Lesson 7 - Goals part 2

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 7 – Goals 2

Last time, we talked about Goals and in particular  -– Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  This lesson continues that. 

First – you don’t have to pursue money and a high position as goals.  Being a great father or a great mother, a great little league coach, a great teacher, a great public servant are all very good goals.  If you run a restaurant, a very appropriate goal might be the best customer service in town.  In my lifetime, one of the most celebrated people was one who was a Catholic nun serving the poorest of the poor in Calcutta India – Mother Teresa.  She delivered compassion, hope, healing and love.  That is a worthwhile goal as well.

Second – you may have a fantastic goal. Maybe your goal is to be the CEO of Apple by 2045.  But, how many others also have that goal?  If there are 130 million college students currently, the odds are very high that more than one will be highly qualified to be the Apple CEO>  If you don’t get to be the CEO of Apple, but become a senior vice president in that organization or another organization, that might be as valuable. 

Third – you will need to reevaluate your goals based on where you are and changes in your life.  We talked of complex adaptive systems.  Maybe as you were working your way up the corporate ladder, you volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and that really changed your viewpoint and you are considering becoming a coordinator for that organization. 

Fourth – don’t abandon your goals too easily.  Again taking the example of having a goal to be CEO of Apple and in your senior year of college you interview with Apple and don’t get hired.  There have been many cases of where an individual gets hired by a company for a leadership position after working up to leadership positions in another company.

Fifth – make your goals large, a challenge, but don’t make them so challenging that you can’t ever achieve them.  If you are a male 5 foot 8, it would most likely be impossible for you to be the starting center on the Boston Celtics Professional Basketball team.

Sixth – are you willing to pay the price?  Let’s say your BHAG is to be contra master (contra mistress) of the New York Philharmonic.  To achieve that goal, you will have to practice 5 to 8 hours every day.  Do you want to do that?  To be the CEO of Apple, you will have to know a lot about technology, about business, about futurism and trends.  You will have to really know some many things quite well.  Are you willing to take the time to REALLY learn and know the business, organization and position you are aiming for?  To achieve some significant goals may mean that you have to leave your family alone for a while, work very long hours and in many cases go through divorces and family problems.

Assignment:

1. Review your goals from lesson 6:  Take your primary BHAG and do an in-depth analysis of what you will have to do to reach that goal. 
2. What time commitment is needed?
3. What knowledge / degrees must you have?
4. Are you really willing to “pay the price” to reach your goal?  Will it compromise your values and ethics to get to your goal?

And a quote from Harry Browne: “Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There’s a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything.” –Harry Browne

Lesson 6 - Setting Goals 1

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 6 – Goals – Part I

Last time, we talked about BHAG -– Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  This lesson is for setting goals.

Goals are very important.  Our opening quote is: “Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner.”   Yes, add meaning and direction to your life by setting goals and by charging after them.

First – set high, but possible goals.  Stretch yourself.  A ‘non-stretch goal’:  This semester, my goal is to get all “C’s”.  For some people setting a goal of all “A’s” would be a real stretch – but it is possible. 

Poor goal:  By age 30, I will be the CEO of Apple and making 5 million dollars a year.  Wouldn’t that be nice – but impossible (maybe by age 40!!!).

Poor goal (at least for most of us): By age 23, I will be the starting quarterback on the Green Bay Packers.  Unless you are an experienced quarterback, playing on a nationally ranked NCAA Division I football team, pretty unreachable. 

Second – goals should have short term goals; medium range goals and long range goals. 

Short Range goals: Goals for the semester.  The best suggestion is 5 to 7 reachable (but also stretch) goals for the semester.  They can include academic, fitness and even social. 

Goals for the week:  This week, I will do these goals (list)

Even goals for the day:  Today I will work on these goals (list)

Medium range goals – could be for the academic year; for your college years; for an internship, study abroad, learning a language or other goal.

Longer range goals could be for 2 to 50 years.  Long range goals should have short range and medium range goals that build up to the final long range goal.   

Having a goal of being elected President of the United States in 2060 might be a good goal, but you will need several other goals along the way:  getting involved in politics, working on other campaigns, working as an aid to a congressman or other, running for a low level office, working up to national prominence, and more. 

Third – Write your goals down and carry them.  I carry my goals on a folder Post-it note in my billfold.  On flights, taxi rides, even while waiting for appointments, I can pull out my goals and affirm them in my mind.  I say them aloud to get them into my memory.  Saying goals out loud uses the brain, eyes (to read), ears (to hear the goals); mouth (to speak the goals) and by using more of the body it becomes more of your entire being. 

Print them on a sheet of paper and have them in your bathroom / bedroom so you can see them when you get up and when you go to bed.  Go over them as you fall asleep. 

Assignment:

1. Take time to write down specific short-term, medium-term and long-range goals
2. Put them where you can see them frequently
3. Review them at least five times every day.

And a quote from Abraham Lincoln: ““Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”

Lesson 5 - BHAG

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 5 – “BHAG” part I

This lesson introduces you to the “BHAG” – Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  

Technically the term BHAG comes from Jim Collins in his book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”.

But, the concept of big, hairy, audacious goals has been around for centuries.  Columbus said “We can get to the East Indies by sailing west, not east” – and while he didn’t make it to the East Indies, he did discover a new world.  John Kennedy said “We will put a man on the moon by the end of this decade” and the USA / NASA did it.  Settlers from the Old World said “we can create a new life in the Americas” and did.  The United States said “We can build a canal across Panama” and did it.  Of course there were others that had big, hairy, audacious goals and didn’t achieve them.  But this lesson is on creating the vision – YOUR VISION.

Last lesson was on “Who are you”.  In that lesson, the author wanted you to think about where you wanted to be at 40 and at retirement age.  This lesson will take that farther.

First, if you had a magic wand or a genie in a lamp you could rub and the genie would grant you wishes; what would be your wishes in terms of your future?  

What WOULD you like to be or become?  Do you want to become President of the United States?  CEO of Google?  CEO of Apple?  Do you have goals for a  family?  For advanced degrees?  For doing humanitarian activities?  For being the best in some category? For climbing the highest peak on each continent?  For going to the moon?  For flying your own airplane solo?  For being in the Olympics? There are obvious a lot of things you COULD be – but for each one of us, we can have a BHAG.  (One of the author’s big goals is to get this published and have it be a significant self-help document for college students and pre-college students.)

Now, big hairy audacious goals don’t just happen.  For example, it doesn’t happen that yesterday a person was an average 40 year old high school math teacher, with three kids a job and a mortgage and today, that person is the President of Citigroup. 

First you need to set an ambitious goal – or … a BIG goal, a HAIRY (maybe even ‘hairy scary’) goal; an AUDACIOUS goal.  Now there is a difference between a goal and a wish.  I’d like to win the PowerBall Lottery.  That is a wish – there is little you can do to achieve that goal, other than buy tickets – and theoretically the more tickets you buy, the better your chances, but even with a 100 tickets your changes are still very low. 

To achieve a goal, you have to have a definable goal – what exactly are you looking to achieve?  The more specific the better (more on goals in later lessons).  A goal to be rich is still more of a wish, a goal to have $1 million in investments and banks by age 45 is better defined.  A goal to be the starting quarterback on the Dallas Cowboys might be a real goal, but if you are not much of a football player that is probably only a wish.

Then you need to work on that goal.  When President Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on the moon in the next decade that was only the start. What also happened was that resources were set aside to reach that goal; sub goals of test flights sub-orbit manned flights; 1 to 3 orbit flights, multi-day flights and more. 

If your goal is to be CEO of Apple by 2055, you will have to seriously determine the path to get there.  What college degree would you need?  What experience?  What kind of person does Apple hire for entry level jobs?  What career path to get to the “C” suite of officers?  Then start working the plan. 

You might have to alter your goals.  Maybe as you get started, you get hired at Google and then maybe you want to shoot for the CEO of Google. 

Assignment:

1. Take some time (suggested two hours) to determine what your BHAG is. 
2. Take additional time to research how to reach that goal.
3. Write how to get to your BHAG plan down – pick specific dates – for example: such as by July 1, 2025, I will be a team leader at Apple in User Interface Design; by July 1, 2028, I will be an assistant director of the User Interface Design department for phones. 
4. Print enough details to put on a Post-It note – and review it multiple times each day.

Quote for today’s lesson:  “The more I accomplish, the more I know I'm capable of accomplishing.” 
― Tawny Lara

Lesson 4 - Who are you?

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 4 – “Who Are You – part I”

So, how did you do with lesson 3?  The early quote was from Lou Holtz: “Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.”  Were you able to put passion and focus on something to get it done? 

Today, we are going another direction;  “Who Are You?”

This book and lessons are aimed at the college student – from pre-college (age 16/17) through graduation (about 22/23). 

First some analysis:  Most people work until the governmental retirement age.  

I’m going to use 66 as the age. You are going to be quite a bit different by 66!!  

You SHOULD be quite a bit different after four years of college – maybe not physically, but definitely in your intellectual life.

Physical: In today’s world, most people will work until they are 66 or even older.  So, assuming you graduate at 22 and work until 66, that is 44 years (or twice as long as you have been alive).  Let’s face it – a lot is going to change for you from 22 to 66.  If you play sports, you will not be anywhere as good at age 66.  While there may be some older Olympians; most will be in their teens or twenties.  (I did some quick research and found an Olympian competitor at age 72 who was in the shooting competition. ) At age 66, your body will not be like a 22 year old body.  Even if you jog faithfully and lift weights, you just will not be the same physically.

How about emotionally:  At age 22, your experiences are pretty much all academics and with high school friends and family.  At age 66, it is most likely that your parents will be dead; that some of your high school friends will be dead (and most will have moved out of your life).  You will most likely have had many emotional events in your life – marriage, children, jobs, promotions, being fired, loss of parents and friends.  At age 66, you will have experiences so many more emotional events. 

How about financial:  At age 22 when you enter the job market, you will be at the bottom.  At age 66 generally, you will be towards the top of the salary scale.  You most likely will have a house a car (or two or three), have been on exotic vacations.

In computing we talk about Complex Adaptive Systems – and how we adapt to new things in our lives.  For example, new jobs, children in our lives, health issues, our parents aging – and dying, moving and so much more.  We need to adapt.  You are on the first step of adapting.  You probably are moving (or have moved) away from home, deciding what to do with your time.  You ae adapting to new roommates, to classes, and adapting to being ‘your own person’. 

When I went away to college, I was not longer “Woody and Helen’s son; I was BRUCE WHITE”.  I was on my own (or somewhat on my own).

Complex Adaptive Systems says that life is complex – you will cross paths with many people and many ideas.   Today you might meet an interesting international student and you become friends and you study for a semester or a year in that person’s country.  You might meet a person that will be your spouse.  You might read something about technology that causes you to change your major.

A biological example of complex adaptive systems:  Crows in London like to eat nuts (and other things).  They learned to drop nuts on the street and car would run over them and break through the outside shell and they could fly down and get the inside of the nut.  But, they also went on to adapt so they ‘learned’ to drop the nuts on cross walks.  The cars still rolled over them and broke open the shell and the nuts would be in the street, but when the signal light changed and the cars stopped, they could swoop down in relatively safety and have a longer time to pick up the nuts before the light changed.

For you, you need to be flexible and evaluate the things that come your way.  

You need to adapt. And … you need to know – deep down – who you are.

Assignment:

1. 1)      Take two hours and write an essay on ‘Who I am’ – go deeper than your parents.  What deep down are you passionate about?  Are you passionate about some ideas and things?  This should be a couple of pages long.
2. 2)      Then write an essay about “Who I am at age 40”.  Picture yourself at 40 and describe your passions at age 40.
3. 3)      Then write an essay about ‘Who I am at age 60”.  Same scenario.

A quote from http://www.brainyquote.com – from Joan D. Vinge

“We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us.

Lesson 3 - Practice Makes Perfect

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 3 – “Practice Makes Perfect (or does it)”

So, how did you do with lesson 2?  Did you find that you needed to work on your negative attitude?  Or did you find that you are a generally positive person?

Lou Holtz, football coach and television football commentator said: “Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.

So … put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.  This author adds – and WORK ON IT.

Sports analogy.  I coached high school basketball.  Prior to our first game, the team could have gathered in a classroom while I diagramed X’s and O’x and set up plays.  I could have lectured on the ‘give-and-go’; on playing the 1-3-1 defense; on setting screens; on passing to the open man.  The team would really understand the game of basketball – until they put on their jerseys and stepped on the court for our first game.  “Hey coach, what is this round thing?” (It’s a basketball).

What if you were really passionate about basketball?  What if you went to the school gym for four hours every weekday and six hours on Saturday and Sunday and put up three point shots?  What if a mentor or coach was there to help with your technique and to encourage you?  You would really become a great three point shooter!

There is an old adage “Practice makes perfect”.  That isn’t necessarily true though.  What if I practices three point shots for all of those hours by putting the ball between my legs and lofting it in a big arc towards the hoop?  I’d probably get really good at that top of shot.  Unfortunately during a real game, I probably wouldn’t get any opportunities to put up shots from between my legs.  The wrong kind of practice can make bad habits part of your style.

But, what if I – with a mentor or coach – practiced all those hours with running quickly to a spot on the floor, getting a pass and quickly turning towards the basketball and shooting?  My muscles would line up with my attitude and shooting would become natural. 

Let’s say I want to be a better student.  So, tonight I’m going to study four hours.  I’m going to turn on the TV in my room (low volume), turn on my iTunes to my favorite songs, get some candy and soda, and read my textbooks – but allowing for checking my email, my Instagram and Facebook pages frequently.  After four hours, I could say “Wow – I really nailed that – four hours of studying – WOOO”.  The reality is that I may have only half-an-hour of real studying and maybe not that much with the distractions.

Or, maybe I turn off the television, the iTunes, and the internet (with some exceptions), sit in a comfortable chair at my desk, open my textbook and read.  I have a highlighter to select topics, sentences and paragraphs that are important.  I have a notebook next to my book where I write down a synopsis of the concepts.  I close the book after sections and chapters and quiz myself – what was important?  What should I be learning from this reading?  How can I make this lesson and material ‘mine’?

I can use the internet and find related articles (your college library will have online access to thousands of journals, articles and more).  Use something like Dictionary.com and find definitions, use a thesaurus to find synonyms and antonyms to important terms.  Quiz yourself what is the definition of a term and what are three similar terms and what are three opposite terms?  In four hours, you will be really studying and not just going through the motions.   

Yes, you need to practice, but you need to practice appropriately.

Assignment:

1. 1)      Pick a topic you are passionate about.  Really study it for four hours.  Are you passionate about a favorite sports team?  Read about the team, each player, how each player got on the team, check the statistics for the team, what makes player X so good?  And maybe, play coach, how could I as a coach help player X get even better?  Are you passionate about a certain singer?  Read about that singer, how he/she got to be so good.  
2. 2)      Take the experience from #1 and apply it to a course.  Get passionate about Calculus (yes – if you are taking calculus).  Why is this important?  What is the historical development of calculus.  Do every problem from every problem set in the textbook, go on line and get more problems.  Go to the library and get some other author’s calculus book and do those problems, check the answers in the back of the book.  Do the problems on a piece of paper and go to a teaching assistant or math assistant and show your work and get help and suggestions (like a coach would do for a basketball player). Adjust your attitude – I can do this.
3. 3)      Do practice on all your courses and all that you are passionate about.
4. 4)      Reflect on how to study, how to practice learning and write a page about what you are learning about learning.

Philippines 4:9 “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Lesson 1 - Know your competition

Coaching for College Students

Lesson 1 – “Know your competition”

While your fellow college students are NOT directly your competition, it does help to have knowledge of your fellow students, in the United States and world-wide.

I am using the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook (see: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/)

 So, maybe you are thinking about accounting.  USA Today College says that accounting is the 7^th most popular major (see: http://college.usatoday.com/2014/10/26/same-as-it-ever-was-top-10-most-popular-college-majors/).  The average starting salary according to this analysis is about $44,500 with an average mid-career salary of about $75,000.  The U.S. Department of Labor suggests a median salary of $67,000 (see: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/home.htm)

But, many of these jobs can be outsourced.

“In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services. The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream, the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and social security systems.”  (taken from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-offshore-outsourcing-of-american-jobs-a-greater-threat-than-terrorism/18725) – article from 2010.

So, your great accounting job (just using accounting as an example) could be outsourced to one of those smart millions of college students world-wide. 

Staying with accounting as the example, what if you REALLY want to be an accountant?  How can you overcome the odds against you? 

Homework for Lesson 1:

1)      Who are you?  What do you want to be in ten years; thirty years?

2)      What are you thinking about for a major?  Double major?

3)      Research the Occupational Outlook Handbook.  What is the forecast for jobs in your field / major?

4)      Research the worldwide number of students in that field / major.  How does it look? 

5)      Start thinking of how you can increase your value and your marketability.

Overview

Coaching for College Students

 

Overview – millions of US students are in college (source); millions more are in colleges around the world.  They all have aspirations, dreams and goals; they all want fantastic careers and good earnings.  Where do you sit?  Unfortunately, as of 2009, there were over 150,000,000 (150 million) colleges students in the World (http://chronicle.com/article/Chart-More-College-Students/48516/).  This is to increase to approximately 262 million by 2025 (http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120216105739999)

What does that mean to you?  A lot, frankly.

Are many of these students as bright and smart as you?  Definitely!

Are many of these students majoring in the same field as you? Definitely!

Do most of them speak English?  Definitely!

Will many of them be qualified for the jobs I might look for upon graduation? Definitely!

Will many of them take jobs that you want at a much lower salary? Definitely!

Will global outsourcing to bright and smart students from around the world affect you? Definitely!

Economics talks of three resources to exploit in making money:  land, labor and capital.  You as a college student probably don’t have land and capital, so the only resource you have is yourself – as labor.   But, with millions of students world wide, how can you sell yourself?  Can they hire somebody as talented (or more talented) at less money?  Definitely!

In this little book, the author will present insights to make you unique and help you obtain your ideal position.

Audience:  This book is written for prospective college students (high school juniors and seniors) and currently enrollment students.  It also is of value to parents of college students – and almost college students. 

Approach:  This book can be used as a workbook – with daily lessons and assignments that will cause the student to think, react and change. The author suggests that the reader DO the assignments and actually write answers.  Learning theorists have studied that when more than one sense is active, the learning is higher.  So – reading the material, thinking on the material; writing answers (kinesthetic – eyes, hands, brain all working together).  There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers.

Concepts:  The concepts are not new, but in this work, packaged differently and aimed at a very specific audience.

Some of the concepts:

Goals – thinking about your goals, setting them, planting your goals in your mind, writing achievable goals; writing personal goals. 

Attitude – developing positive attitudes and putting the negative attitudes away

Being great – following the concepts of Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” – realizing that ‘good’ just isn’t good enough and that we have to go for great.

Being remarkable – following the concepts of Seth Godin in his book “Purple Cow” – in the midst of millions of other college students, being one that sticks out.

Mission, vision and values – defining who you are and where you and going

Avoiding pitfalls – there will be the temptations – both innocent and not so innocent – time wasting, addictions (alcohol, drugs, sex); short-cuts (cheating)

Networking – how to network, hot to find your place in the world.

Mentors and mentoring – finding and working the mentoring relationship

Guides and hints for College Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors and Graduate Students

And putting it all together – how can YOU be remarkable, great, significant in light of the millions of other college students. 

The Author:  The author has been a college professor for 38 years.  He has worked with thousands of students and has had a special mentoring relationship with hundreds of former students who contact him for advice and references. 

The author is going to go through ‘lessons’ on attitude; goals and goal setting; entrepreneurship; mission, vision and values; failing; being unique; service and more.  If you take these lessons to heart, you will be on your way to sticking out from all of the millions of college students. 

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You ARE UNIQUE!!!!  Live up to that knowledge!!!