he was because he perceived and conceived. He studied birds and how their wings moved in order to fly, and he envisioned man doing the same. He looked at fish swimming in water and envisioned man doing the same or at least functioning under water. He envisioned the human body and enquired and explored.

So the big question of the day is, what da Vinci-ing have you done lately?

But is all that work worth it? What’s your motivation? Should you simply do so much without adequate cause? Here’s what da Vinci has to say.

“A day well-spent brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.” da Vinci

He was certainly a man of action. Much action . . . action . . . action . . .

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” Da Vinci

It is a universal principle that effort given is reward received. Only those who sweat (genius is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration) imbibe of the great knowledge merely waiting to be reviled to the deserving few. Great insight is not unique in that it lies in wait for a “special person.” All are privy to its gain. But to gain one must study, learn, observe, and discipline the mind and condition the soul for greatness. For great knowledge lies in wait for those of great desire, character, and faith in the finding.

How does this apply today to your career and life?

Consider that many “experts” say that you’ll have three to five career changes over your working life-time; some say as many as ten career changes. Today not only do jobs, careers, and businesses come and go but entire economic sectors. Are you going to go back to school every career change for four years to update your skills? Do you understand that any educational institution is the tip of the ice burg that education is not institutional but individual?

Now, more than ever before, in this age of turbulence (Read Allen Greenspan’s Age of Turbulence) economic change is occurring more and more rapidly, the innate creative destruction of capitalism is moving faster and faster.

In this regard, you need to be an entrepreneur, a company of one, regardless of whether or not you desire to own a business, for job stability or security (if there ever was such a thing) is a thing of the past. America no longer stands alone without competition. This is not post WWII 60s / 70s where America was the only first-world country still standing. You must become a polymath and learn again and again new skills, attitudes, and knowledge to gain a toe-hold on not only career stability but success. So get to DaVinci-ing.

Here’s to your success.

You’ve probably heard the hype made by companies promising an amazing’ memory: learn how to increase your memory ten fold; never forget another name again; weeks, months, years later recall at will all that you’ve seen; on and on the promises go. But unless you have a brain transplant, you’re really only as good as the software you’ve been given. Meaning, there are no miracles. There are techniques that can improve memory, but the key, the secret is in the individual’s increased concentration because of great desire and passion for what one is learning combined with just plain old hard work. If you have a great need and interest or motivation to remember, your chance of doing so increases considerably over those with a lukewarm interest. Few memory courses will aid you in retaining, processing, and recalling knowledge that you consider irrelevant and pointless. As I said above, passion and plain old hard work, so let’s get into it.

“The true art of memory is the art of attention” Samuel Johnson.

Any great project requires a good memory. The better the memory the smoother the flow of intake, process, retain, and recall. Want to get a job done right? Pass a test with flying colors? Memory, learn how to work it. And don’t worry too much about forgetting. If you do, that lack of faith may just encourage such a thing. But for the faithful, they believe that there just may be no such thing as forgetting.

“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don’t come to mind when we want them” Friedrich Nietzsche.

There are a lot of things that can certainly inhibit memory: fatigue, hunger, poor diet, anger, depression, and so on. But there’s proof that those who use their minds often and for a long time, as in well into one’s life, there’s even been evidence that memory can continue to stay strong and healthy. But before we go any further, let’s take a look at the two sides of memory.

First, you need to understand that there is short-term and long-term memory. The key is getting the stuff in short-term into long-term. Now, once you get it there in order to keep it there, once again, requires work. Remember the old saying, use it or loose it? Well, you certainly need to work to get it in there, but in order to keep it there-long term-you need to work at that too with regular practice.

So what’s the work involved? What can you do to enhance your memory? Let’s get into it.

1. Take it easy and slow down. You need to be calm and focused, better yet, in the zone. Turn off the TV, cut the conversations, lock the door, put out the cat, tell the girlfriend you’ll see her later. Get to focusing and get to work. And remember, as my little Mikie says to me whenever he’s losing, “Daddy, it’s not a race.” When I’m working, or concentrating on what I love to do, my focus is so great that I can work downstairs blocking out the television and multiple conversations. Not the best environment for working the memory, like I said above, but with passion and desire, your focus or ability to use memory is enhanced considerably.And over the years I have almost exclusively worked without distraction in building up my ‘focus’ ability. To cite another example, I remember years ago blasting my new Led Zeppelin DVD while reading The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story by Brian Swimme, PhD. Through it all, I was not only able to pick up on what I was reading, but remembered the main points well enough after that one reading to teach it the next day in class. I was filling for a week for an ailing colleague. And don’t go thinking I have a photographic memory. No, that’s my colleague who I stood in for. I’ve acquired my ability to remember better than most simply through work.

2. But you say you’re still distracted? Sure, sounds great, Jeff. Just get to work. Easier said than done. I’ve got bills to pay, an interview coming up, the Lakers will be taking on the Celtics in just under three hours (reason for my three hour time limit on this work session), and so the distractions go. Maybe, just maybe, you can’t do it now. You’ve got to get rid of that distraction or two or three before you could even think about concentrating enough to get to the task at hand. OK, go take care of it. But if you have to deal with your scheduled work session, what are you going do? I suggest writing out everything that is blocking you until you’ve exhausted the distraction(s). Focus on what’s distracting you and then once that is out of the way or as much as you can get it out of the way get to work. It’s a technique I have my students and clients use. Write, write, write, until the distractions are all out on paper (good place to put stuff that’s bugging you; you can get back to it later since you’ve recorded it) and then get to the task at hand. Now all this is not to help you to remember things better but to get things out of the way that will inhibit you from doing so.

3. Wa-wa-wa-wandering on and on, here to there, to and fro, and beyond. In one survey, college students were asked what they were thinking eight random times a day. Some said they weren’t thinking about what they were doing 30% of the time. Some were “elsewhere” 80 to 90% of the time. I gave a final one semester and about ten minutes before it began a dozen or so students were mulling about. I asked them if they remembered to bring their blue composition books. Only one out of a dozen students had brought it, but he made an interesting point when he said, “Gee professor, you told us ten times to bring one.” So this is certainly an acquired skill. Work at focusing on focusing. One of the best ways to do this is to, once again, write. Because when you’re writing, as fingers press keyboard or pen / pencil marks the page, it’s difficult to do anything else. Well, you can do other things, but the results of your writing will be poor. In order to do the job well, you’ll have to focus, focus, focus, focus. So get to it.

4. But what should I focus on? Good question. As Einstein said, why commit something to memory if you can look it up? That’s right, don’t put junk in there you don’t need. In college, if you read everything, you’d never pass. Huh? Yes, I remember, especially senior year and in graduate school, I tried to do ALL the reading. Not smart. One class alone was over one-hundred pages a week. What about the other four or five classes? Forget it. There was no way I was going to read it all, never mind remember everything I read. So we have to go to our critical thinking skills here to figure out how to pare it down.

This will take another paragraph; hang in there. I use the gear box analogy to explain this technique. First and foremost, you have to know what you’re looking for, what’s important, what’s required. Work from the question(s) to the answer(s). Why am I reading? What’s the answer I’m looking for? Where is it? In most cases, the main point is what you’re looking for. Where is it? In the introduction and / or conclusion. Or in a smaller sense in the topic sentence of each paragraph. Often there’s a lot of filler if you know what you’re looking for, so here you’re in fourth or fifth gear, skimming (over the years I’ve learned to be ruthless in skimming the unessential–it’s the only way to survive and thrive; sorry authors). Shifting speeds while reading is a key to memory-cut out the unnecessary. Get to the point. Gloss over introductory material, stories, examples, and get to the main point. Look for key words: “critical” “vital” “imperative.” Or some authors will tell you outright, “Here’s the main point.” Personally, my favorite. When I’m teaching I tell my students three times when I have something important to say, “This is important. This is important. This is important. Hey, did I tell you this is important?” You get the idea.

OK, now you have got to keep it-the stuff you’ve begun to memorize. How’s that done? Here, check it out.

1. Study it over and over and over again. Thought I had an easy answer for ya? Nope. One way of keeping it in your head is by writing books and articles. What? That’s right. Why do you think I write so much? (seven books, over 300 articles, dozens of poems) I want to know what I’m talking about in regards to what I’m teaching, coaching, and speaking, so I write, and write, and write, and write. Best way to learn it and retain it. Other ways. Well, first you have to read. But if you’re studying a particular topic or issue, don’t just read one book or article. Read several, many from different perspectives and styles. Maybe at first you don’t get it, but after a second or third author it makes sense because it’s said in just the right way or something that had been glossed over is presented in greater detail and then Bingo! You get it. Also, annotate. Get involved with the text. I never read without a pen and or pencil. I am always writing in the margins, summarizing, critiquing, questioning, agreeing, disagreeing. By being fully engaged using as many techniques and as many senses as possible and coming from as many angles as you can, the better the chance that you’ll not only get what you’re reading but you’ll retain it.

2. Learn it too much. Just because you get it doesn’t mean you know it. The best way to know if you’ve really got something is by trying to explain what you’ve learned to someone. And if you know it that well, you’ve really worked your memory by reading, taking notes, annotating, reading various authors on the same subject-the learn-too-much technique. It’s easy while sitting quietly reading and or writing to believe you know it. But the real test is can you explain it to someone else so that they understand and get it? Teaching is the best way to test whether or not you’ve got it. In one semester-long seminar in which a group of teachers got together every other Saturday to learn how to teach, we were told time and again, the closer we can get our students to actually teaching the greater the chance that they would take the knowledge deep and truly understand it and retain it. Worst thing you can do is just listen to someone and expect to get it and retain it. Next is simply by reading. But best of all is explaining verbally without a net (book, notes, video) what you know. Doing this work is like lifting heavy weights. It will strengthen your memory. If you just life five pound weights all your life you’ll never build muscle. Same thing goes for brain matter. Work it, sister.

3. Test yourself. So you think you really know it? Probably not. Ask yourself questions, definitions, key terms, points, and so on. Do you really know it? This is how I developed my vocabulary. I used to write down words that I saw over and over but didn’t know the meanings to. So I’d fill up a page with words and their definitions. And over a period of days or weeks, however long it took, I’d quiz myself hiding the definitions until I got them all. When I was done I’d tear up the page and start over. Same with basketball free throws. I’d shoot one-hundred free throws until I hit eighty percent. If I got to a point where I wasn’t going to be able to get 80 percent, I’d start over. Did I become a good shooter? You bet. Did the same thing with shoot arounds. Different shots from here and there and here and there. I’d shoot for a particular percentage and keep going until I hit it, passed out, or my mom called me in for dinner. What did I say at the beginning of the article? What did I say? What did I say? Oh, yeah: Work. There you have it.

4. Associate, connect, and personalize. Today, I rarely if ever read or study something that isn’t related to personal interest: spirituality, history, success, business, and so on. I’m always trying to connect personal interest to what I’m learning, studying, trying to remember and retain. If you want it, desire it with passion, much greater chance it will stick and stay. If you can connect and associate to what you’re trying to learn, of course there’s a much greater chance you’ll retain it and keep it in a safe place for keeping. There are those times you may not be on fire about what you’re working with, but if there is motivation, self-motivation there is greater memorization.

5. Connect it to something that will help it stick. You can use acronyms FACE (notes between the lines) and Every Good Boy Does Fine (notes on the lines) to retain the notes of the Treble Clef. Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. It doesn’t work all the time, but it’s helpful using mnemonic or memory aiding devices when the occasion warrants it. But most of the time it’s just going back over and again until you have got it good and solid, and then reviewing occasionally so it doesn’t slip away.

6. You can picture it, draw it, speak it, sing it, map it, imagine it in nature, or express it physically. In a previous article, I spoke of the eight intelligences: logic / math, linguistic, inter-personal, intra-personal, naturalistic, kinesthetic, musical, spatial. I used to remember my stand up act (yes, professional comic for five years) by first writing and then speaking it into a tape player to get the natural rhythm of language as well as to retain the routine in my memory. Some have to speak it to themselves or others to, first, see it, think it out, and then to retain. Others have to draw, map, express it physically, whatever it takes to keep it in your head. I had one student who told me he couldn’t write in his journal. I asked, why? He said because he needs to draw as well. My five-year-old remembers colors, shapes, and numbers by singing. By all means, whatever it takes, do it.

Well, that’s not all there is to memory, memorizing, and retaining. But it’s a good start. Personally, I have used a majority of the methods of memory improvement mentioned here. And because of the practice, I have improved my memory considerably. My ability to focus (key word here) on key questions and to obtain the answers has been remarkable. I don’t say this to brag, but to impress upon you the worth of the above techniques.

For example, in recent months I gave a talk that took me just a few hours to prepare from scratch. I was told I would have thirty minutes to speak as keynote speaker. What I did initially was read several articles on material related to the main point of the talk, more than I needed to (over prepare or “learn it too much”). I took one of the articles and generally used several main points from it to build my outline around and circled those points. I also jotted down some notes and a larger overall outline to complete the talk.

That’s it. I didn’t memorize anything nor did I practice the talk even once. Now, keep in mind this comes after much practice and work, work, work, work. But if you do the work, you can and should be able to reach this point in the process. When I first began speaking, I was terrible, but after much, much, much practice I have achieved relative ease in not only putting together a talk but in presenting it. And no, I was not that familiar with the material, even. Meaning, I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert in what I was going to talk about.

Now, another technique I used during the talk was that of a reliance on the intuitive or sixth sense, meaning, I allowed the talk to come to me. This is the reason I didn’t memorize anything nor did I desire to practice, for I wanted the talk to flow to be organic and natural. I was allowing my trained and trusting memory to do the work. Hell, I’d worked hard enough training it, it should cooperate.

As I spoke, a miraculous thing occurred. Yes, the talk came to me. At several points impromptu, spur of the moment points came as I spoke. And amazingly enough as I finished these points, I looked down at the outline (the article I had circled key points from) and noticed the next point fell right in line with what I had been saying.

Now, I’m not telling you this to encourage you to do the same-for this is for advanced speakers only-but to drive home my point that one can improve his memory with techniques and a little bit of faith. I hope this has been of help to you in all your memory requiring endeavors.

Here’s to your success.

Now this is not an education reform article, but rather a focus on career and, more specifically, career change. But in choosing a career or choosing a new career, in most cases the person has not had the extensive prelim work done to ensure the best career to client match. Rarely has the person seeking a career or career change been asked the proper questions letting existing personal knowledge and understanding do the talking. Usually a counselor, adviser, or consultant will use his or her knowledge and experience to basically tell the person where he needs to be.

It’s kind of like those career placement tests that tell you, you should be a social worker while inside you’ve been dreaming for years of being a movie director. And what often happens is that in our youth we are swayed by those we perceive to be “more experienced,” only to find out five or ten years down the road after developing a greater sense of self that we should have gone with our original desire in the first place and spend years getting back to where we should have been from the start.

But there are other distractions. Unfortunately, the majority of people get waylaid by exclusive focus on money, prestige, satisfying parental desires, and so forth. It takes a brave and dedicated individual to follow her true desires, to take an honest, hard, cold look in the mirror to discover best how to use her abilities, talents, and gifts. There has even been many a successful person who in the midst of great success feels empty and desires change all because of being more true to the ideals of others or the general ideals perpetuated by society.

The cause? Not enough work on discovering the many tangibles and intangibles of self that will aid the individual in not only being successful monetarily but to discover fulfillment and joy emotionally and spiritually even.

So how is this done?

Well, few know because even though it is that which should be done early and often it’s usually not until years later-five to ten years, or in some cases even more-before the money, prestige and keeping parents happy can no longer hold one back from a dire need to fulfill dreams.

In actuality, it’s a rather straight forward process, and I am often surprised to discover the number of intelligent, well-educated individuals who’ve never discovered their sole purpose. And if you don’t think you have one, think again.

Of course for many there are those immature desires. I can remember desiring to be a basketball or sports star and then a famous actor, but they didn’t happen. And it’s not that I couldn’t have excelled at either, for I was always one of the best on the court and my ability to entertain was a strength too (as a matter of fact, I performed for over five years doing standup in Boston and Los Angeles). However, I knew that my real calling in life lie elsewhere. And when I found it, it was like coming home. It will be the same for you. You may not recognize it right away or feel like home right away, but with the proper prompting and work and encouragement it eventually will.

So what needs to be done to discover that career that life’s calling that’s been there from the beginning? Because the process is rather involved, I will only give a brief summary here.

First, you must look at all important areas of your life. Some examples are health, family, physical environment, money, career, friends and family, romance / significant other, fun and recreation. If you don’t look at your life as a whole in deciding career, you will more than likely career change and career transition until the cows come home.

But there’s more.

Now you must research your talents, abilities, gifts to determine where and how you will make your money. You will not know specifically up front, but that’s OK. As the successful say, shoot and then aim. You will have a general understanding of where you’ll be going but only by following the path on a daily, monthly, yearly bases, even, will a specific understanding of ultimate achievement come to fruition or reveal itself. There is no other way.

Next, you must look at character. We all have character flaws that need to be addressed. Remember that success can come because of your talents and gifts, but just look at the news headlines of the many mighty successful who have fallen and fallen hard and you’ll see why character is critical. As a matter of fact, no amount of talent, ability, knowledge, or gifts can compensate for the self-sabotaging of poor character.

Finally, you must study and know inside and out all the critical success principles: how to work well with others, tolerance of others and ideas, creativity, honor and self-accountability, self-control, succeeding through failure, and so on. Without a thorough understanding here, you are limited . . . in the extreme.

Well, I’m excited. I hope you are too. I always get excited or passionate about what I love. You will too. We all need a passion career. Let me help you build yours.

Here’s to your success.

Need to build a new cabinet under the kitchen sink?

Need to make a career change?

It’s a bedtime story you need?

Have to make an important political decision?

Got an exam you’ve got to pass?

On and on and on it goes. All begins in thought. Everything under the sun began as an imagined reality that eventually came to fruition. Yes, even the sun, the moon and the earth . . . and then some. But what is most sad of all is that critical / creative / intuitive thinking-the most important tool you’ll ever need-is left on the back burner and little touched during one’s formative education years. Most of the time it’s memorize, regurgitate, and purge. Yes, purge-intentionally or through lack of use. Education often overlooks the most important skills we can learn to focus almost exclusively on content. It’s like an artist knowing color, shape, and form but not having the heart and vision to do anything more than copy what she sees.

How sad.

But there’s hope.

Let’s begin that hope by focusing on critical thinking first. What is it? When I told a friend of mine that I teach critical thinking, he asked, “What’s that?” I told him, “I teach people how to think.” He laughed, “What’s there to thinking?” A lot, actually, much more than most believe-a testament to our educational system’s lack. But that’s not the focus of this article. Let’s get into the thinking, shall we?

Critical Thinking: Three Part Model

Reasoning: Foundation of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is technically defined as the ability to come to a conclusion based on one or more arguments. Here arguments are not Jerry Springer Show, chair over the head smack downs, but rather a discussion: “The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress” Joseph Joubert.

Arguments typically persuade (persuasion, argument’s cousin) with good, clear reasoning. They are sound logically and the evidence that supports them is reasonable, and in most cases, good arguments have evidence that is more reasonable than those that support other, lesser arguments. For example, if I told you that all conspiracy theories are true because Dr. Thompson of Quack University said so, you would know my evidence is not sound or reasonable. One, because making an absolute statement (as in “always” “never” “all”) is often incorrect. Very little is always or never true. And you would know that I’m making a generalization based on limited support. We’ve also got a hasty conclusion here (picking one conclusion when others are possible). I would probably need to bring in other experts to concur as well as some research and data to solidify my argument.

Assumptions:

Often these are lying underneath the argument going unnoticed and unmentioned. For example, if someone says “Every parent needs to be responsible for their child’s education,” how many would pick up on the fact that this person is conservative? If someone states that “Nuclear energy is not a viable source of alternative energy,” how many would pick up on the fact that this person has come forward because there are plans in the near future to build a nuclear reactor in his back yard. And so on. In arguments I teach that there are two levels of thought: one, the one you are arguing on, and two, the counter argument or refutation that looks to take down or invalidate your argument.

Logical Fallacies:

These are some of the most common and pernicious aspects of arguments. These are basically tricks or misdirection in thinking, getting people off the topic or issue at hand to distract attention elsewhere. These happen unintentionally but intentionally as well, for there are those who don’t have a sound argument and try to get you not to notice by distraction. Now, a few of the more popular fallacies:

Ad hominem: a personal attack. During Clinton’s campaign, many attempted to attack his character not his track record as a two-term governor of Arkansas-where he had very solid political record.

Red herring: or getting someone off the trail by distracting with an unrelated issue. For example, “I’m going to grade this test on a curve because it creates a better relationship between student and teacher.” Wrong! The issue at hand here is not “student / teacher relations” but rather the student’s education.

Either or thinking: “Either you’re for our troops in Iraq or you’re not.” Often this is to get people to kowtow to one’s desires. It is lazy or abusive thinking. There are often grey areas that which people who use this fallacy don’t want to deal with.

There are many more fallacies, but I think you get the point.

There’s quite a bit more to critical thinking than I can talk about in this one article, but there are a few other points that need to be addressed before we can move on. First, a good critical thinker admits that she doesn’t know. As I state to my students and clients “We are all equal in our infinite ignorance.” What we don’t know is quite a bit more than we’ll ever know. Not sure about this? I tell my students that if they think they know a lot, go into any large library, stand in the middle of the middle floor and regurgitate on cue every word in every volume. OK, begin. How far did you get? There, I told you so.

That’s why with complex issues, like health reform, illegal immigration, and global warming, you may want to take considerable time before you arrive at a solid argument. Personally, regarding illegal immigration it took me several years of researching, listening to immigration stories from those who have been there, writing several articles and observing the responses before I reached a well-thought out conclusion as to the main cause for this issue being an emotional hot-button. And I discovered that it is not based in fact but rather emotional reaction to race.

And there’s another point to consider: emotion. When we deal with arguments emotion is not only frequently attached but hard-coded embedded. Often it breaks down to an emotional sword fight (“Hey, that’s MY’ argument you’re dis-ing here!”) more than a logical one. To argue best, one must work at detaching from one’s emotions. Certainly easier said than done, for I’ve certainly failed on occasion even being quite aware of this foible, but it needs to be mastered to argue from a solid position. No one’s perfect, but we’re not looking for perfection, remember, but a moving forward.

So some things to think about regarding critical thinking: admit you don’t know; you have emotional buttons that can be pushed; there is often great complexity in issues; you need to research and verify complex arguments.

Bottom line, critical thinking is key in making any important decision be it personal, local, national, or otherwise.

Creative Thinking:

OK, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. If you’re thinking creativity is beyond your grasp or interest that it’s only for artists or those “creative types” think again. Consider the following:

The creative sector of the U.S. economy accounts for $1.7 trillion per year, nearly half of all wages and salaries. So if you think creativity equals art and art is simply the candy store of the economic sector, think again. Not that creativity is all about making money, no. But many do have a false understanding of the important role creativity not only plays in our lives economically, but intellectually and spiritually. It is an all encompassing, multi- faceted tool.

Who are these “creative” people in the economic sector? They are artists, designers, writers, analysts, musicians, entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers, and so on.

What type of mind set is required to be “creative”? Open minded, flexible, forward-looking, innovative, tolerant, experimental, hopeful, all that one needs to create.

Let’s take a look at the field of science as an example. Specifically, let’s look at physicists or those attempting to come up with a theory that ties quantum with relativity to discover the mind of God or why we are here, where we came from, and where we are going. For it is this theory, or string theory, when found will allegedly, according to some scientists, tie the two aforementioned theories together and we will, according to Stephen Hawking, discover the mind of God.

Now in order to work with this theory one certainly needs all the attributes mentioned above and more. Patience certainly needs to be involved as well, for according to scientist there are so many possible outcomes or answers that the theory is not even right. Huh? Well, that’s where an open, flexible, forward-looking, innovative, tolerant, hopeful mind comes into play. You can see the merit of all these characteristics alone or existing outside creativity. In order to be successful in career and in life one needs these attributes, so it’s no accident that they are so valuable and of such great merit to our emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and financial well being.

A point of practical note is that many employers complain that new hires often lack a creative ability to use the right-side of the brain to problem solve solo or in teams. This supports the point I made earlier about most high school and college grads lacking critical, creative, intuitive thinking skills, those skills that are little paid attention to by educators.

But how exactly does one go about being creative?

Practice, of course. You have to get back to being a child, those kids who say the craziest things. In the 40s, 50s and 60s the show, Art Linkletter’s House Party ran a segment called Kids Say the Darndest Things. Bill Cosby revived a version of the show in the 90s. You can see its popularity. But why?

Well, kids are cute, of course. But they are funny and damn creative. Once while talking to a friend of mine, her five-year-old daughter out of the blue asked, “Mom, when I die, will I dream of dinosaurs?” We all have the ability to think creatively to think as a child, but we have to practice being open enough and feeling safe enough to make odd connections to be flexible, tolerant and open minded. It is here and only here where one can create. And in this day and age of the consultant, the entrepreneur, the recommendation age, according to Glen Dietzel, one more than ever needs to create and be creative. With the economy being so turbulent just relying on a single source of income or job is suicide. Now more than ever one needs to branch out to secure multiple sources of income so that when one stream dries up in these turbulent time there are others to replace them. And it is here where creative, critical, intuitive thinking is vital to one’s survival.

Intuitive Thinking:

This is knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason nor perception, creativity’s cousin. It is based in instinct, a gut feeling and not one based in thorough, in depth analysis and research. It is a hunch or unjustified belief. But according to many it is one of the most important skills to the successful in any venture.

Consider the following, Dr. Mohammed Abdulla El-Erian, CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, the world’s largest bond investor over US$1 trillion in assets, speaks to the importance of intuition. In his book, When Markets Collides, he mentions that while training as a stock broker, he was working with a very talented young man. As far as his ability is concerned, he was certainly book smart; however, according to El-Erian he was exceptional because of his intuitive insights. El Erian goes on to speak of the great importance of this acquired skill in analyzing the stock market that it is a skill the best master.

Enough from me, let’s cut to the chase by hearing what others have to say about the importance of intuition:

“All perceiving is also thinking all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention” Rudolf Arnheim

“An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis” Henri Bergson

“Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be Revelation” Eileen Caddy

“Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition” Freeman Thomas

“Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data” John Naisbitt

“All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas” Immanuel Kant

“Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level” Joyce Brothers

“If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For whereas the mind works in possibilities, the intuitions work in actualities, and what you intuitively desire, that is possible to you. Whereas what you mentally or “consciously” desire is nine times out of ten impossible; hitch your wagon to a star, or you will just stay where you are” D H Lawrence

“Knowledge has three degrees-opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition” Plontinus

“The only real valuable thing is intuition” Albert Einstein

And on Mr. Einstein’s note I end.

So putting it all together, you can’t have one without the other: critical, creative, and intuitive thinking. Creative thinking is about coming up with possibilities. Critical thinking sets the mind to discipline and accuracy. And then when our efforts are exhausted and infinite ignorance takes precedence, it is our invaluable friend intuition, the “only real valuable thing” that makes things absolute.

Develop it. Trust in it. With work, discipline, and faith it will not lead you astray. My rational mind has failed me, but the trumping power of intuition never does. Rely on it for its vision is absolute. But trust not, faith not, it will run from you as quickly as the wild wind.

Here’s to your success.

And therein lies the strength of the power of self-control. In this day-n-age of express-yourself-no-fear-me-firtism, it is difficult if not impossible to get this concept over to people of such a mindset. But self-control is at the root of the establishment of this country. Even in our anthem “America the Beautiful” we here these prophetic words:

But we have not maintained this ideal and it has hurt us as a nation and individually. It is something that has been spoken to again and again over the decades since establishment. Here’s a current message from the pastoral staff at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Medford Oregon that speaks to this verse:

Because of this lack of self-control, even our courts have been affected by it in setting precedents that enable the uncontrolled. In one case, a 79-year-old woman burned herself with coffee that was bought at McDonalds and was awarded $640,000. Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald’s was 80% responsible for the incident and the woman was 20% at fault. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was neither large enough nor sufficient [emphasis added]. In looking at the statement emphasized, one can see by this precedent where our country is headed. Most would know or be accountable or responsible enough to know that the coffee was hot whether it was 190 degrees (the actual temperature) or 140 degrees (the proposed temperature) and could cause serious pain if not serious burning.

Never before have cases of a similar nature been heard in such great numbers. Now, because of a systemic lack of accountability stemming from a lack of self-control or that which requires one to be “exercising the discipline” thereof, we have more and more become a nation of finger pointers, and those fingers very rarely if ever point backwards.

In the field of self-improvement or self-help, one often hears of overcoming weaknesses and shortcomings. Offense is a big one. Certainly we can all become offended. But the point here is that if you are too easily offended, you will spend a great majority of your time heading nowhere or, worse yet, going backwards as you spin your wheels in anger, resentment, revenge, and spite for those who have done you wrong.

There are different ways in which one may be attacked. Someone could slander or liable your good name, but if your name is good, what’s to worry? Time and time and time again, we find those who speak the loudest about the ills of others eventually shoot themselves down. I can think of two well-known performers whose act was built on attacking the character of others: Dice Clay and Joan Rivers. Their popularity was short lived. This mindset is not healthy to the individual purporting it or to those on the receiving end. It creates much more harm than good in any situation.

I can tell you of several personal experiences where people who desired to besmirch my name were not able to do so only to have it backfire because the people involved knew me or found out who was actually culpable.

If you want to do something with your life, if you want greater self confidence, less anxiety, and greater spirituality, if you want to do good for yourself and others, if you want to move ahead you need to solidify your character to build self confidence and self esteem by not letting others take cheap shots to take you down, waste your time or hold you back from growth and the opportunity to help not only yourself but others to a greater and greater degree as you overcome weaknesses. If you work on yourself, helping yourself to be good, to do good, to help others, to come to the aid of others, to lift and support others, you will create such a solid footing for yourself that those who take shots will not be able to take you down.

“I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

It may appear childish, but this motivational phrase actually works well at helping the child build self confidence to know that the source of the bad is not in her and that she is good, but most importantly, that the good in her will shine on to aid her in overcoming challenges or the negative and bad that will stick and stain and drain her of life if she believes in the insult, the lie coming her way. This is certainly not where any of us desire to be: young to old.

In order to not be offended, the majority of the work has to be done on your part. You certainly have to build yourself up in the manor suggested above, but it also takes a concerted personal mental effort to overcome the habit of emotionally attacking the offender as well. We have to think before we act. Emotions are not thoughts, they are habits put in place by years of poor or inadequate thinking / reasoning or even its complete lack. This poor reasoning must be undone by good, healthy productive reasoning, for in most cases if not all these bad habits will persist until we consciously intervene.

We can also seek the help of others by informing family and friends of our new mindset. By doing so, we not only bring them to our aid in overcoming bad habits but we help them to overcome them as well.

May you seek the good, the productive, the positive in all that you do in seeking greater self improvement, personal development and self worth. We are not here seeking perfection, nor should anyone believe that we can go throughout life without being offended, for we all have our weak moments, even the strongest. But we must desire to not find offense, to have the negative bounce off us the majority of time; therefore, we can only get stronger for ourselves and, even more importantly, for the many brothers and sisters who need lifting and strengthening. By doing all that is suggested here, you will gain confidence and improvement through these simple self-help techniques.

Personal growth and development are ongoing and never-ending. Until you’ve perfected yourself, you need to grow. Overcoming the self by making the self bigger than your problem or offender will motivate you, and through this motivation, this self improvement, this overcoming, you will gain greater and greater personal strength and desire to reach out to others to do the same for them. Strength breeding strength breeding strength breeding strength. May the line never be broken.

But what’s interesting here is that so many leave it up to chance or a whim as to what they’ll do with the rest of their life to not only bring in the money to survive but to select a career that will bring fulfillment. And it’s not entirely the fault of the individual. There are few and far between systems that are objective, thorough and well thought out enough to help people in the long run.

So how can you make a decision that you will know is the right one beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Well, the answer has to come from the source, doesn’t it? It needs to come from within. However, the problem is that the majority of people don’t know how to do this or feel it’s not possible so they go to supposed “experts” to find the answer. But what’s this like? Well, in most cases, you sit there and listen as a counselor or therapist dispenses the “correct knowledge.” Then, you take it in, go home and apply their “decision” with little or insufficient self-reflection. Or, worse yet, you take a test that tells you what you should be doing for the rest of your life. If you’re comfortable with a piece of paper telling you what to do in this regards, so be it. However, most are not if they ponder thruthfully over a long enough period of time.

So, what’s a poor person trying to discover how to choose a career or one who’s working hard at finding the right career supposed to do?

You go to someone who knows how to work the answers out of you.

What’s that you say? Yes, there’s no job personality test or employment personality test that can get to the answers like a real human being can. But this person, or coach, is not there to “tell” but rather to “listen.” The career coach, success coach, or life coach is one who works as an equal in a co-active environment using open-ended questions (those that do not lead or judge in any way) to pull from the client deep ceded answers that may have been lying dormant for years if not decades.

It is the coach’s responsibility to listen intuitively to the answers given not to judge or even necessarily to guide but to determine where to go next as the client discovers for himself / herself answers that appear quite familiar but have lied dormant for many a year.Or they have been buried by doubt or need to appease those who tell them that their dreams and desires are not “sufficient.”

For example, a former student of mine (I also teach composition / writing) approached me one day and said, “You know, when I try to write this assignment, I can’t do it with an objective voice. For some reason, my writing always comes out subjective or personal. Why’s that?” I said, “Well, either you’ve got a problem you want to solve or you’re a writer.” She looked up in amazement saying, “You know, that’s always been my first love, writing. But I’ve put it on the back burner and I think I’ve suffered because of it.” We talked a little bit more and she soon came to the conclusion for herself that she better get back to writing or the consequences may get worse.

This is the key. The answers lie within. No one’s going to tell you better than you what you need to do with your life. However, it’s more complex than that. It takes some focused effort and assistance to pull out the answers. You need to go into detail the various areas of your life (career, family, health, finances, etc.) and discover what’s important to you and then match this with your specific talents, abilities, desires, and gifts.

But the work is not done. Once you discover what it is that you want to do with your life, that which is going to set your life on fire, then you need to develop a plan and stick to it. And in the process you will have to overcome character flaws that we all have that can sabotage a career quicker than you can say “success” while at the same time learning critical success principles that will help you pull it all together.

If you’re ready and are serious about making the most of your life and finding that path that is truly you, one that you can get excited to wake up to every morning, then you owe it to yourself to set sail on that path today.

Here’s to your success.