Persevering After Failure

Last week in my college success courses I teach I shared a true story on what can be learned from failure. The discussion that followed was encouraging as they saw in the story perseverance, learning from wise advice, and that dreams can still come true. Those were the main thoughts the students shared.

The story came from my sharing the book with them, From Failure to Promise “360 Degrees”. I started off with a question: “Is it possible for someone to flunk out of a college and then years later wind up teaching there as a professor?”. After the initial stares some shook their heads no and some indicated yes. That is the reality of the basic gist of the life story, Dr. C. Moorer tells about himself in this memoir about his life from failure to success.
He honestly shares about his high school dream of going to the university to be an auto engineer. He was a good student but various factors interfered in his first year to cause him to go onto suspension, (I won’t discuss the factors here to peak your curiosity to read the book yourself). None the less, he shares about how life happened to him which led to failure. That is what I spoke to my college students about, that life can hit you from left field and bring failure your way. What do you do about it?

There are many principles that can be learned from Dr. Moorer’s story. My favorite is when he accepts advice from his father after he came home dejected from the university on academic suspension. The description of what his dad says is found on page 47, “He asked to speak to me, and I knew it was going to be an interesting conversation , to say the least. “So, you’re finished like that huh?” The dichotomy of his query left me reeling for the right response. “Well, they said I can’t come back for a year or so,” I explained. He quickly followed by asking, “..and then what or now what?” I replied, “I guess I got to go to community college and try to get back in, but I don’t know about my job or engineering…” I said little, but for him, I had either said enough or too much. He calmly but assertively cut in, “Life is hard, ain’t nobody giving away anything. If you really want something worth having, you have to sacrifice for it. It may require bleeding, sweating, and even crying to get it. Just ask the Lord to help you out along the way. Take breaks but don’t break away from it. Everything is going to be alright if you don’t break down like a little sissy every time things don’t go your way.” This was great wisdom from his father who ran a small auto body shop in Detroit, Michigan.

From the rest of the story as the reader follows the progression of his life story up to his present time of being the Dean of the Madonna University School of Business, it shows how he took his father’s advice to heart. He could have played the victim and blamed his professors or maybe that the school did not help him enough. No, he took ownership of his problems. Also his father’s advice showed the values of personal responsibility. I like how he emphasized take a break to gain clear vision of what happened but don’t break away from the future God had for him. You noticed the father did not say. This is unfair! Let’s get a lawyer and start a protest. Instead he encouraged his son to regroup, don’t give up, and turn to God for persevering strength.

Did you notice he is now Dean of the Madonna University School of Business. What happened to his dream of engineering? Sorry no spoiler alert here, you will have to read the story yourself. But it is a learning experience that I discussed with my college students in my college success classes. We discussed how with our dreams and goals we need to be open for shifts to occur. Just as I have shared in the past, Dr. Krumboltz of Stanford University, speaks of how happenstance events can change are dreams and we need to be open to new directions in our lives. This is the same as what Dr. Jim Bright speaks of with the Chaos Theory of Careers that shifts can occur in our life direction. Be open to the shifts if they are opening up new passions and new positives for your life. Some of those shifts or happenstance events start out as failures that come across our paths. That is where we need to listen to Dr. Moorer’s father’s advice in not giving up but taking time to regroup and move forward instead of backwards. Or as I say in my book, Living More Than OK, we need to spiral up to abundant living not spiral down.

Reflection: What does perseverance mean to you? Think back to a failure in your life. What did you learn from the experience?

Career Passion In The Hundred Foot Journey

From Barnes and Noble website

My wife, daughter and I went last weekend to see the movie, The Hundred Foot Journey. We thoroughly enjoyed it and from the laughter in the theater most everyone did. The cinematography alone inspired us to want to visit small country towns in France. The story opened up a view of the initial clash of two cultures, Indian and French then the unfolding of how although different they learned from each other. The characters were full of a wide range of emotions from of course humor as was noted but also jealousy, prejudice, appreciation, and happiness.

The movie is based on the book by the same name written by Richard C. Morais. The story looks at a family who had a successful Indian restaurant in their homeland that was burned down during political upheaval. The mother of the family tragically dies in the fire. The father leads the family to Europe to settle. By happenstance of car problems they wind up in a small town in France. Then further happenstance and what the father feels is the mother’s spirit guidance, he purchases an old beaten down restaurant for sale with the desire to turn it into an Indian Restaurant with his son as the main chef. The problem is the location is right across from a well-respected French restaurant in the village.

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The movie focuses in on the humorous tension between the father and the owner of the French restaurant, whose husband died so she is a widow who pours all her energies into the French restaurant. The Indian son who learned all he knew of Indian cooking from his mother becomes intrigued by French cooking and desires to expand his talent and knowledge by working at the French Restaurant under the culinary tutelage of the French owner. That increases the tension between his father and the owner of the restaurant.

That is all I will say of the story as this is not a review and my daughter says I always say too much about movies ruining them for others. Kind of like the Geico Maxwell the pig clip, (if you have not seen it click on the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64cBC3IgcCw ), that appears in movie theaters during the ads and spoils the movie endings for those standing before him.

The angle I want to view the movie from is from the career angle. Probably since much of my work over the years has been helping college students on career issues this stood out to me. We see in the movie Hassan who is the Father’s son and chief cook at the Indian restaurant has a natural talent for cooking that was cultivated by his mother in the original restaurant. In considering careers we need to consider and understand the natural talents that we have. Explore your skills and how they relate to the work you do. Some people are stuck in jobs where there is a talent and skill mismatch. Explore on the internet jobs that relate to your skills you are strong in. There are many free skill assessments on the internet.

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Hassan’s attitude about his culinary work captured my attention. He carried a humility about his skills. This allowed for his curiosity and desire to improve to flourish. He could have settled on making his father’s Indian restaurant become more popular in the small town and vicinity. That would have given him a good life most likely. Yet his inner desire to learn and grow as a chef allows him to take the risk to join the team at the French restaurant. In doing so he helps that restaurant improve as well as continues the growth of his culinary skills. In our careers we need that same curiosity to keep growing and learning. This attitude aids in helping conquer boredom in the workplace as well as opening up new opportunities. Our attitude shapes the passion in our work also and you definitely see career passion alive in this movie.

The movie as mentioned earlier brings out happenstance events or as I mentioned last week, life chaos, that affected how Hassan’s opportunities in the town advanced. If the brakes had not failed they would have not found themselves living in that town. If the racial prejudice event had not occurred a major turning point in the French restaurant owner’s life may not have happened. Granted this movie is fiction but the chaotic events are very true to life and fit well with what Dr. Jim Bright brings out in his chaos theory of careers. How do we make the most of the chaos events that come into our lives?

Then one final thought from the movie comes from the final segment of the movie. In keeping with my promise not to spoil the movie I will only mention that a change occurs for Hassan that allows him to reflect over his life values. In the end you see him connecting his career and other aspects of his life to his personal values. In our career journeys to have the most fulfillment in our work time we need to explore our values and see how they connect with the work we are doing. How do those values balance the various aspects of our lives such as work, family. and leisure? For most of us our career journey is longer than 100 feet. It is well worth exploring how well our career journey has gone and how work adds to our life experience.

Reflection: If you have not seen it yet, go see The Hundred Foot Journey as well as read the book. Reflect over your natural talents and skills – how do you use them in your workplace? How curious are you about your career area? Are there areas where you can grow and continue to learn? How do your personal values relate to how you do your work?

Education As A Priority For Living More Than OK

From Foter

As the Summer comes to a close I see activity at the local elementary schools as teachers return to prepare their rooms for the new school year. My belief is that education is important in developing minds to face the challenges of life with critical and creative thinking. Education provides the foundation to prepare young people to explore possibilities for their futures and create new possibilities that are not apparent at present time. I am thankful I had a mother although not well educated herself, due to the time period she grew up in, emphasized education to me. Also I am thankful for the many fine teachers I had who inspired a love for learning. In the past and in my book, I have mentioned my third grade teacher, Mrs. Verna Clifford, who believed in her students and focused on the basics of reading, writing and math to set a foundation for future learning.

Thinking of education, caused me to have interest in a new Glenn Beck book written with Kyle Olson. The title is Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education. No matter what side of the argument one is on it is an important book to think through the problems with education. I went through public schools in Barberton, Ohio and appreciated the education I received. Did I have perfect teachers all the time? – no. I would have, if they could have used cloning technology to create more Verna Cliffords. But the majority of teachers were passionate about teaching. That is one problem I have with those who bash public education (which Glenn is not doing). People pick out the bad examples of teachers and paint all public school teachers with the same brush. It would be like going to a grocery store and finding one apple with a bruise on it and asking the grocer to throw away all the apples.

In Conform the beginning starts out with the well documented problem that American students fall behind similar students in many other countries. They point out that studies show that American students “rank 31st in math, 24th in science and 21st in reading globally” (page 7). If we want to continue to be a global leader our education of our youth obviously needs to improve. It is problems like this that Common Core is trying to address. Glenn and Kyle go through the book making sounds arguments that maybe Common Core is not the best solution.

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I am going to discuss just a couple of concerns that I felt strong about in the book. Again I suggest if you are concerned about education in our country to pick up a copy to read and think through the issue yourself. One problem I have strong feelings about is that the Common Core system encourages “cookie cutter” education and teaching to the test. An example of this can be found on page 87, “If the English portion of a Common Core related test asks one question about Shakespeare but four questions about the Environmental Protection Agency document, it won’t be long before schools tailor their curriculum to include the EPA document. As McClusky puts it “Year after year, questions become curricula”. I have spoken with teachers who lament the teaching to the test dampens their love for teaching. More importantly, many College students have told me that it is all the required testing that turned them off to education. How can we create a love for learning to build creative and critical thinkers in such an environment?

Speaking of the tests, when I was working on my Masters in Counseling many classmates were school teachers. You could hear the anxiety in their voices when they mentioned that the TAKS or TASS tests were coming. You would think it was an invading army with the anxious voices. They would mention how anxious the students were. I would think in my mind “Of course! If the teachers and counselors are this scared of the tests that is going to rub off on the students”. In my discussion with college students many have shared how schools would focus for a couple of weeks in all the classes on the TAKS English for example before the test. How ridiculous! I am not against comparative tests. I think back to my elementary and junior high days. We had national tests but they were never hyped up like they do today. You just took the test and received the results. The emphasis on teaching was not particular national test questions. Instead of looking for new ideas for teaching someone should look back at what worked right in the past before test scores started to slip across the country.

Then a point that raised my blood pressure was on page 112 and 113 where they discuss all the data that is being collected on students to predict possible failure in college and to force career directions on students. I have seen this in action. One institution I worked at used an assessment tool for all incoming freshmen. In our college success course we would go over the results. One day one student came to my office and said the computer report said he would drop out. I asked him if he wanted to finish his Associate in Air Conditioning & Heating. He said yes. So I told him, “who is right – the computer report or you?” He went on to finish his degree. Another student, a girl, was doing poorly in her classes. She told me she did not like the health care program she was in. She actually wanted graphic design but a school counselor in high school told her that her career test showed she should do nursing, (which she did not like but did as the counselor told her to). Glenn is so right on this point. I am a believer in that career tests can be a useful tool but they are not exact predictors as the talking head experts like to make them out to be. Most of these “Experts” who say that students need to know at age 17 what they will do for the rest of their lives, did not know themselves at that age where they would be at age 50. That is one reason I promote to my college students to explore thinking about Dr. Jim Bright’s concepts of the Chaos Theory of Careers. We should be building up students critical thinking abilities so they can shape their own futures instead of following cookie cutter sameness in what computer programs tell them what to do.

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These are just a couple of points that tapped into my thinking on education. Glenn and Kyle were very good at presenting arguments about the problems with Common Core. I do wish they would have spent more time presenting solutions. That is weak point in the book. Parents need to be more involved in promoting the importance of education in the lives of their children. If we keep saying they are the future of the country what are we doing for them to help them prepare for progressing in that future?

Reflection: What was your education experience like growing up? Who were your favorite teachers and what made them your favorite? What did you learn from them?