Tag: learning

James Walpole’s Praxis Story

Walpole

Now that we’ve had a few classes graduate and more are getting underway every month, the stories are beginning to roll in.  I love it.  This is the stuff that reminds us why we do what we do every day.  It’s not easy, but nothing good is.

Praxis September 2014 participant James Walpole joined the program right out of high school, deferring a college experience he wasn’t entirely sold on so he could get some real world time under his belt.  A year later and James was running marketing for a tech startup in the Bitcoin space…at age 19.  No degree, just the kind of job he had hoped a degree might get him four years and untold thousands later.  Not to mention a new outlook and the confidence to try a great many things never before considered.

I’ll let James tell it in his own words…

“I’ve always had big goals for my life. When it came to actually accomplishing them, I wasn’t much different from many people my age: I was getting nothing important done. I was keeping my head down and working hard to do well in school and have a “normal” teenage life. I had done well at these, so I was waiting for the conveyor belt to carry me on to my dreams of being a great thinker and entrepreneur.

I was being complacent. I think that complacency would only have gotten worse if I had chosen to stay on that path into college and beyond. I had already applied to several schools. While I wasn’t impressed by the conformity of college culture, I thought I had no other choice but to go.

Praxis was a breath of fresh air. It shook me back to the awareness that I was sleepwalking through important decisions in my life. More importantly, it showed me than an education that fit my values was possible and did exist. I could bring my ideas to life in my work, and I had no excuse not to take the first steps toward making my goals real.

While it was scary at first to turn down college and scholarship offers to do something so different, the decision to apply was one of the best I made. Throughout my time in the program, I gained hard skills and work experience in an industry I loved, explored great works and ideas alongside my Praxis advisors, and built strong networks in my business community and friendships with my fellow Praxis participants. I know a little bit more now about what it takes to be an effective entrepreneur and thinker, and I’ve taken responsibility for getting there.

The growth I experienced in Praxis has continued after the program. I’m still working full time for my Praxis business partner, managing marketing work to which I was new just a year ago. Learning how to handle this responsibility and the challenges that have come along with it has made me a better, braver, and more competent person.

When I think about my future now, I’m not worried about who’s going to pay me or who’s going to hire me. I’m also not expecting to achieve my goals automatically. I know I can handle challenges above my “approved age level”, and I know how to create my own path. I have Praxis to thank for that. This experience didn’t just save me four years – it’s changed how I’m living my life.”

If you want to take a leap and do what James did, apply now.  There’s nothing to lose but the known, well-worn path that will always be there.

James blogs regularly at the Praxis blog as well.  Read his full story and other posts here.

If you want to talk to him about his experience, email James here.

Answered on Quora: How to Do Stuff Outside the Normal Path

A Quora user asked:

How can I start studying at college or any school program without a highschool diploma?

My response:

I have no HS diploma and I got an associate’s then bachelor’s degree (and later MA). I never got a GED or took the ACT or SAT.

At age 15 I just enrolled in community college. They don’t care, they just want your money. I took an assessment test to determine which classes I should start with. I did two years of classes there and got an AA. The AA and my CC grades transferred to the nearby state university no questions asked. They, too, want your money.

There may be a more fundamental question: Why do you want to go to college? Getting a HS diploma was (correctly, IMO) deemed not worthy of your time. Why is a degree better?

If you want the college social experience, or the knowledge from classes, or anything other than the piece of paper, just move to a college town, go to parties, sit in on classes without registering, etc. Save yourself tens of thousands or more and get all aspects of the experience.

If you want the piece of paper, ask yourself why. It’s a signal to employers that you are roughly average. If you’re even a little bit ambitious and creative, you can build a better signal yourself. Google>resume, and a portfolio of value created, an online presence that proves it, a network, and great experience>generic degree.

The most compelling reason to go to college is if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you want to do something that legally requires a degree – law, medicine, academia, or government bureaucratic work – even here, I’d encourage some thinking about entrepreneurial ways to approach it, or at least spend a year or two working in these fields before sinking 4+ years and 6 figures into a degree that almost locks you into that work for life.

If entrepreneurship, art, software, sales, marketing, or a host of other self-directed, creative endeavors appeal to you, don’t wait around in a classroom. Save the time and money and start doing awesome stuff now. (check out Praxis if you want some help doing awesome stuff with no credentials.)

Whatever you do, don’t be bored. Life is too short and too valuable to do things you don’t enjoy.

Letter from a Praxis Participant

Praxis participant Nick Tucker is killing it.  At age 19, he’s working with a successful entrepreneur at a great company and building the life he wants.  Here’s what he had to say in a recent email:

“During my senior year of high school, I had questions coming in from dozens of different people about what my plans were for the following year. It seemed like the only right answer was to attend a solid college. But my heart wasn’t in it. Even when I was just applying for colleges I could barely force myself to sit down and fill out the applications.

Growing up in a college town, I had a pretty good idea about what a typical Freshman year was like in college. It had virtually nothing to do with preparing for real life and establishing a career. I wanted more, but I was stuck. It didn’t seem like there were any other legitimate options available. Then I discovered Praxis.

Now just 4 months into the program, I’ve developed many different skills that have made me valuable in the workforce. I’m working in sales on a very large scale which has been a dream of mine since I got my first job as a server. I’ve grown intellectually every single month since this last September. I have access to an incredible network of amazing people who I know are rooting for me to succeed. The program has surpassed my wildest dreams and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

Nick has the most important qualities for success: confidence and work ethic.  The rest can all be learned, and he’s doing it now.

Feeling the itch to get into the world and do something awesome?  Intrigued by the adventure and challenge?  Been thinking about it but not ready to pull the trigger?  Why wait?

Apply today.

Praxis or not, don’t just do what you’re “supposed” to do because you can’t think of anything else.  Take the reins.  Be in the driver’s seat of your education, career, and life.

Getting Started on Entrepreneurship While You’re Young

In “The Future of School” I share my biggest regret:

“I wish I had more confidence, and earlier, about going my own way.”

It took me a long time to realize that all the things I thought and did differently weren’t things I should try to shut down, hide, or change.  They were my greatest strengths.

When you’re 14, 16, or 18, all the world seems to be screaming at you to look like the average of some aggregate.  Well-meaning teachers, parents, coaches, relatives, and friends want to know how you stack up on a series of “normal” indicators of status and ability.  They want you to know the stuff everyone else your age knows, and do the stuff everyone else your age does.

But the reality is that it’s the “Crazy Ones” who change the world.  It’s those who gain the courage and confidence to not suppress their unique take; their hacks and workarounds; their weird approaches and unconventional interests and solutions.  These are the makings of an entrepreneur.

And let’s be clear: entrepreneurship is the greatest single skill needed for the present and future marketplace.  Machines and software are taking off like never before, and they can follow rules and obey orders and perform rote tasks better than humans.  This is not cause for concern, but a huge opportunity.  It frees up humans to do what only humans can: creatively problem solve, innovate, experiment, and adapt.

But it does mean that the vast majority of what’s taught in traditional education settings is of little and decreasing value.  Knowledge of facts is nearly obsolete.  We have Google.  Memorization is silly when we have unlimited digital storage.  Following the crowd kills the best instincts and opportunities for value creation.  We need to re-ignite the entrepreneurial spark that everyone is born with.

That’s why we’ve built a 60-day entrepreneurship eCourse for teens.  It all begins with a mindset.  The mindset I wish I would have found sooner.  The mindset that says your best assets are your most unique attributes.  It’s about turning your creativity into a discipline.  It’s about becoming a self-directed, perpetual learner.  It’s about experimentation, trial and error, and approaching life like a game.

This course is hard.  You could easily scan it and gain a few bits of wisdom.  But that’s not what it’s built for.  It’s built for an intensive 60 days.  It’s built to make you a little uncomfortable as you learn to explore your own strengths, weaknesses, and passions, build a basic website, and share your ideas and lessons learned along the way.  If you go through it – really go through it and complete every part – you will absolutely walk away a different person, closer to your goals and the life you want to live.

If you complete the whole thing we’ll be impressed.  In fact, we’re giving you a free coaching session with course creator and Praxis Education Director T.K. Coleman if you do.  You think you can do it?

You don’t need to have that big business idea to begin on the entrepreneurial journey.  It starts by becoming the type of person who is ready and able to seize the moment when that big idea comes.  It starts now.

Are you ready?

Praxis Teen Entrepreneurship Course

Praxis on the Local Level: Pittsburgh

As I mentioned at the end of 2015, Praxis is launching some exciting new things this year.

In addtion to the Teen Entrepreneurship eCourse, we’ve also launched a local version of the full Praxis program, starting with Pittsburgh, PA.

It’s awesome.

This is the same 12-month experience – paid work at an amazing company, intensive personal and professional development, hard and soft skills, and liberal arts education – but with a local cluster of business partners and participants.  This allows those in a particular region to get all the benefits of the program AND stay close to home and have more time interacting in person with their fellow participants.

Zak Slayback is the director for the Pittsburgh program.  I couldn’t think of a better person.  A PA native and Ivy League dropout, Zak has done nothing but crush it since he left the confines of the academy to join Praxis nearly two years ago.  He’s a great example of exactly the kind of work ethic + bold thinking we look for.

The cool thing about this model is that Zak can really put down some roots and connect with local networks of young people – high schools, colleges, clubs, homeschool groups, etc. – and local businesses over the long term and offer an amazing opportunity for them to get out of the classroom for a year and learn entrepreneurship from successful Pittsburgh entrepreneurs.

It doesn’t stop there.  This model can be replicated in cities across the country and the world.  It takes a network of young mold-breakers and great companies with the power of the unique Praxis coaching and education process.  Stay tuned as we continue to grow.

Check out Praxis Pittsburgh, and reach out to Zak if you have any connections in the area or want to learn more!

Announcing the Praxis Teen Entrepreneurship Course

Praxis Teen Entrepreneurship Course

It’s here!

After considerable demand from young people and parents of young people (primarily homeschoolers and unschoolers) not quite ready for the full, year-long Praxis experience, we’re now offering a 60 day course for teens.

Praxis Education Director TK Coleman guides you through this intensive two-month experience as you learn to adopt mindsets and habits conducive to the entrepreneurial life.  This course is awesome.

Entrepreneurship is a mindset.  It requires deep, philosophical thinking.  It requires ridiculous levels of commitment and work ethic.  It requires genuine self-knowledge and self-confidence.  It requires big, crazy ideas.  This course is designed to help young people begin the journey.

I want to emphasize that this isn’t something that will be successfully accomplished as a casual daily dalliance.  It requires more than just consuming information.  It’s full of activities and ways to engage the real world and put knowledge to the test.  You can’t learn to ride a bike by reading about it.  You can’t learn to be an entrepreneur sitting back in your chair.

From the course intro,

“Information is only one small aspect of a good education. Anyone with an internet connection can find tons of information – it’s the easiest thing to find in today’s world.

So if you want to set yourself apart from the crowd, the key element is learning how to think about information critically, creatively, and practically. This course will help you do all three of those things by giving you daily challenges, exercises, and questions designed to help you engage the materials at a high level.

Don’t limit yourself to just being a reader or a listener. There’s no value in scanning your eyes over the words on a page just to say “I finished the article.” Learning isn’t about impressing other people or chasing after rewards. It’s about opening your mind, unlocking your potential, challenging yourself to think outside the box, and figuring out ways to use information to create value.”

One of my favorite sayings is, Agere sequitur credere.  It’s Latin for, “Action follows belief.”  Entrepreneurship is about action, but a precondition to action is belief.  Belief in the opportunity around you.  Belief in your vision of something better.  Belief in your ability to execute on it.  Belief and the actions that flow from it are not inborn qualities.  You can train yourself to see things differently, to habituate creativity and productivity, and to act on what you discover.

Are you ready?

*For the month of January, we’re kicking the course off with a 20% discount.  Signup now and get started on the journey!

Startup Questions

Beginning in February, I’ll be doing a four-part series on the podcast called, “A Beginner’s Guide to Startups.”  We’ll cover everything from ideas to business plans to bootstrapping to raising money to scaling and more.  We’ll talk with people from both the entrepreneur and investor sides of the table to discover keys for startup success, and who should and shouldn’t consider launching one.

To that end, now is a great time to submit questions you have about startups!  I’ll incorporate them into the series.  Just submit via the Ask Isaac form.  This is intended to be a clear cut, no b-school BS overview of the world of startups, so don’t feel embarrassed by any questions!

Email From a Praxis Graduate

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.

   Mitchell Broderick

“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.

15 Minutes a Day is Better than Two Hours a Week

I took several Spanish classes in my teens.  I hated them all and didn’t do that well with anything besides the pronunciation.

I also took half a dozen trips to Spanish speaking countries in my teens.  I did incredibly well making basic conversation in Spanish.

I got to thinking about this while listening to an episode of Praxis participant Ryan Ferguson’s The World Wanderers Podcast.  Language is one of those things that is really dumb to try to learn in a classroom.  The incentives are all wrong.  When you really want something – to get to know a person, or to find a bathroom – you’ll engage your cognitive capacity at a high level.  Learning to navigate another country is a great way to grapple with the language and gain some proficiency.  When your only incentive is a test, how will you rewire your brain to say “The apple is green” in another language?  More important than how is why?  Why would you want to say that anyway?

Here’s the thing.  It’s not always easy to get to another country and learn a language by necessity.  You can try other hacks, like pick a day of the week where everyone in your house is only allowed to speak Spanish, but this can be pretty tough too.  So if classroom learning is subpar and you can’t immerse yourself, what can you do?

I downloaded the free Duolingo app on my iPhone.  I love it!  Yes, it’s basically glorified flash cards, but it’s very fun, quick, has cute animations, easy progress tracking, and lets you practice pronunciation (my favorite part) using the phone’s mic.  I also love it because it works well with a breakthrough discovery I’ve made about other aspects of my personal growth in the last few years: tiny daily challenges work better than big goals.

I blog every day because there’s no excuse to not push out at least something.  I do one form of exercise every day because there’s no excuse to not do at least a few push ups.

Since my family is embarking on an Ecuadorian adventure early in 2016, I decided I wanted to brush up on my Spanish.  I added an activity to my daily tasks spreadsheet that just says, “Spanish”.  I do 10-15 minutes a day on Duolingo.  Some days I do a lot more, some days I barely hit it.  I’ve done it every day but two in the last 60 days.

For me, this pattern is vastly superior to taking a one hour class twice a week.  By getting Spanish bouncing around in my brain every day I find weird things happening.  I’m beginning to have a few random thoughts in Spanish.  Just a word or phrase, sometimes apropos of nothing, but it means my brain is being primed.  It’s like listening to a song every day.  Pretty soon it just comes out all the time.  My ears are being trained to hear things and my tongue to form new words associated with old concepts.

Of course, upon arrival in Ecuador I will realize how little Duolingo prepared me for fast-paced real world conversation, but I can’t realistically do anything about that.  The daily Spanish is fun, totally doable in my schedule, and it’s making some kind of progress.  The power of the compounding effect comes in to play.  If I improve my Spanish by only a fraction of a percent every day, it begins to get serious before long.

In case you’re wondering, Duolingo tells me I’m currently 10% fluent.  On the one hand, that’s probably a huge exaggeration.  I’d fail any Spanish test.  On the other hand, that’s probably a huge understatement.  I know from experience that once I get into a place where I need it, I’ll get where and what I want more like 2/3 of the time.

What other things might you learn better by doing a little every day instead of setting some big huge goal or taking some formal class?

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.

“Millennials” and Entrepreneurship

I hate the term “Millennial”.  For some reason, it makes me want to vomit.  Still, it’s a widely used label for people in the 20-30 ish age range and I must admit that there is enough cohesion to some of the traits of this generation to warrant a unique label.

I’ve written before about some of the characteristics of this generation compared to others.

I was just asked a few questions about Millennials and entrepreneurship yesterday.  Here are the questions and my thoughts.

What challenges do they face?

The single biggest challenge is in the mind and habits.  This is the most schooled generation in the history of the world.  Nearly every second of their lives has been planned, structured, poked, and prodded by external authorities.  Intrinsic motivation has been all but suffocated by positive re-enforcement and praise.  Learned helplessness is the norm.

This is a tremendous struggle for this generation.  They have never created their own structure or built things without preset guidelines and lots of “good jobs”.  It’s sad, and it’s not their fault, but they’ve got to unlearn a whole lot of garbage before they can unleash the entrepreneurial spirit they were born with.

What special concerns do they have?

This generation is very concerned with doing work that they find meaningful and enjoyable.  That is a huge plus.  They also have a big concern for doing things that are popularly viewed as “good for society”, which is a huge negative.  It results in a lot of signaling and posturing to be “sustainable”, “social”, with little understanding of what the terms mean or the causal relationships involved.  But the underlying thrust is still a legitimate, positive concern, and that’s to gain more than just survival, but meaning and self-actualization.

What do you think?

Do you think I got it wrong?  I’d love to hear thoughts, objections, and questions.  Submit them via the Ask Isaac form and I’ll try to respond on the blog or in the podcast.

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.

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.

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.