Secret Love Letters, part I

A LOVE NOTE

If you’re doing your best work.

If you touched one person.

 If it makes a difference to a handful.

If your values are front and centre.

If you’re launching ideas from the heart.

If you understand why you’re doing this.

If it doesn’t have to matter to everyone.

If you care.

If you can see the world as it isn’t.

If passion is your master.

 If possibility feeds your soul.

If meaning is your currency.

If you embrace failure alongside success.

If permission doesn’t get in your way.

If people are your inspiration.

If you could change one thing.

If you know the questions to ask and aren’t afraid of the answers.

If you could ask for anything today, would ‘this’ be it?

If not this, then what?

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If I asked you to rate this advice for those approaching the process of  filling out applications to highly selective universities and colleges on a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being the best, how would you rate it?

 Go ahead, write it down.

I think it is powerful. Moving. and yes, inspirational. And yet.

And yet it has nothing to do with admission. I have pulled these words from the opening of a book I would recommend to a different audience:  Make Your Idea Matter by Bernadette Jiwa. The book is actually for entrepreneurs and here is the rest of the opening phrase of the book:  A Love Letter to Entrepreneurs. 

Do you feel mislead or cheated?

 

The ability to create connections across disciplines and modes of thinking transcends markets and minds. But do you really need to think of admission as a marketing scheme? Yes, if you want to be at the cutting edge. Not just of business, but of education.

Another quote:

“Sometimes I get a little frustrated when people say, Oh, they’re taking a Silicon Valley approach h to education. I’m like, Yes, that’s exactly right. Silicon Valley is where the most creativity, the most open-ended, the most pushing the envelope is happening,” he says. “And Silicon Valley recognizes more than any part of the world that we’re having trouble finding students capable of doing that.” —Jeffrey R. 

The book, Rebooting the Academy by Tim McCormick, Jeffrey Young sets forth a plan for everyone to think of education in an entirely new way..  As with those at the high end, like Bill Gates and Salman Khan, these two authors recognize the need for innovative education and innovative students. They and the students they inspire and mentor are the future hope for not just the US but also the world.

These smart business people know that education needs to change and change quickly. The revolution has actually started but for students looking to go off to a traditional college the implications of this have not yet been felt. 

If not now, when?

Soon. Stay tuned.

film still of Betty Davis taken from "Blue Velvet"