Tag Archives: why

SELF-ECONOMICS: CAN YOUNG ADULTS REALLY AFFORD TO GO TO COLLEGE ANYMORE?

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If you (or your child)  are a junior or senior in high school, and you are still not sure what you would like to do after you (or your child) graduates high school, then you might want to consider pausing and weighing your options.

If you (or your child) is a “Millennial” (a young adult born between the years 1982 – 2004), then you are not only going to be considered a member of one of the most educated generations, but also one of the most indebted. Student loan debt has tripled since 1990, while earnings and jobs have stagnated for most college graduates.

According to a report from the Institute for College Access and Success, the average amount of student loan debt for the Class of 2013 was approaching $30,000 compared to just under $10,000 in 1993.

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And to make matters even worse, over 8% of today’s college graduates are unemployed. Before the Great Recession of 2008 hit, only 6% of recent college graduates were unemployed. Back during the last year of the Clinton administration in 2000, this number was just 4 percent.

So why do I advocate Self-Economics over College? Because The U.S. Treasury Department and the Department of Education teamed up from 2010 to 2012 to assess financial literacy in U.S. high schools, and the results weren’t pretty: the average financial literacy score of almost 76,900 students in 2010 was 70 percent. 2011’s testing of about 84,000 students and 2012’s of about 80,000 students were both a point lower: 69 percent. Though Americans have struggled for decades with financial illiteracy, state curricula has not shifted much to address these educational gaps.

In fact, fewer than half of the states make high school students take economics classes, and just 13 require a personal finance class, according to a 2011 survey by the Council for Economic Education. The biennial survey also shows that just 16 states require testing in economics, three fewer than in 2009. This regression is noted in the survey summary, which points out that over the past several years, the trend toward teaching these subjects has slowed, and is “in some cases moving backwards.”

Yet despite all of the ongoing research and statistics, little effort or action has been taken by Washington and the nation’s Department of Education or the state Boards of Education across the country toward changing or addressing the way schools should be educating children to properly prepare them for the new financial and societal challenges that have been created by economic and social changes.

It should come as no surprise that like most middle-aged adults today, young and emerging adults who are now graduating college are also finding it hard to find work in the marketplace after graduation. Even worse, most are not prepared and feel ill-equipped to become financially independent, since the majority of their parents and teachers lacked the knowledge required to impart this crucial financial information to these Millennials.

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In my book, Demystifying Success: Success Tools and Secrets They Don’t Teach You in High School, I have chosen to proactively educate today’s emerging adults to avoid the very financial pitfalls that are currently paralyzing and plaguing so many older adults. These young adults must be educated now with the appropriate information, tools and resources so they no longer follow blindly in the footsteps of the generations before them and perpetuate the continuing cycle of financial illiteracy in the United States. We must encourage them instead to develop new and self-reliant ways to succeed on their own terms. Moreover, we can positively impact their future personal and financial success by empowering emerging adults during their early, formative years to begin to think entrepreneurially and independently toward make better financial decisions earlier in their lives.

In the April, 24, 2012 USA Today article by Hadley Malcolm, “The Cost of Financial Illiteracy”, Annamaria Lusardi, an economics and accountancy professor and director of the financial literacy center at George Washington University, said, “If we live in a world where people are in charge of their own financial well-being … we have to equip people to deal with this individual responsibility.”

“Only about two-thirds (more than 2,000) of the total college and universities in the United States now offer a course in entrepreneurship. A smaller but growing number have entire sequences leading to an undergraduate minor, a master’s in entrepreneurship, or something similar,” said Judith Cone, Vice President of Entrepreneurship, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

It’s time to face the facts, most colleges and universities are no longer in any position to guarantee its students full-time employment in their chosen fields of study upon graduation anywhere near the amount of money they will need to pay off in educational debt. With that being said, doesn’t it make much more sense for you (or your child) to simple consider applying to a local community college as an “undecided” (or “undeclared”) major to avoid hefty tuition costs, or  pursue a dream job or career before finding yourself forced to take on a “whatever job” in order to pay back exorbitant student loans?

It’s time we all woke up and start embracing “Self-Economics”.  We must begin educating ourselves in the areas of financial literacy (personal finance and investing), personal development (a more theoretical approach [“the power of why”] to strategic and not emotional decision making),  and  entrepreneurship (which encompasses many of the elements of my T.I.M.E. Model) so we can all effectively compete in this new era of global uncertainty.

Maybe a better question is, what will happen if you don’t?

Have Nerds Become the New Cool in the 21st Century?

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I was recently lecturing to a class of students at Indiana University when it suddenly dawned on me: are Nerds really becoming the new cool for the 21st Century? During my lecture, I kept referring to one’s need to be self-aware, which I believe is crucial for enhancing one’s chances for success.

Unlike “Cools”, Nerds tend to be more authentic to themselves. They are not as concerned about what people think. They are more focused on how they choose to present themselves to others. Their intelligence and skills (e.g. abilities), not their fashion, dictate their identities.

Nerds pay attention to the details! They are not afraid to ask “why”. In fact, Nerds thrive on understanding ”the why” and occupy themselves with challenging the status quo, especially if something no longer makes sense, or even worse, becomes obsolete. “Cools” are way too concerned about “how” something will be perceived or “how” they will continue to “keep up with the Jones.” As a result, the “Cools” waste a lot of unnecessary energy trying to impress others, or even worse, trying to attract superficial professional and personal relationships that they cannot cultivate because they are constantly trying to maintain or improve their status or image instead of learning about the new things Nerds are already plugged into.

Nerds, on the other hand, attract like-minded people and choose to participate in groups and clubs because of common goals and a shared purpose. As a result, Nerds inspire and support each others’ successes.  They seek deeper meaning and connection with others, while at the same time, growing their network of potential employers, employees and business partners.

Nerds commit, they plan, and quite often execute their visions and goals, which is why so-many “Nerds” continue to attain such success within this new century of uncertainty.  They succeed because they choose to plan and thrive to be distinct. In his book, What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, Mark McCormack asks why only 3% of all the Harvard MBAs make ten times as much as the remaining 97% combined. From his research he surmised that having clear, written goals for the future and creating plans to accomplish them was truly the underlying formula for their success.

In 1979, interviewers spoke with new graduates from the Harvard’s MBA Program and concluded:

  • 84% had no specific goals at all
  • 13% had goals but they were not committed to paper
  • 3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them

In 1989, interviewers once again spoke with Harvard MBA graduates and:

  • The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.
  • Even more staggering – the three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

In my upcoming book, Growing Success: A Young Adult’s Guide for Achieving Personal and Financial Success, I discuss several tools and models that address planning and goal-setting, as well as awareness and good decision-making, which are imperative for enhancing one’s probable outcomes for success.

Look around and take notice! Nerds HAVE become the new cool. Just ask Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj, the cast of the hit television series, The Big Bang Theory. The cast and writers have made being nerdy cool.

So the next time you find yourself sitting next to a so-called “Nerd” in class, you better befriend him or her quickly because there is going to be a good chance that in next 10-20 years they will become your star employee, partner or BOSS.

As for me, I simply choose to embrace my inner “Cool Nerd” and continue to dedicate my time to helping you grow your success.

Surround Yourself with Success

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Protecting yourself in terms of your success is largely determined not only by your thoughts and emotions, but also by people you choose to surround yourself with.  In fact, there is a strong connection between all three of these. Have you ever noticed that you tend to attract certain types of people into your life when you feel happy or sad? Short-term or long-term relationships based on how you perceive yourself at that time?

Not only does surrounding yourself with the right people matter toward your overall confidence and self-esteem, but these same people can actually impact your overall ability to make good decisions, which could probably lead to successful outcomes.

In my upcoming book, Growing Success: A Young Adult’s Guide to Achieving Personal and Financial Success, I draw attention to the concept of building strong personal relationships based on similar core values. There is a reason why we categorize others in our lives as loved ones, friends or acquaintances. Don’t get me wrong, all of these people serve a very specific purpose in our lives (which I discuss in more detail in the book), but you really need to learn how to differentiate and cultivate the right relationships from an early age, while at the same time quickly recognize and distance yourself from the bad ones. I call this life lesson protecting the castle, or one’s ability to protect oneself from those individuals that can negatively impact you.

Negative relationships often cause us to emotionally shutdown. As a result, we tend to draw all of our conclusions and decisions based on our thoughts only as opposed to including our emotions or how we feel about things. Young children often grow up and lose their ability to “feel” things instinctively. As young adults, they then tend to get in their own way and excuse or ignore their feelings for less rational thoughts. I liken this dilemma to a bigger concept I call the “why” versus the “how”, which I discuss in earlier blogs.

Unfortunately, most adults lose the ability to trust their own instincts (e.g. feelings). They tend to rely more on their own thoughts and get deeper into their own heads. As a result, they begin projecting or forecasting outcomes or responses based on what they perceive others might think. These thoughts are often never grounded in any form of reality, sort of like anticipating a fire when there really isn’t any smoke. This type of unhealthy programmed thinking often leads to fear or, even worse, self-fulfilling prophecies (e.g. outcomes).

To help others get back in touch with their own instincts and emotions, I often recommend the following exercise to help get them out of their own way, or more specifically, out of their own heads. This exercise should be repeated daily for 45 consecutive days.

EXERCISE

During each session, choose a quiet, uninterrupted place where you can sit down and reflect upon your own feelings for as long as it takes. This is “not” a thinking exercise. This is all about re-acquainting yourself with long-lost feelings, while also re-engaging and trusting your own instincts (e.g. raw emotions), especially whenever you contemplate making decisions or allow others to draw upon your personal energy and space.

Reflect and handwrite these 5 different emotions you are currently feeling at that time in a notebook. Do NOT over think this exercise. Just simply write down the first five emotions that immediately come to mind. For example, “I feel happy today because ………………”

Take your time and write out each of these five separate emotions (good, bad, etc.). Then briefly describe why you are feeling that way. The purpose of the exercise is to really help you get back in touch with how and why you are feeling a certain way before you endeavor to make any type of decision or, even worse, project a potential outcome based on any future conversations, encounters or confrontations with other people that haven’t happened yet. Unfounded projections are merely fears with no basis.

Fear is often the number one cause of failure that prevents you from achieving your desired success and outcomes.

To quote the Chinese Taoist Philosopher, Lao Tzu: “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

In the future, before you choose to attract or surround yourself with others, ask yourself one simple question, “What value does this person bring to my life?” In other words, does this person support your relationships? Does this person support your goals? Does he or she provide you with any emotional support and/or friendship, or does this person simply drain your energy like an emotional vampire?

Letting go is not the same as giving up; it’s okay to let people go as you enter into this New Year. I suggest that you at least consider re-categorizing each person’s status (acquaintance, friend or loved one).

Surround yourself in 2013 with the people that will definitely provide you with mutually beneficial energy and the ones who will continue to grow your success.

 

Unleash Your Successful Wealth Creator

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Recently my wife Kate and I were discussing her ground rules regarding our shared key ingredients for success: determination, smarts, talent (creativity), perseverance, the need to be inquisitive, and others. Then she brought up an excellent point: what if young adults began manifesting wealth at an early age using the same ‘what would you do…?’ mentality that many adults only seem to exhibit when playing the lottery in the hopes that they would miraculously win and let all their money fears disappear?

Sadly, Kate is right. Most adults never learned the discipline of wealth creation at an early age, which was evidenced by last week’s PowerBall frenzy that sent Americans scurrying to their favorite “dream brokers” in order to purchase a “financial do-over” as the Powerball jackpot reached a whopping $550,000,000. The reality is (as most of you Monopoly® aficionados know) that they will never ‘pass go’ or collect $200.

What is amazing to me is that despite all the perceived value Americans seem to place on education, why then are Personal Finance and Wealth Creation classes neglected from most middle school and high school curricula? I’ve often wondered why most schools spend so much time teaching us the basics: math, English, history, science, foreign languages, and more, yet they fail to teach us the most important and practical life lesson: proper money management. Then it dawned on me, the reason why most teachers probably never teach their students anything about these subjects. Perhaps it’s because they were never taught either, and you can’t teach what you don’t know.

In my humble opinion, ignorance about money is not bliss. It’s costly. It literally blows my mind how little regard Americans have for financial education, considering that “money” now appears to be one of the most controversial topics within our society. Conversations about the state of the economy, both nationally and personally in our own households, as well as the “fiscal cliff” tend to dominate the proverbial “water cooler” chit chat online and offline. Not only is it extremely personal, but most people tend to have very different opinions and experiences regarding money. One size definitely does not fit all. For example, if your parents are/were conservative, then most likely you will also be conservative with your money. However, if you disliked how your parents either saved or spent their money, then you may decide to be the exact opposite. The point is that people tend to develop their habits and values regarding money from a very early age, consciously or unconsciously. They are usually swayed by parents, teachers, friends, or even worse, the media (e.g. TV, radio, magazines, etc.) that loves to prey upon America’s ignorance by constantly advertising and reminding us of what we either think we really want and need or what we basically don’t have and why?

In fact, millions of dollars a year are spent by companies on advertising in order to reap profits from America’s monetary spending dysfunction, which I call financial obesity. Companies deceive us with ads about what we should be driving, wearing, eating, living, playing, and thinking, and then shame us into a bad case of ‘mood poisoning’ if we don’t own what we “should” or if we don’t abide by their definitions of success.

The truth is: we need to educate our young adults to break free from the “must have” mentality often created at a young age. We need to empower our youth to start thinking about why they are spending their money and cultivate their desire to understand how each dollar spent will lead to their successful outcomes. To help you avoid the  “must have” mentality, I suggest that you ask yourself the following two questions before each purchase in order to ensure that every dollar spent is truly helping you to achieve your overall financial success:

1) Could this money be better invested than spent? and

2) Will this money generate the means for other future successes?

In my book, Growing Success; A Young Adult’s Guide to Achieving Personal and Financial Success, my goal is to educate and help young adults and adults of all ages understand and seriously think about the concepts of personal finance and wealth creation. Your ability to understand and adopt these important concepts from an early age will definitely help you to become a successful young independent monetizer /income generator, which will enable you to always produce multiple streams of income toward achieving your probable outcomes for success.

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” ~ Dale Carnegie

Begin educating yourself. Avoid the unfortunate and avoidable financial pitfalls that currently plague so many adults between the ages of 40 and 60.

It’s time to grow your financial success and unleash your successful wealth creator now.

 

T.I.M.E. for Success

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With the New Year quickly approaching, many of you are probably asking yourselves, “Where did all the time go?” Others like to say, “Time is short”, “Time is money”, “Time heals all wounds”, “The time is now to help” but most importantly, time is the only thing you can never get back! Cars, houses, money, and jobs are all replaceable. That is why time should never be taking for granted or squandered, as I explain in my new book Demystifying Success: Success Tools and Secrets They Don’t Teach You in High School.

Throughout the book, I provide young adults with compelling theoretical and practical knowledge that reinforces why it’s now T.I.M.E. (Timing, Intentions, Motivation and Empowerment) for Success.

Timing, which I also refer to as identifying opportunities, is something that I recently discussed in my blog Sliding Doors for Success. To become successful, you need to always enhance your awareness of potential opportunities that may directly or indirectly align with your path. To help ensure that you take advantage of such opportunities, you need to take the time to really focus on what you want to achieve or accomplish in both the short and long term. Recognizing your passions, desires and goals from a young age will help you to distinguish and align potential opportunities that will enhance your outcomes for success.

Intentions help you to reinforce why you are pursuing such passions, desires and goals, which also serves to confirm your ability to spot opportunities whenever they arise.  As I discuss in my blog Success Is Never Being Afraid to Ask Why!, most people today simply live life in a world of “how”. “Just tell me how to get the job” or “how do I make money?” or “tell me how to do this and I will just do it.” “How” is the ‘poster-word’ for status quo! There is no creativity in how. “Why” empowers an individual with the confidence and creativity to challenge the status quo and go beyond the “how”. In my experience, truly successful people always go the extra mile to figure out the “why” because it enables them to consistently recreate their successes over and over again.

Motivation represents the action behind the success. It is the process of aligning internal passions, desires and goals with external resources (mentors, knowledge, financing, etc.) in order to achieve the desired outcomes for success.  Many successful people often create what author Napoleon Hill describes in his book, Think and Grow Rich, as Masterminds, a group of hand-picked individuals that provide advice, support and even financial resources that help enhance one’s chances for success.  In the article, Five Secrets for Growing Success, that you can receive for free when you sign up for my newsletter, through my website, LarryMJacobson.com, I explain why successful people often turn to mentors or others in times of uncertainty or despair. Your mastermind can be a combination of both mentors and/or others (e.g. accountants, lawyers, etc.) that serve as excellent role models and/or sounding boards. They not only model the way for your potential success, but they also serve as great resources for information and advice. Their input can help you to choose the appropriate action steps to take to achieve your short-term and/or long-term success.

Empowerment is what I like to refer to as one’s ability to confidently trust their instincts to ensure that their decisions positively impact their desired expectations and probable outcomes for success. Too often, people get swayed by various negative or unsupportive comments made by others despite what their own instincts might be telling them to do. They often allow others to ‘get inside their heads’ and thus, overthink, or even worse, predict or forecast how others might respond or react to their decisions or ideas. Unfortunately, these people rarely proceed as they initially intended, either out of fear of another’s reaction, or even worse, to appease the other person at their own expense.

“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” ~ Jesse Owens

Successful people “go for it!” They check their fears at the door. They trust their instincts by spotting the opportunities and then re-affirm their intentions to motivate and empower themselves to take the necessary actions steps. As a result, they make necessary decisions that lead to probable (not possible) outcomes for success. To quote the legendary rock band The Rolling Stones, “Time Is on Your Side”. The sooner you begin to incorporate these concepts of t.i.m.e. into your strategic life planning, the sooner you will begin to grow your success.

 

Success Is Never Being Afraid to Ask Why!

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Over the past several years, I have been spreading the message that success is about never being afraid to ask why.

From the early age of two, most infants repeatedly annoy their parents by constantly asking them, “why?, Why?, WHY?” But by the time these young inquisitive toddlers get to their formative teenage years, they have lost the ability to ask why because most likely it was slowly beaten out of them by a cynical, practical educational agenda.

Most people today simply live life in a world of “how”. “Just tell me how to get the job” or “how to make money?” or “how to do this and I will just do it.” “How” is the ‘poster-word’ for status quo! There is no creativity in how.

My theory is that young people have become afraid to ask “why” because they are either perceived as stupid by older adults and peers, or even worse, a parent, teacher, or someone else they look up to got annoyed with them because they dared to inquire and they themselves did not know the answer and simply tried to save face. As a result, most theoretically-minded individuals have merely become the minority in a society that desperately needs to change.

The theoretical allows us to understand not only ‘how’ but ‘why’ we do something. This allows one to become creative in either solving or improving upon something that has simply “always been done this way”.  TED lecturer Simon Sinek does an excellent job explaining the theoretical success of Steve Jobs’ innovative genius behind Apple’s brand loyalty: “People don’t buy ‘what’ you do, but ‘why’ you do it!”

“Why” empowers an individual with the confidence and creativity to challenge the status quo and go beyond the “how”. In my experience, truly successful people always go the extra mile to figure out the “why” because it enables them to consistently recreate their success. Once you understand “why”, you can improve on an idea, innovate based upon the changing times, or, more importantly, discontinue something if it no longer works.

This is why I strongly believe that in order to really achieve success and get good at something, you not only need to learn how something is done, but I strongly suggest you understand why. I guarantee you that a highly successful person has already figured out not only “what” they were doing wrong, but why they needed to improve on what they already knew in order to beat out the competition.

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” ~ John Maxwell

Throughout my new book, Demystifying Success: Success Tools and Secrets They Don’t Teach You in High School, I provide my readers with both the theoretical (“the why”) and practical (“the how”) knowledge that I have acquired from my own and others’ past experiences in order to help them navigate life’s obstacles and pitfalls. It is my goal to re-educate young adults, as well as adults of all ages, about the ‘power of why’ so that all can reap their own personal and financial success throughout their lives.

By simply committing yourself to embracing a theoretical “why” approach to learning and living, you will greatly enhance your outcomes for success.

You Don’t Have To Be a Superstar to Be Successful

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In my opinion, I think too many people today are hung up on their definition for success, rather than simply feeling or accepting success on their own terms.

Think about it: the media is constantly bombarding us with stories of what they deem to be success: money, high-powered careers, cars, clothes. I think there is a big misconception between fame and success because I personally know a lot of people that are successful that are not famous, and I am sure we can all name a few famous people that are not successful.  So let me share an obvious revelation with all of you: you don’t need to hit home runs to be successful. Base hits are just as valuable for the win.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Mark Cuban’s book, How To Win At The Sport of Business and I was happy to see that I am not alone when it comes to practical definitions for success. According to Mark, “One’s efforts should really be measured by their ability to set goals and achieve results, not simply by the amount of hours one works in a single day.” I completely agree. Choosing to be a workaholic and, even worse, wasting precious time that you can never get back without even achieving results is ludicrous.

“People who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.” – Michael E. Gerber (author of The E-Myth Revisited)

Successful people like Mark Cuban and Michael Gerber may make success look easy, but I can assure you, both gentlemen are constantly reading and searching for new ways to expand their knowledge in order to do things better and “smoke” their competition in a way that properly utilizes their precious time.

In his book, Mark talks about how one goes about winning a segment of his or her business and finding one’s edge. He not only writes of where one’s edge comes from,  but the steps it takes to get there.

The important takeaways for me from Mark’s book are:

  • study your business
  • understand what it will take to differentiate yourself from your competition when dealing with clients
  • and, most importantly, your willingness to do what it takes to get results

To continue to replicate your success, you need to understand “why” you are succeeding in the first place and then continue to build on that success.

“If you aren’t happy with where you are, simplify your life and go out and try as many things as it takes to find what you may be destined to be.” – Mark Cuban

My personal philosophy for success is simple: “Do what you love every day of your life while surrounding yourself with positive people that love and support you.”

Successful people get to choose the life they want to live by surrounding themselves with positive people that love and support them, while at the same time getting up every morning to pursue a passion they love.

Hey, that sounds like a pretty cool definition to me.