My very recent addition has been keeping me busy.  I hope your holiday has been as wonderful as mine has been.

Cheers,
Kevin

Here’s a great story about the founding of Under Armour, a multi-billion-dollar athletic apparel company. CEO Kevin Plank was a football player in college who wished there had been a better alternative to wearing a cotton t-shirt under his pads. So he bought some fabric at a shop about a mile from his college campus, then took that fabric to a local tailor and asked him to make as many tight t-shirts out of the fabric as he could. As Plank puts it,

“It was really that easy. I think sometimes entrepreneurs can get caught up with theorizing, hypothesizing, business planning – at some point, put the freaking pen down and go do something. Go find out if you can make your product. Once you make it, stop projecting what’s going to happen, and go find out whether your product can sell. Find out whether someone is willing to take hard-earned cash out of their pocket and exchange it for your product.”

I’ve heard from dozens of people over the years who want to become private counselors. Many of them are caught up in the details like, “What should my logo be? How should my website look? Who should design my business cards? Which accounting software should I use?” But those questions ignore the much more important one—are people willing to pay you for advice? If not, you don’t need a website, logo, software, etc. And all the time and money you spent making those things would have been better served improving your counseling game and earning the trust of a few families who will work with you.

I’m all for good planning. But whether you’re starting a business, running a PTA, or founding a high school club, remember that your most important job is to be good enough that customers or members are willing to exchange time and/or money in exchange for working with you. Everything else is secondary.

So the most important question to ask is, “Will someone want this?” And the most important thing to do is spend your time, energy and money to earn a “Yes.”

Jon Boeckenstedt from DePaul University has something most parents don’t have—over 30 years of college admissions and financial aid experience. But like many readers here, he’s got kids of his own. John’s take on standardized testing, shared here on his blog in the face of his daughter taking the PSAT, is a refreshing read that he sums up nicely at the end:

“When the [PSAT] scores come in, we’ll look at them, of course. And when the mail arrives in bushel baskets, we’ll sort through it all, lingering fondly over some, and sending some unopened to the recycle bin. But we’ll never define a complex human being by scores on a three-hour test on a Saturday morning; my earnest hope is that our kids don’t allow that to happen to themselves.”

I love the advice from Jason Fried (CEO of Basecamp) in this article because I think it applies to far more than just business:

“Instead of spending your time worrying about what could, might, or may happen, spend your time on what matters now. Are your customers thrilled with your service today? Is your inbox flooded with word-of-mouth referrals today? Do your employees love their jobs today? Can people find what they’re looking for on your website today? Be honest with yourself. If the answers aren’t satisfactory, then I’d suggest that you truly have something to worry about—no matter how beautiful and comprehensive your business plan is.”

Almost all of the anxiety around college admissions comes from worrying about things that either haven’t happened yet or are not entirely in your control (or both). The more time you spend worrying about whether or not your GPA is high enough or your test scores are good enough or your activities are impressive enough, the less attention and energy you have to expend on what you’re doing today. And today is what really matters.

Instead of spending your time worrying about whether or not your dream colleges will say yes, spend your time on what matters now. Are you pushing yourself to learn as much as you can in school today? Are you committing yourself enthusiastically to activities that make you happy today? Are you trying to be a good person and treat people right today? Are you taking responsibility for your education and your future today? Be honest with yourself. While you can influence what happens with colleges tomorrow, you can’t control that outcome entirely. So focus on what you can control—what are you doing today?

There are moments in my life I can recall vividly years later as a result of a mental snapshot I took at the time. Submitting my college applications is one of them. It was 1989, and I had to stand in line at the post office to mail my thick envelopes in the hopes of getting some even thicker envelopes in return (a thick envelope from a college in your mailbox was—and at many schools, still is—the universal sign of an acceptance). I remember exiting the post office in my hometown of San Rafael, California and saying to myself, “OK. Let’s see what happens.”

I don’t remember feeling any anxiety in that moment—just curiosity about what would happen next. Where would I get in? Where would I choose to go? How much different would my life be just one year later when I would officially be a freshman at a college to-be-determined? And what would my life be like after that? My college and post-college lives were in front of me, and the uncertainty about the specifics was exhilarating.

Seniors, you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next. You don’t know which schools will say yes or where you’ll end up in college next fall. That uncertainty is part of the process, and worrying won’t get you any closer to clarity. So why not enjoy it?

Some uncertainty about your future is one of the benefits of youth. You have your whole life in front of you and plenty of time to figure out what it should look like. And while I do believe that life continues to improve with age, uncertainty at seventeen is a lot easier to enjoy than it will be later in life when you have adult responsibilities.

The adventure you’re about to embark on won’t repeat itself. So take a deep breath, enjoy the ride, and let’s see what happens.

This week, Johns Hopkins University sent 294 students an offer of admission…by mistake. What bothers me more than the mistake is the text of the apology.

Dear ______,

Earlier today, you may have received an email from us with the subject line: Embrace the YES!

Please note that this email was sent in error.

The decision posted on the decision site reflects the accurate result of your Early Decision application.

We regret this technical mistake and any confusion it may have caused.

Sincerely,
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions
The Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins, that’s just embarrassing. You can do better than that.  You must do better than that.

I’ve written before that humans tend to forgive humans. But this apology should have reflected the same essay advice they give to students.

Mistakes are a lot more forgivable than half-hearted apologies are.

As usual, Patrick O’Connor nails it, this time with his reminder to seniors, What Your College Application Decisions Don’t Tell You. Print it up. Put it on the fridge. And whatever news you receive from colleges, give O’Connor’s advice a re-read and remind yourself that you’ve got lots of future left to make your life what you want it to be.

When I was a freshman in high school, I sat next to a senior in my Spanish class, a football player who looked like he was about 28. Four weeks into the class, he got transferred out because he’d gotten F’s on our first four exams. He seemed like a nice guy. But by college admissions standards, it’s not a good sign when you’re (a) a senior taking classes with freshmen, and (b) failing those classes. It would have been easy to write that kid off as going nowhere fast in the future.

Two days ago, I saw this former Spanish washout on television. He’s a chef now, he has his own TV series, and he teaches cooking classes that fill up weeks in advance.

What you do in high school matters, and I would never tell a student or parent that failing out of classes isn’t cause for concern. But I mention this story here as a reminder that as long as kids stay away from things covered in the criminal code, it’s hard to make a mistake in high school that will permanently mar your life in the future.

Families, as your student progresses through high school and all its tribulations, keep things in perspective and remember that there is plenty of post-high school life left to live. But also know that working hard and learning how to succeed now will give your student a nice head start.

Before he wrote seven best-selling books on business, work, and behavior, and before he gave his TED Talk on motivation that has since been viewed 11 million times, Dan Pink spent three years as the chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. He’s got a simple but powerful presentation tip in this article that I think applies to more than just public speaking.

Pink’s advice is to sound like yourself. And the best way to do that when preparing a talk is to sit with a friend or loved one, turn on a tape recorder, and have your partner ask you questions about the topic. Now instead of presenting, you’re just talking. You’ll be more natural. Your enthusiasm for the topic will be more evident. And you can use the recording as the building block for creating an entire presentation that sounds like you.

When we talk with our Collegewise students about potential stories they could share in their essays, one of the most effective things we can do is to say, “Forget the topic. It’s just you and me talkin’ right now.” The way a student talks about being in the marching band or growing up with a single mom or restoring a classic car with their father is exactly how they should write about it.

This works in virtually all types of communication, whether or not you’re in high school. If you write the company newsletter, or present to your sales team, or craft the verbiage for your website, why would you want to sound like someone else?  Even worse, why would you want to sound like everyone else?

There are plenty of them, but only one you.

I run Collegewise with my friend and mentor, Paul. I’ve written before that one of the best contributions he brings to any discussion is his exceptionally good listening. He works to understand someone’s point, usually by asking good questions and listening very carefully to the responses. He’s initially more interested in understanding than he is in staking a position of his own.

But I’ve also noticed that he learns by asking non-loaded questions at the right times.

A loaded question has more weight than meets the ear, often putting the listener on the defensive. Asking someone, “Don’t you think people will hate the shorter format you’re proposing?” is a loaded question because it can be interpreted as not a question at all, but a way of expressing your disapproval of the idea.

You can make the language more neutral by doing two things:

1. Seek to understand the other person’s point of view even if you don’t initially agree with it.
2. Make it clear in your question that you don’t yet know the answer (this won’t work without #1).

So the loaded question above might be rephrased:

“Do you think people will like the shortened format, or will they miss having the information? I’m asking because I don’t know the answer.”

Now the responder is being invited to engage in a conversation rather than defend her position in an argument.

Paul has even used this to generate thoughtful discussion about an idea that he’s proposing. When pitching a new way of doing something recently, he asked us, “Does my idea make sense, or is it unreasonable? I’m asking because I don’t know.”

When you can listen well and show that you’re genuinely interested in others’ points of view, you’re a welcome addition to any discussion. And people will be a lot more likely to listen in return.