Train Your Teen To Make Decisions Like Steve Jobs
When Steve Jobs died this past week, the youtube video of his Commencement Address at Stanford University from 2005 ‘went viral’, being sent around to millions of people.
What always strikes me each time I hear that speech by Steve Jobs is the extraordinary irony of it:
Here is a man addressing the graduating class at one of the elite Universities in the world, who himself not only never earned a college degree but cites dropping out of school as being one of the best decisions he ever made! Then he cites how getting fired from Apple was one of the best things that ever happened to him.
This is his message to a collection of young adults who have spent most of their lives doing everything they can to ensure they secure that degree that will minimize the risk of ever getting fired from a job, minimize the risk of ever struggling financially – who are hoping will minimize risk in life period.
When I point this irony to many parents, they grow weary that I am going to encourage their sons and daughters to be like Steve Jobs and drop out of school. They say things like: “He’s the one in a million who does this and winds up being financially secure.” Many quote the term made popular by Malcolm Gladwell that “Steve Jobs is an Outlier” – the one who deviates markedly from the masses.
I’m not a fan of this representation of Steve Jobs that Gladwell uses.
In this case he associated a series of variables that hinged mostly on raw luck, being in the right place at the right time, that made Jobs have the life he had.
If we want to look at Jobs as having gone from nothing to being a billionaire, then sure he’s an exceptional story, one few on earth will ever match.
If we look at what truly made his life so extraordinary though, we can look at something far more common than raw luck of being born in a certain month on a certain street, the moment a certain song played on the radio.
What Jobs did (and he says this overtly in this speech) was follow the path of his heart, trust his instincts and intuitions and have the courage and tenacity to follow where they led, even when the path was extremely difficult.
Does this make him a radical revolutionary icon that none of us can ever be like?
Of course not!
Quite the contrary…!
This makes him like all the people who lead happy, fulfilled lives and can tell fascinating stories of how they trusted their instincts and intuitions, followed the path of their heart, and found that doors opened for them and life worked out for them too… (And by the way, most of them have University degrees!)
This is my story. It is probably the story of many of the parents reading this email today too.
Will it be your son’s or daughter’s story too? Will they make critical life decisions the way Steve Jobs advised them to do?
Will your sons and daughters follow the path of their heart, learn to notice for and to trust their instincts and intuitions, and develop an incredible capacity to stay the course, make excellent choices and do the hard work, even when it is anything but easy to do so?
Or will they instead settle for being like the many, many people who don’t follow their heart? Will they who opt instead to ignore their instincts, and wind up leading lives of compromise?
We don’t know what opportunities await them, what people they will meet and where their adventure will lead them.
We can be certain that the answers to these questions will be markedly different depending on which path they take.
Through my Evolution Mentoring and the training I offer through at HeroPath For Teens, I am dedicated to teaching your sons and daughters how to making decisions the way Steve Jobs did:
- How to notice the subtle signals of their instincts and intuitions.
- How to recognize these as being different from just having the momentary impulses which often lead to making bad decisions.
- How to grow in themselves the deep and critical capacity they’ll need to make excellent choices for themselves, even when the work will be hard and seeing results may be a long ways off in the future.
Are these important for you to have your son or daughter learn? If so, how do you ensure they learn to live this way and make decisions this way? It isn’t taught in school. It isn’t on the SAT exam.
It is taught here though!
Group Trainings:
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Hamilton, New Zealand – Exclusive Teen Summer Travel & Training – July 4 – 20th
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Or, contact me to discuss my entering into an Evolution Mentoring personal relationship with your son or daughter.
I offer the critical Third Voice that all young people need to make the transformation from child into adulthood.
Location is irrelevant. Thanks to the technology of people like Steve Jobs, I am able to do this work with clients around the world. It won’t happen though unless you take action.
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