It happened again. I pick up the paper to read my favorite weekly segment in the business section of the New York Times – Corner Office – and noticed that the woman featured, Rachel Ashwell, is a high school drop-out. As the CEO of a multi-million dollar business called Shabby Chic, Ashwell is yet another reminder that professional success stems from more than just one’s diploma hanging on the wall (or lost in a box in the garage).
Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s, has this “drop out status”(college) in common with Ashwell, as does Wally “Famous” Amos, Peter Arnell, and Danni Ahse. Whether your child wants to save the whales or make a million bucks as an entrepreneur selling dairy free granola bars, we can learn from these men and women who barely. if even, graduated from high school (and did not graduate from a four-year university). Please don’t think that I’m indicating that our kids don’t need high school or college. That would be quite a leap of faith.
Instead, let’s learn from these success cases. They highlight two important elements of professional success: WHO you know, and how OPEN you are to seeking out and following their advice. Ashwell, for instance, says she did not have an “adult education to pull from,” so she relied on lunch dates she was fortunate to have with the founder of Starbucks as well as books written by a mentor in her field.
It’s one thing to know the “right people” in your chosen career. It’s another thing to be open to their advice.
So, for parents who want the best for our children? If we want our children to take charge of their own education and professional career, then we must support them in: 1) figuring out how to meet people who would offer excellent advice; and 2) committing to following that advice.
A key step we can take as parents who not only want the best for our children, but also take the necessary steps to support them in this area is to be EXPLICIT with them about what WE are doing in terms of seeking out and following advice. This is too important of a feature of success in life to let go unnoticed…or just to hope or assume that our kids will figure out at some point in their lives.
So, in the next week, perhaps we can practice conversing with our children about:
1) Who we are seeking advice from, and why.
2) What advice we are following (or not following), and why.
Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes. I doubt two-year old Siena will care much about what I tell her about my meetings with my advisor and mentor, Elizabeth Dutro, but at least I’ll be getting in the habit of relaying an important message to my daughter: I care about the advice I receive from my mentors…care enough about it, and trust in it enough (and for particular reasons), to give the advice a chance.
