Tag: education

It’s That Time of Year When the Emails Start to Swell

I’ve gotten so many emails from bored, unhappy college students in the last few weeks I decided to write a post addressed directly to them and others like them.

You can check it out over at the Praxis blog.  Here’s an excerpt:

You haven’t done much more than read textbooks and sit through lectures.  You haven’t been around many entrepreneurs, innovators, or creators.  You begin to suspect that your grades aren’t a reflection of your value-creating potential in the market.  You begin to wonder why they matter at all.  Same goes for your second major…and your first.  You ask yourself what your plan was coming here in the first place and realize you didn’t really have one.  It just sort of seemed like the next stage on the conveyor belt moving you along to an undefined “normal” life.

Here’s the good news.  You can get off the conveyor belt.

Read the full post here.

If you want to explore whether you might be a good fit for Praxis, shoot us an email.

Knowing What You Don’t Need to Know

It’s not that important to know things.

Two things are far more important than what you know.  What you can learn, and what you know you don’t need to know.  Maybe I’ll write a bit more about the importance of being able to learn another time, but today’s post is about knowing what you don’t need to know.

We’re surrounded by information.  Every new environment is jam-packed with people, assumptions, objects, ideas, processes, rules (written and unwritten), and data.  The vast majority of it is not necessary for you to achieve what you want to achieve in that environment.  But a handful of things are absolutely indispensable.  That is why the most valuable skill for success in diverse circumstances might be the ability to quickly identify what doesn’t matter.  Discern what is not of fundamental importance and ignore it.

Nearly everything taught in schools can be ignored.  So can nearly everything in a government or HR training video.  These are the easy ones.  Most people can intuitively gather from a young age that these things are unnecessary to successfully navigating the world (though harsh punishments may induce them to pay just enough attention to avoid manufactured pain).  It gets harder when you enter a social scene, family party, or workplace.  It’s harder still if you want to be an entrepreneur and enter the vast market with no blueprint.

The most successful and contented people I know are brilliant at being ignorant.  They are not stupid people nor are they unable to learn almost anything of interest or value to them.  But they are conscious of their chosen ignorance of the vast majority of facts and subjects and skills.  They know what they don’t need to know and they don’t waste effort trying to learn it.

This typically requires genuine humility and self-confidence.  Most people feel pressure to know a lot of useless stuff because it will save them the embarrassment of ever appearing to not know something.  This is ridiculous and sad.  Someone without broad swaths of conscious ignorance in many areas is usually wasting a lot of time and stressing over people-pleasing without ever gaining much self-knowledge.

There is no inherent value in knowledge of a fact.  When you enter a new situation the limiting factor to getting the most value out of it is not how much you can learn, but how much you can identify that you don’t need to learn.

This is the other side of the 80/20 rule.  Sometimes figuring out your 20% – what activities you will get the vast majority of your return on – is too hard.  It’s sometimes easier and no less important to identify the 80% of things not bringing you sufficient value and stop learning and doing them.

Book Review: Rise Above School

My Amazon review of this excellent book by my good friend, radical, entrepreneur, blogger, podcaster, and fellow unschooler Jeff Till.

This book is worth every dime for the “58 arguments for home education” alone. A list so powerful, simple, and clear it’s hard to imagine ever seeing school the same or wanting to send your kids there after reading.

But Rise Above School is much more than that. The author presents an incredibly honest and accessible story of his own process of moving from unthinking adherent to the educational status quo to a parent embarking on a radical unschooling lifestyle. The core insight is one of empathy. What your kids suffer through – bus stops, early alarms, homework, single-file and cinder block cells, lunchrooms, bullies, age-segregation, boredom – is something you would not want to put yourself through, or your spouse, or employees. How then can you do it to your kids?

Jeff is not romantic in his portrayal of home education, nor bitter in his exploration of schooling. He’s refreshingly down to earth. Though moral and practical arguments underpin his advocacy of home education, he shares plainly some of the more compelling reasons in simple things like daily life being more fun and less boring. No need to construct elaborate curricula. Just enjoy your kids. Let them sleep in. Play video games with them.

Rise Above School is an ideal intro to the concept and arguments surrounding education for someone a little disillusioned with mass schooling, but unsure what to do. Start with this book.  If you like where it takes you, Jeff includes a list of additional books and resources for those who want to go deeper.

Buy Rise Above School on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.

Experience Beats Bullet-Points (and Three Opportunities to Gain It)

“I’ll go get an advanced degree because it might open up the possibility of working in X industry that I might end up enjoying.”

I understood the sentiment, but I had to laugh.  I asked my friend why he couldn’t save himself two years and untold thousands and instead go ask a business in X industry if he could come in and work at intern wages for a period of months while he studied his butt off on the side to gain the necessary knowledge?  This approach has so many advantages it’s not even funny.  In less than a year he would know for sure whether he even wanted to work there.  He’d accumulate no debt.  He’d only learn the things relevant to success in that business.  He’d already have an in if he was good and ended up liking it.

Ask any entrepreneur or business owner or customer or client.  They’ll agree, “Show me, don’t tell me!”  But we’re all obsessed with things that tell people about our abilities and attributes.  We’re stuck on getting a list of reasons someone should give us a job.  It’s the same mindset that was beaten into us in an education system based on getting permission for everything, even using the bathroom.

“You can’t do that unless you have the proper qualifications!”

I call it the bullet-point mindest.

It’s the idea that the most valuable thing you can attain for your life and career is a bullet-point list of external accolades, certifications, and validations from others.  It’s the resume, the degree, the honor roll, and on and on.  It’s also mostly bullshit.

External validation is only valuable when something more tangible is lacking.  The person with little in the way of confidence, evidence of value creation, network, or experience will gain the most from formal accolades.  The person who’s done a lot, seen a lot, built many relationships, and created a lot of value will have something that far exceeds the value of a static list of traits on a resume.

Rubber meets the road and a huge set of opportunities

It will come as no surprise that this is exactly why we created Praxis.  We want to help top young people get started right now instead of waiting until they’ve accumulated a list of officially verified accomplishments.

It’s amazing how hungry startups and growing businesses are for the kind of talent willing to take action and build their dreams instead of making lists and planning for them under institutional authorization.

Here are three of the opportunities we have right now to work for a year with entrepreneurs in the real world and discover what makes you come alive, gain confidence, experience, skills, knowledge, and a network.  No gold stars or grades can touch the value of this kind of lived experience.

Opportunity 1: Work with an entrepreneur building a company that empowers entrepreneurs across the country.

Ceterus is awesome.  They’re growing.  They need someone with drive, communication skills, sales interest, and an ability to navigate a wide variety of diverse tasks and activities every day.  It’s in lovely Charleston, SC.

Opportunity 2: Develop an international brand with a chef entrepreneur.

Smart people know to make it you have to see yourself as your own brand.  This chef was not content to produce culinary creations in the confines of a restaurant.  She’s built a business that inspired and educates others on the fine art of quality cooking.  She needs someone to help build and manage her brand online and in person.  It’s in awesome Austin, TX and includes international travel to Latin America.

Opportunity 3: Learn marketing from a growing consumer tech company.

ADS Security is at that perfect stage.  Large enough to offer high-quality business experience and small enough to have an actively engaged CEO that you’ll get a chance to meet and shadow.  They need sharp young people with marketing interest and writing and social media savvy.  If you want to know how marketing departments function and add value to one right now, this is for you.  It’s in stylish Nashville, TN.

Not just anyone…

These companies came to Praxis for a reason.  They don’t just want clock-in, clock-out run of the mill credential chasers.  They want eager, entrepreneurial young mold-breakers.

If that’s you, apply now.  If it’s someone you know, tell them about it.  They’ll thank you.

Apply to Praxis now for these opportunities.

What You Build, not What You Believe

Originally posted here.

“By their fruits you will recognize them.”
– Jesus

Not what you say, or who you like, or how you vote, or what Facebook groups you belong to.  Your fruit.  The tangible outcomes your life creates.  What you build.

It’s easy to place the locus of control with external forces.  It’s easy to feel like the government is in control, hampering you, reducing the prosperity and progress of society.  It’s easy to enter reaction/response mode and spend time complaining about or trying to reform these flawed institutions.  I think there’s a better way.

We can be co-creators.  We can build alternatives.

There are two ways to do things in society: Peacefully or by force. Crime and government operate by force and threat.  Businesses, churches, social groups, and all other institutions operate by peace (unless corrupted or coopted).

Those of us who realize this can quickly and easily describe what’s wrong with the use of force. We can decry it and protest it.  But even criticism of the status quo is a backward looking act.  It is playing within the rules of the game. What if instead we directed that energy outward, creatively, not to tearing down what we dislike but building what we do?

The tools of violence are immoral and inefficient.  They are less desirable and less effective. Instead of trying to convince more people of this, why not show them?  Why not create a better alternative and let it win out?

It took me a while, but I decided to do just that.  For me it was education.

Though not as completely coopted as other areas, higher education is by no means a free-market.  It’s a yucky web of subsidies, grants, regulations, and laws that make degrees artificially valuable.  The system cajoles young people into four years and six figures of a process many dislike and don’t gain value from, walking away with debt, a sweatshirt, and no clue what to do next.  I saw it bringing more and more young people down.  I took a leap and decided not to merely criticize but to create.

I launched my company Praxis two years ago to provide an alternative path for entrepreneurial young people who want more than college.  We’re still new, we’re still small, but we’re growing and the lives that have changed through the program already are enough to tell me this was the right move – the best move I could have made.

I don’t want to fight with people about my views on higher ed, government, or society.  I want to offer people something that is attractive to them, something valuable.  That’s what markets do best – reward endeavors that create value and let die out those that don’t.  I wanted to show, not tell, the world about a better way to approach education, career, and life.

When freedom expands it tends to do so in the realm of lived experience prior to conscious argument.  Once people have tasted freedom in a tangible way – the fruit – they embrace it and reject the status quo.

Rather than looking for political solutions or arguments, can you build and demonstrate a better way?  Can you show the fruit of your ideas?

It’s a challenging and powerful question.  Let’s ask it more often.

‘Will a Good School Accept Me?’

I answered a question on Quora (well, I guess I didn’t really answer the question, but spoke to the ideas behind it) about getting into a top university without straight A’s.  You can read the question here.

—————

First and foremost, don’t stress.  This won’t make or break your life.

I don’t know what those institutions require for admission but I have another idea: don’t spend your time trying to get approval and acceptance from academic institutions but instead go create value for yourself and the world.

Our world is awash in official accolades and credentials and padded resumes.  You’ll realize when you get into the world outside the education bubble none of that matters much for value creation and personal fulfillment.

Identify what you want in life, identify the obstacles to getting it, and create challenges and habits to help you overcome those obstacles.  All of this can be done without the official sanction of formal institutions.

If what you want is to be a professor or to work within academia, then of course that’s the way to go.  Or if you simply wish to enjoy college as a very costly consumption good, go for it.  But the notion that you must jump through the right hoops to earn the approval of X or Y university is backwards.  You want skills and experiences and knowledge and a network.  You’re the customer.  See if you can think of the best, most effective, quickest, least expensive, and most enjoyable way to get them.  The question isn’t whether those universities will take you, the question is whether you’ll deem them worthy of your time and money.

Whatever path you take, good luck!

Voice & Exit Interview

An interview I did for the Voice & Exit blog.

1. Isaac, you wrote an article on the V&E blog earlier this year about changing the world through creative entrepreneurship. Can you explain how this mindset informed your decision to start Praxis?

I was tired of talking. Don’t get me wrong, I like to talk. Probably too much. I had some big, radical ideas about the uselessness of the high school-college-career conveyor belt and what kind of alternatives could be better, faster, cheaper, and more fulfilling. Ideas are costless. Anyone can have ideas. If I really believed my theories about the huge opportunities for young people to do something different, why not put my money where my mouth is?

Who cares if professors or experts disagree with me? The market will determine if the idea is valuable. That’s the part I love the most. You don’t need to convince everyone about your theories of a better world in the realm of argument when you can create value for customers in the market. You can ignore the haters and focus on creating value for those who benefit from your idea.

I’m a happy person. I like being happy. I don’t like being grumpy. Arguing about what you want the world to look like is pretty depressing. You never win. Going out and creating it – putting those ideas into a business model – is exhilarating, informative, and has a real chance of changing things.

Entrepreneurship is philosophy in action.

2. How did you know “it was the right time” to launch Praxis? What were some of the risks and upsides involved for you?

I don’t think there’s ever a right time for any big move in life. At least not one that’s identifiable ahead of time. What made the time right for me was that I had an idea burning so intensely inside me I almost felt I didn’t have a choice.

Sure, I’d had ideas before, but none of them had the clarity or plan for execution that I had with Praxis. It was the sum of a decade of smaller ideas and observations, and it came to a head all at once. Without sounding too sensational, I just knew I had to build this thing. I needed to get my question answered by the market. Can this thing work?

I wanted to know the answer so bad that I was totally willing to fail in my effort to find it. I think the “willing to fail” test is good one. If you need some guarantee of success, it’s probably not a good time to launch a venture. It will test you, and have to accept and internalize the possibility of failure up front.

The biggest risk honestly was not the risk of failure. That didn’t scare me as much as the risk of not going after this thing. If I didn’t, I’d regret it.

The biggest upside? Keep an eye on Praxis. You’ll see soon.

3. Much of the buzz around Praxis focuses on education, but education is just a means to a certain end. What is the broader goal you’ve set for Praxis? What has Praxis “exited?”

Education is a boring and stale word. Yes, learning is crucial to any endeavor in life. But textbooks and tests and classrooms and schedules imposed by others and credentials conferred for hoop-jumping are just stupid in most cases.

What Praxis is really about is freedom on a very personal, individual level. We exist to help young people discover what makes them come alive and create a way to do it. We exist to help them find an environment, a mindset, a community, and a set of questions that will enable them to awaken their dreams. We know that for the world to be free and prosperous, individual humans must be. We want young people to take the reins of their own living, learning, working, and building. We want them to be the driving force in their own life. We want them to get a jump on the opportunities exploding around them to be entrepreneurs and innovators, and to live life on their terms.

Whether it’s freedom from the classroom, the cubicle, the expectations of others, or your own fears and doubts, we want to help you achieve it.

We weren’t content to criticize the conveyor belt of debt-fueled classroom credential chasing. We want to help people not just wake up to it, but leave. Praxis is exiting – and helping others exit – the ‘higher education’ industry and the debates about how to reform or improve it. Forget all that. Criticize by creating. And start with creating a tailor made life that you love.

4. What do you think is the single biggest force driving this awakening of thought in education?

Ideas are free. They can’t be chained up. You can’t dam up the stream of information that’s been unleashed by decentralized technology. Now that the information gatekeepers have no special power or privilege the credential gatekeepers will be the next to decline. The best ideas aren’t housed in a single place or owned by a group of elites, and next the signal to the world of an individual’s intelligence and ability won’t be conferred by some big central institution. It will be created and demonstrated by the individual him/herself.

People are realizing they now have the power to be their own credential and let their work speak for itself. That’s a power no one can stop.

5. You’re taking on a leviathan system. What are some of the barriers you’ve had to work around and what are some ways you’ve been able to succeed?

Everything from weird laws and regulations to the obvious financial challenges of a startup from scratch. But there are always workarounds if you’re impatient and determined enough to find or create them.

The biggest barrier to any entrepreneurial endeavor are the mental and emotional challenges. It takes a toll to fight every day for the thing you’re building and pouring your life into, and sometimes it’s easy to underestimate how much stress that can bring. You’ve got to really master your inner life and summon the strength and humility to keep at it.

And you have to ignore the critics who love nothing more than to sit on the sidelines while others create and take potshots or nitpick. Just remember who your customers are and focus entirely on rocking their world. Forget about the rest.

6. How big do you see this community growing? Where is Praxis in five years and what are the opportunities for others who want to enter this space?

There is no limit to the growth of the self-directed learning and entrepreneurial self-starter community. We were all born entrepreneurs and self-directed learners. Anyone can re-awaken that if they’ve got the will. In five years? We’ll be everywhere. I envision Praxis and similar combinations of work and self-created learning structure to be everywhere and not slowing down.

7. Do you have any advice for someone in the V&E network who wants to challenge an existing community and build their own?

Three things:

1) Tighten your pitch. What problem are you solving? How? Why will it work? That should be communicated in a few sentences.
2) Know your market. Who are you solving the problem for? Where are they? Do they care?
3) Be willing to fail, but do everything you can to avoid it. The best way to succeed? Start. The longer your ideas remain ideas, the less likely you are to act.

The Education System Isn’t Broken, It Just Sucks

Some people say the education system is broken.  It’s not.  It’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do.  The problem is that what it’s designed to do isn’t good, and it’s less valuable than ever.

I’m not one of those people who thinks it used to be a good system.  It’s not obsolete, it was wrong from the get-go.  It’s always produced undesirable outcomes.  I don’t think obedience, the ability to follow rules, falling in line with authority, uniformity of belief and process, and deferring to experts and standard explanations are desirable traits in individuals and societies.  I think they are dangers to be avoided.

To the extent that part of the result of this will-crushing process is some uniform skills that can be plugged into various business roles, there is some potential market value.  Though even these skills can be gained far better, faster, cheaper, and in more exciting and effective ways.

But today even those few things that people walk away with after 15,000+ hours in a classroom are of almost no value, and the trend is a further decline.

It is less valuable than ever to learn a skill.

It’s less valuable than every to learn to memorize, obey, hoop-jump, and test-take for bureaucratically approved authorities.

It is more valuable than ever to know how to think, how to learn, how to do what machines and software can’t.  Create.  Innovate.  Be entrepreneurial.

Once you realize that the education system isn’t broken you can stop trying to fix it.  It works really well based on its own principles of design.  You can’t make a hammer better at performing surgery.  You need to drop it and grab a scalpel, or invent a laser.

You’ve got to step outside of the education system altogether and build your own learning program tailored to your own goals.  It’s a challenge, but a lot easier than you might think.

Humans are naturally curious, stubborn, adaptive, knowledge-gathering, active, creative beings.  Those are all the things you need to begin, and you don’t really need to do anything to get them.  It’s harder to do what the current system does, which is snuff that out and create uniform widgets.  That’s why they need so many buildings, fences, supervisors, guards, and so much money.

All you need is an environment where natural human tendencies can flourish, bump up against the world, get feedback, and adjust.

Sometimes the system isn’t broken, it just sucks.  Get out.  Build your own thing.

Why Does College Matter so Much to Parents?

This is a written transcript of a portion of an Ask Isaac podcast episode.

We get this question a LOT, with people who are interested in Praxis or just interested in opting out and creating their own path. They know that college is not going to do anything for them. It’s boring. It’s super expensive. They’re not interested in sitting in a classroom and hearing things that they could learn on their own or things that they don’t even care about, often from professors who don’t care, fellow students who aren’t into it. I mean there are just a lot of people, a growing number, who are just like this isn’t all that great. And all the social aspects… I can get those. I can go to football games and parties and whatever. I don’t need to enroll for 4+ years to do this. But, it’s so much the dominant view among our parent’s generation that – I shouldn’t say “our”, I’m sort of in between – but college… that is really like a signal that you’re doing OK.

It gives Mom and Dad something to brag about at the cocktail party with their friends. It’s kind of like if you grow up in a religious community and people say, “How are you doing with God. Are you on the right track?” And if you just say, “Yeah, I’m going to church,” they’re fine. But, you could be going to church and horribly depressed or like doubting everything or totally unhappy… everything in your life is not going well. But, to them, that’s all they needed to hear. That signals that you’re OK. It’s a shortcut for them that makes them feel like you’re “good-to-go.” And you could be like, “I haven’t been going to church for a year, but I’ve never been better. My spiritual life is really great. I’ve been exploring new ways to connect with God,” and it doesn’t matter what you say they’re going to be scared. Right? They’re going to be worried about you because that signal, that shortcut: going to church equals I’m doing well spiritually… or going to college equals I am doing well in my life professionally.

You know… maybe that emerged for a reason, where the correlation was so strong, that it made sense for people to make that shortcut. You don’t want to get to know everyone’s life story so it’s like “oh, you’re in college, cool. You’re good to go.” But that correlation is so poor and it’s getting poorer. And it’s such a weak correlation and there is certainly no causation there. So you could say, “Oh, I dropped out of school, but I’m working on a start-up. I’m doing this fitness routine. I’m traveling the world. I’ve never been happier. I’m writing a book.” And all they heard was, “I dropped out of college,” and they’re just like, “Oh, my Gosh. You’re sleeping on a park bench and you’re a loser. I’m so depressed; I’m ashamed of you.”

And you could say, “Oh, I’m just about to graduate from a good school and I’m having really dark thoughts, and I hate my life, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t care about the job I was just offered. I’m depressed. My girlfriend broke up with me.” And all they hear is “Oh, you’re about to graduate. Well, that’s good. Everything else will take care of itself.” Right? It’s this weird, weird thing. So, it is very hard to convince your parents to let you do something other than college.

See part one for the answer to how to get your parents to open up to the idea.

Check out www.discoverpraxis.com if you want to take a year to get out of the classroom and do something awesome, on your terms, in the real world.

How Do I Convince My Parents to Let Me Do Something Other Than College?

This is a written transcript of a portion of an Ask Isaac podcast episode where this questions was asked.

The first thought when I read this question is you shouldn’t be trying to convince anyone to let you. You are free to do what you want to do, especially once you are 18+. You don’t need to have that permission-based mindset. “I have to win them over. I have to convince them to allow me.”

You’re free to do what you want to do.

Now, once you acknowledge that, “I’m completely free. I could just not go to college right now. I could leave home. I could pack up my knapsack and do whatever I want to do. I am utterly and completely free. There is no power or moral law in the universe that obliges me to do otherwise.”

Now that you have that freedom… now you can start talking about it in costs and benefits. OK, if I do that, what are going to be the costs to me? Am I willing to bear those costs? Are there ways to mitigate those costs? Then you can have an honest conversation about what you are willing to put up with. But do you see how it puts the locus of control on you right away? No longer are you able to blame. “Well my parents won’t let me.” Well, that’s irrelevant. You can do what you want to do. You may find that your real reason is “if I did it, my parents wouldn’t support me financially, and I am not willing to live a lifestyle that’s beneath whatever amount of income – and I don’t believe I can bring that amount of income in myself without my parents’ help.”

Now that’s an honest admission. And that’s one that many people don’t want to be true of themselves. They want to be such rugged individualists that they’re not willing to compromise their dreams just to have a certain amount of money or financial safety net. So, they tell themselves stories. “My parents won’t let me.” But that’s not the truth, and the quicker you can identify the true reason that you’re being held back, the quicker you can overcome it, or work around it, or work with it.

I do know people who truly care more about material comforts than going and pursuing something like that, and the quicker they can be honest with themselves about it, I think, the better they’re going to be. So, it’s not about you convincing them to let you do something. It’s about deciding what’s going to be the cost. If your parents are going to disown you, hate you, not help you, not support you financially in any way, you have to determine what that’s worth. That’s a pretty horrible thing.

But you have to decide if it’s worth 4 years of doing something you mildly dislike, or maybe something you absolutely hate, so that your parents are happy. So, you have to ask yourself questions like what matters more, your happiness or someone’s happiness with you?” And again, I’m not advocating “yeah, screw your parents,” because, I think, at the end of the day, they want you to be happy. They’re just always going to lack the imagination – any other person besides you – is going to lack the imagination to understand ways that you might be happy, that they haven’t thought of before. And only you can find those.

So the easiest practical advice I would have is to start small and say, “Hey, Mom and Dad,” and again don’t approach it like “I need your permission,” and say, “Mom and Dad, I have been thinking,” and let them know this is not some spur of the moment thing and ate some Cheetos with your buddies and was like “I don’t want to go to college”.  Say, “Hey, Mom and Dad, I’ve been thinking and I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and a lot of examining my own life, and making priorities. I am going to take a gap year.” Whether you’re already in college and you want to take a break or before you go – Say you haven’t gone yet, “I am going to take one year and I have very clear goals. I want to experience two different kinds of work (paid work), live in two difference cities, or whatever it might be. I want to earn X amount of money. I want to gain a particular skill like a programming language. I want to become an expert on this. Or whatever…”

You’ve got a couple things that you say. “I am taking one year to do the following things, because it’s really important to me. And I think if I don’t do this now before I go into college and get roped in on a path, I’m always going to regret it. I’m always going to wonder. Furthermore, here’s a bunch of evidence and research that shows people who take a gap year, perform better in college and perform better after college, etc.” Frame it as… not this once for all. Frame it as “give me a year.” And at the end of that year, we’ll see where I am and we’ll see what I want to do next, but I need this year.”

Now, if you want help from them say, “I would like to propose to you… you were going to pay X for college… I propose you to pay less for that but you help me in the following way.” And be prepared if they say, “No,” and to be on your own. Do it anyway. Make up your mind how bad you want it, and what you want to do. And tell them in a non-confrontational way “this matters to me.”

If they see that spark in you and they see that this is so important to you and that you’ve thought about it clearly and you’re calm and rational about it, and you’re going to do it with or without them – this is like raising money for a company, by the way. The best pitch for an investment is, “this is what the company’s doing. It’s going to do the following. If you get on board it can do it faster and you can benefit, but it’s going to happen with or without you.” It’s so much better than “Oh, my gosh. I have this great idea. It won’t go anywhere, though. I need your help so bad or else the whole thing is not going to work.” It’s not as strong of a pitch in my opinion.

Anyway, “This is what I’m going to do, Mom and Dad. If you can help me, it would mean I could do the following. If you can’t help me, I’m going to have to do X, Y, and Z. I’m going to have to get 3 jobs to make it happen. And I’m totally prepared to do that. I don’t want you to be unhappy with me. I want your support. I want to be able to lean on you.”

Open it up and remind them that if they shut you down, they’re basically shutting down a line of communication and support to you emotionally. If you say, “I want to be able to come to you if this is hard and struggling with it, without you saying, ‘See, I told you so. You should have gone to college,’ I want that. I don’t want you to be upset at me for doing this, and I understand if you are but this is where I am coming from.”

I think if you present it like that, you have the highest chances of results. Again, it’s up to you what you want to do. You don’t need permission, but you need to understand the costs and benefits you’re willing to internalize and calmly and passionately share with your parents what it is that you want and have a clear idea. Not just “I don’t want to go to college.” Because to them, going to college means you’re making some sort of progress. To you, even if all you do is wander around for a year and do nothing, and that’s possible that it could give you more progress than college, but in their mind if you at least say, “I want to do X for a year, or two years, or whatever,” and at the end of that year if they’ve seen you grow and change and you know you don’t need college and “I’ve got this cool job, and this and that,” you can be like, “Hey, Mom and Dad, I’ve decided I’m going to take this further.”

You’ll have more courage. They’ll be more comfortable with it by that time. It will be much easier if you can get yourself to a position where they are excited about you having that one year.

If you want an awesome way to spend that one year, working with amazing startups and getting rigorous, self-guided personal and professional development, coaching, and a portfolio of projects, check out www.discoverpraxis.com.

What Praxis Set Out to Do

When we created Praxis we did it to fill a large and growing gap in the option set facing young people.  So many smart, ambitious, curious individuals are languishing in fluorescently-lit cinder-block classrooms.  Bored.  Racking up debt.  For no clear purpose.

The myth they are steeped in is that they have to do this.  There is no choice.  The options are presented: Be a loser, or sit around for 4-6 years at a cost of tens of thousands.

But the myth goes deeper.

The myth is that learning itself, and by extension self-improvement, are terrible, boring, passionless and must necessarily be enforced by bureaucrats and self-proclaimed authorities.  Your job, if you want to succeed in life (by whose definition anyway?) is to follow the rules, memorize the disconnected facts, take the tests, pad the resume, apply for the jobs, and wait for the conveyor belt to drop you off at ‘normal’.

How depressing and frustrating this is to so many of the best and brightest.

We set out to cut through the crap.  We wanted these talented young people to stop waiting for real life and to jump into amazing work experiences at amazing companies eager for their help.  We wanted them to shatter the old paradigm of education and start fresh, like newborns do, exploring questions that matter to them, creating their own challenges and structure, diving into a rigorous self-improvement project.

The mindset is simple and powerful.  Awaken your inner entrepreneur.  You own your life.  You own your education.  You own your career.  You are the driving force in your own process of creation.  Do things for the results you value, not the hoops arbitrarily placed before you.

We wanted this entire life-shifting experience to take place in the span of a single year and for a net cost of zero.

I received this email yesterday from current Praxis participant Mitchell Earl.  It beautifully illustrates the mindset shift.

“If I had to estimate, I’d say I skipped class 2/3 of the time in college. I don’t sit still well. I couldn’t learn in that type of environment. I need to be stimulated. When I did go to class, I used to take the daily puzzles; either crosswords or sudokus because I needed something to direct my nervous energy toward if I was going to be forced to sit and listen to someone talk at me. I can’t even count the number of times I had a professor yank my newspaper away from me IN COLLEGE.

In my web design class, the syllabus alone put a burr under my saddle reading, “One absence is considered excessive for the course.” I redefined excessive. I turned in my work on time, but I refused to go sit in a classroom and be told how or what to code, design, or write. That’s not how I learn.

I didn’t and don’t want my work to be like grocery store milk, micro-filtered, ultra-pasteurized, standardized, and homogenized. For me to do my best work, I need to have the freedom to explore my creativity. Praxis has shown me that. It’s given me the freedom to explore my own needs as a learner. No one is yanking my puzzle away telling me to pay attention. No one is telling me how to learn. No one is shaming my individuality. With Praxis, I’m free to be me.”

Yes.  That’s exactly it Mitchell.  We set out to create more freedom.  To help you carve out a space, to break the other-imposed mold, and plot your own path to fulfillment as you define it.

Freedom isn’t easy.  It’s much harder work than just doing what everyone else wants and expects.  It takes a lot of deep, philosophical thinking.  It takes self-knowledge and self-honesty.  It takes discipline and hard work.  It takes tolerance of failure and the courage to put yourself in new situations, often over your head, and learn on the fly.  It takes the humility to be in environments where you’re not the smartest person in the room.  Your desire for personal growth must be strong enough to sustain these challenges.

Mitchell is tasting it.  So are our other participants and grads.  This is what we set out to do.  And we’re doing it.  One life at a time.

If you know anyone who sounds a lot like Mitchell was in school, give ’em a little nudge of encouragement to be free.  Remind them the dominant path isn’t the only one, and the best paths are the ones they’ll blaze themselves.  You can even send them my way and I’ll gladly talk with them about taking creative control of their education, career, and life, with or without Praxis.

Let’s awaken people’s dreams and increase the number of those who are truly living free.

Three Daily Questions

From the Praxis Blog.

  1. Do I like what I’m doing?
  2. Is it getting me somewhere I want to go?
  3. What am I giving up to be here?

These seem like simple questions.  Obvious even.  No need to be reminded of them.

Yet so much of what we do is the result of habit, social norms, envy, fear, outside pressure, or laziness in thought and action.  We follow paths already worn whether or not they’re a good fit for us.  The first step in the process of waking up to a full and free life is asking these simple questions.

It’s harder than you think.

It will take more time to answer than you think.

That’s OK.  Take your time.  Wrestle with the questions.  Don’t lie to yourself.  Don’t ask them with a preconceived idea of what kind of person answers this way or that.  If you do you’re likely to give answers that reflect the person you think others will find cool rather than the person you actually are.

Even if everyone in the world envies what you’re doing and thinks it’s the pinnacle of success, fun, or fulfillment, if you don’t like it be honest with yourself.  I know so many people who stay in crappy situations simply because they feel guilty about not liking something others would love.  You’re not them.  And there’s nothing noble about suffering through something you hate unless you are firmly committed to it as a clear and definite route to something you love in relatively short order.

If you don’t know where you want to go it’s especially bad to suffer through things you don’t like.  You’re suffering for no particular reason with no known payoff.  It’s OK to not know where you want to go.  If you don’t, start exploring things until you get a better idea.  The fastest way to find out where you want to go is to try things and eliminate the ones you really dislike.

Finally, even if you have an idea where you want to go and you’re doing something you dislike right now to get there, you need to compare to the alternatives.  Just because an elaborate and expensive exotic diet and mountainside yoga routine could help you lose 10 pounds, could you have lost the same weight doing something cheaper and less painful like portion control and a little cardio?

The danger of having someplace you want to go – a goal – is that it can blind you to opportunity cost.  If you know you want to reach X, and you know Y is a way to do it, you may overlook the fact that X is a lot more painful than A, B, or C, all of which could also get you to X and give you a lot more in the process.  Just because you have a goal doesn’t mean the common path to reach it is the only or best.

Ask yourself these questions a lot.  Don’t get panicky.  Don’t walk out on your boss in the middle of work because you got bored for a few minutes.  This isn’t about being flaky or avoiding difficulty.  It’s about being resolute and facing difficulty and fear head on but knowing why you’re doing it.  It’s not about the path of least resistance, it’s about having a reason – your reason – for fighting.  It’s about choosing your own challenges instead of floating downstream just because.

You might be amazed how many things you’re doing that you dislike, that have no connection to somewhere you want to go, and that are causing you to miss amazing and valuable experiences.

Questions are powerful things.

Get Off the Conveyor Belt

Excerpted from Freedom Without Permission.

The reason many people fear opting out is because of a paradigm of linear, externally-defined progress that I call the conveyor belt mentality. This mentality is holding you back and must be demolished. It goes something like this:

You are plopped onto a production line at whatever stage you’re supposed to be based on arbitrary things like your age, class, and gender. Then you let the belt do the work. By essentially doing nothing but what you’re told, you get handed certificates at each next stage. 18? Unless you did something truly outrageous, here’s your diploma. 22? Here’s your degree. Degree? Here’s your job (or so you’re led to believe).

Most people believe this and live it. It’s revealed in the kinds of questions we ask strangers. “What grade are you in?” “What’s your major?” “What kind of job do you have?” If your answer is not the appropriate one for your age and assumed station in life, people worry. “I dropped out of school to do X” is cause for concern to almost everybody, no matter what X is. “I’m a sophomore at university Y” is cause for comfort to almost everybody, no matter what you’re actually doing with your time at Y. So long as you’re at your station, no one much cares if you’re productive, happy, successful, fulfilled, or free.

Parents obsessively check their child against a list of averages on everything from height to reading ability and stress if junior is not “on track.” No one really ever asks who built the track, where it’s going, or whether junior has any interest in arriving there.

The conveyor belt sucks. It’s not taking you where you want to go. Aggregates are not individuals and your goals and abilities are not definable by summing the abilities and behaviors of everyone your age and dividing by the population size. Time to get off.

It’s scary at first, because your mind is trained to think that progress is defined by moving on the conveyor belt in the only direction it goes. Maybe really special or hard working people go faster, like the people who run up an escalator instead of letting the machine do all the work, but everyone is channeled in the same narrow corral moving in the same direction. That’s not progress.

Progress, for you, is moving towards your own goals and desires and becoming more fulfilled as you grow and overcome challenges. There are as many directions as there are people. Once you jump off the conveyor belt, the hardest part is actually discovering what makes you come alive, then being honest and unashamed of what you discover. It’s worth it. You can never start too soon.

The thing is, the mold-breakers who jump the belt don’t struggle any more or less than those who stay on. They have a hard time too. But it’s a different kind of pain. It’s the pain of working to achieve a goal they’re passionate about that has huge rewards when won, not the pain of subjugation to a monotony that brings you nothing in return.

How to Search for a Job

unnamed

From Life Learning on Medium.

A lot of people are looking for jobs. The thing is, not all job searches are equal. “Looking for a job” might actually mean hoping someone finds your resume online, shooting out a few emails, or posting unsolicited comments on Facebook pages that say, “Are you hiring?”

If you want a job — really want a job — you’ve got to go level five with your job hunt. And call it a hunt, not a search. You’re not hoping to stumble into a pot of gold, you’re tracking your prey and bagging it.

Let’s take a look at how to do it.

Level 1: A Good Resume

While most of the best jobs you’ll get in life will be gotten without a resume, if you’re job hunting you should have one on hand. I don’t particularly like them, but a lot of people expect them. A good resume will never get you a job, but a bad resume could lose you one.

For a resume to actually convey something, serve as a starting point for interview questions, and keep you from being dismissed out of hand, there are really just two main features: Nice appearance and outcomes-based content.

For appearance, keep it simple, clean, a single page, uniform use of line breaks or bullets, not too many indents and sub-sub points, and a clear order top-to-bottom of what’s most important. (Hint: experience is more important than education to most people, even if you assume otherwise). Oh, and get your spelling and capitalization triple checked.

For content most people simply list credentials they have and activities they engaged in. This is boring and conveys a lot less about your ability to create value than what kind of outcomes you produced. Don’t just list that you were a digital marketing intern and ran email campaigns. Show that your A/B test improved open rates by 10%.

Even if you were waiting tables, see if you can demonstrate value created. “Server at Applebee’s” is less interesting than, “My section consistently brought in 15% more tips than average sections.”

Anyone can have a title and do a task. The good ones create value and can show positive outcomes.

Level 2: Good Profiles on LinkedIn, etc.

Whether you like it or not, LinkedIn is hugely valuable in the working world, especially for those making hiring decisions. Have a profile. Have a decent headshot that actually looks like you. Have accurate information. Keep it up to date.

Your LinkedIn profile should be consistent with your resume, but it is not the same thing. It allows you to go a little deeper into who you are, what drives you, who you’ve worked with, what you did, etc. Same goes for Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else you kids are using these days. Be you, but use good judgement. If someone only ever found your online accounts, would they have an accurate idea of who you are and what you want to be known as?

Many people fear all social media and online presence because they think of it as a liability. Some people try to stay undiscoverable online as a protective measure. This is a terrible idea. First, always assume if some hacker wants to find your stuff bad enough they’ll find a way, regardless of your settings. But more importantly, seeing social media as a liability blinds you to the fact that it can be a huge asset. There is no neutral. It’s either helping you or hurting you. Being completely anonymous online hurts you. Take charge of your online presence and make it an asset.

Level 3: A Personal Website

It’s easier than ever to setup a personal website. If you’re serious about finding a great job, just do it. Go over to WordPress and get started. In a few hours you can have a clean, simple website that serves as a repository of all the things you enjoy and want to be known for.

A personal website gives you far more control than profiles on third party sites. You can feature whatever you wish, you can blog, share video, include a longer bio, express aspects of yourself you wouldn’t cram into a LinkedIn profile, and really use the blank canvas to create whatever you wish.

But more than what you have on your site is the fact that you have one. Anyone who has put together a basic, neat, up to date personal website stands out. Not many people do, despite how easy it is, and if you do you’ll have something that gives you far more cred than just a decent resume in a pile.

If you really want to gain an edge, overcome fear, build confidence, and become a better communicator and thinker then take the next step and blog on your site regularly. I recommend blogging daily, but if that’s daunting, try weekly. You can always hide bad posts, but the act of doing it and knowing it can be seen by others will do more for your creative capacity and productive power than any other simple activity I know of.

Level 4: A Portfolio of Projects

If you’ve already setup your personal website here’s a way to really beef up the value. Beyond a nice homepage and about page with a bio your website can feature projects you’ve completed.

Remember when I said the resume should show outcomes instead of just telling about activities? A portfolio allows you to show in much greater detail what you’ve created. It’s especially easy for those with skills in art or coding or engineering to share publicly what you’ve produced. You may think that your management or communication or sales skills can’t really be put into a portfolio that shows what you’ve done, but it can.

Go to a freelancer website and pay someone $50 to design a nice one-pager that shows the results of that event your organized and executed. Have someone build an interactive graph tracking your fundraising or sales campaign. Show articles you’ve written and clicks they received.

If you can think of nothing tangible that you’ve completed to put in a portfolio it’s a good sign you should get cracking! Writers and photographers know that their portfolio of work is what really matters. If they have none, they start out just doing things for free to build it up. You can do the same. Just get started creating something and share the results. Do projects for free that will help you get something under your belt.

The great thing is, the success or failure of your projects is less important at this stage than that you completed it. I’ve talked with tech companies who say they’d rather hire someone who built a cheesy, non-innovative notepad app than someone with a stellar resume who never built and “shipped” anything at all.

Level 5: Unique, Stand-Alone Websites, Videos, InfoGraphics for Your Target Company

Here’s where the great stand apart from the very good. If you really, truly, deeply want to work for a company why not devote yourself to studying them in depth and presenting your unique take?

Remember Nina, whose resume was lost in the heap at AirBnB? She went level five and became internet famous. She put together an impressive site that deserved attention, still it’s telling of just how low the bar is among job-seekers that a simple website was such a viral sensation. No one is doing this. But you can.

One thing employers will tell you when sifting through job applications is that too many people talk about themselves and too few talk about the company they claim to want to work for. “I’m Joe and I’m great at XYZ” tells me nothing about why Joe applied specifically for my company. Does he just want a paycheck, or is he passionate about my business? Does he even know what we do and what we value?

There’s no better way to demonstrate your knowledge and passion for a company than to dig into the industry, business model, customer base, competitors, and build something unique that describes what you love about and what you would do for the company. Don’t think about what would make you look good, think about what would actually be valuable to the company.

I guarantee spending 30 days doing a deep dive on your target company will be more valuable than spending an entire year getting a second major and more clubs to list on your resume. If you can create something of value to the company before you’re even working for them that sends a strong signal that you’re a person they want on board.

What Are You Waiting For?

One of the reasons I launched my company Praxis is precisely because so few young people realize that they have the power to create their own professional future. There are more tools available than ever and more opportunities but so few realize it. You can’t sit on the conveyor belt and expect it to drop you at a fulfilling job.

Look, I’m not saying it’s easy. But don’t tell me there’s no way to get a great job if you aren’t willing to push yourself to level four, or ideally level five. You can probably think of ten more things I didn’t even list here if you really try.

The days of buying a degree and hoping it buys you a job are over. Be your own credential and prove through the work you do that you can create value.

Why You Should Apply to Praxis

Why I Started Praxis

Praxis requires the right people.  It’s a challenging program.  It’s not for everyone.

So who’s a good fit?  If you or someone you know fits any of these descriptions, it might be a match made in heaven…

You’re good, but you’re bored

You can do well in school.  You’re typically one of the best students.  You can do well in a job.  You’re typically one of the best employees.  Most social and educational situations are like games, and you’re pretty good at figuring out the game and doing what it takes to win.  Still, you’re restless.

Gaming the school system for grades seems a bit pointless, and you’re jonesing for something more real.  You want to succeed, but you’d like to do it in an environment that’s connected to something bigger, more valuable to the world and to your own future.

You know you don’t know everything and you’re bored getting rewarded for stuff that isn’t all that challenging.  You relish the opportunity to try bigger things, and to be in an environment where open experimentation and failure aren’t the enemy, but stagnation is.

You’ve always got side projects and ideas

Not satisfied with officially sanctioned clubs and activities, you’re keen to create your own.  You’re the one who’s always starting fantasy football leagues or planning poker nights.  What?  No aquatics club?  You’ll remedy that.  Nearest Red Bull supply is too far away?  You’ll start a little delivery service.

From building club websites and Facebook pages to finding someone to make a new logo for your softball team, you never stop coming up with new ideas, jumping on opportunities, and completing projects of your own design.

You know this urge to build things might take you places if put in a more expansive context.  You know you could learn so much more being around others who have built amazing companies and brought big ideas to life.

You can’t stop seeing how everything around you could be done more efficiently

Everyone in line at the airport is staring at their phone and mindlessly wandering through the rope maze.  Not you.  You’re analyzing the way the line is designed and frustrated that they chose such an inefficient configuration.

You immediately see how the class assignment could be done in a much cleaner, quicker way with the same result.  You probably got in trouble for discovering shortcuts and hacks in grade school.  Everywhere you look, you run numbers in your head or ask questions about how the model works.  When you drive through a neighborhood, you’re looking at the cars and houses and estimating the annual salary and debt needed to sustain the residents.  You wonder if they’d have a higher quality of life in a different city with lower cost of living.

You feel like the world is full of inefficiencies but this doesn’t make you angry, it makes you excited.  Where others see pain points, you see opportunity.  You may not know yet how to channel this mindset and you may not have any particular passion, but you can’t turn off that part of your brain that sees areas for improvement all around.

You’d love to enter an environment where that mindset is valuable and cultivated.  You’d love to take it to the next level.

If that’s you, so is this

Praxis is ideal for anyone who fits any of these descriptions.  An intensive 3 month bootcamp on personal and professional skills, 6 months working at an amazing startup, a rigorous series of personal development projects, coaching, and a deep dive into what it takes to be an entrepreneur and self-directed learner.  This is the career and educational experience you’ve always wanted.  No fluff.  No BS.

Why wait to do awesome stuff and work with innovative companies?

Start today.