I got an email yesterday from Mitchell Broderick, a Praxis graduate from our very first class.
I distinctly remember Mitch’s decision to abandon college and step up to the challenge of Praxis. He had to move across the country. He had to build a new network. He had to enter a professional environment with far more responsibility (and opportunity) than any he’d experienced. He had the chance to start doing work immediately that he hoped he would someday be ready for after four years of college. It wasn’t easy.
He rose to the challenge. He took a chance on Praxis and on himself. In his email, he recalled the difficulty of the decision, and the challenge of making this personal investment.
“The return on that investment and struggle has been incredible.”
The reason he emailed me was to let me know that, exactly one year after completing the program, he hit his ambitious sales goal for the year and cleared six figures (working as a VP of business development for the same company he spent his Praxis apprenticeship with).
No degree. No college debt. No hoops to jump through. Mitch became the person he wanted to be and is living a life he assumed he’d have to wait a decade or more to live. And he’s just getting started.
There is an experimental, exploratory element of the program. You can take a year to get out into the world, test yourself, engage in personal development projects, be challenged by advisors and coaches, take charge of your own education, build better habits, and see what entrepreneurship is all about. But Mitch is a great example of the fact that this isn’t just a one-year good time. Praxis isn’t just about a short-term experience. It’s about building the career and life you want in the long term. You get an amazing job with the program that can be the first step in your career. As Mitch put it,
“Praxis isn’t something that contrarians do to be different for a year. They do it because it works. They get awesome jobs making great money.”
And Mitch is the first to tell you, it’s not about money. It’s about becoming the kind of person that can create value and achieve your own personal goals, material and otherwise.
I shudder at the thought of an ambitious grinder like Mitch languishing in a cinder block classroom somewhere under fluorescent lights. He’s worth more than that. He was ready to engage the real world and create his own path, not sit on someone else’s conveyor belt.
How many Mitch’s are out there, ready to break the mold? This is why we do what we do.
Discover Praxis if you think you have what it takes.