high school latin for six years during that time he realized that there was a big gap in what was being taught and what was useful in life created the academic life coaching program a program that gives teenagers leadership and communication skills as  intelligence and personal fluency to fill that gap over the past seven years he's worked with hundreds of students in his program and i strain dozens of coaches around the world from boston to nigeria and l a to dubai to become academic life coaches he's been a about what i think the high school students should learn and to learn to be proofed for the future because the bottom line is now in our society with the technology that we have here that a lot of opportunities available and idea is that you know in order experience is great high school there's still a lot of things i wish i had learned from a given point of view that i think a classroom is really hard for in a classroom setting to learn you know a lot of it has to do with the you know knowing your own core motivation style most people are so freaked out about the college application and they really just don't need to be like there's you know there's some simple things you can do to really alleviate that stress and make it happen so you're an academic life  that yeah life coaching especially academic life coach kind of an odd that's kind of an odd thing to do you know essentially what what i did is i was so as a latin teacher and  was you know i graduated from peter sound chip i went to brown graduated from brown two thousand and three i went directly into teaching latin wheeler school in lodi island i loved it but the same time i realize there's a big gap in what's being taught in high school what's useful in life and that's why i found life coaching and other stuff it's great you know the name was really cheesy but you know the concepts and everything was really fantastic and so i basically just put it together and i just started trying stuff out with high school students and seeing what worked what didn't i train as a life coach just certified and i thought this is something i really wanted to give the students what came out of that was about thirty two concepts i spread them out over ten weeks session  what was it like going there likely did a difficult experience like that appears is pretty good i mean i think peter's in some ways is you know it's a has pittsburgh nearby has a city so it's you know it's it's at least you have some civic center around peter sound chip but i mean it was it was a jump that means the academics have brown were were pretty intense and you know piers did a pretty good job of preparing for that but it's still in any college  program putting the future proof together that students who learn these core skills are unemotional teligent leadership naturally did better on the college application so the big thing to do is if you're junior use of a summer left to really follow a passion do what you want to do something outside the bounds of a normal like high school career and so that you love to do and then go with that and go in that direction i think that's that would be the advice like for example work if she had early action she got into mit early action and they're really impressed with her ability to do something like that you know to to create something outside you know normal another student working with he he's interested in  admissions officers want to say they're saying my go out on a limb on like something new that they can like look at and they'll be like oh ok i'm interested in this totally something like that yeah so for your book would you recommend kids like my age to read it to really know like a college like aspect going into college yeah i mean it's not again it's not like stereotypical college consulting book where i'm not like ok this is how you write your essay this is who you asked for your last recommendation you know this how you put your like you sheet together it's more like you know it's more like looking at ok let's understand your core motivation let's understand you know who you are what you're about and then from there let's apply that to the essay so it's a more again approach to a process that sometimes can be really a challenge so far so you're saying like there are lots of illustrations and i too i know i did i was looking at their book and like one thing that i notice is goals was a really important part in like going into colleges like some what i think goals are overrated and i he said man yeah like the goals thing like you know like any time a teacher's like gay we're going to talk about your goals it's usually every student's like yeah ok this is going to be like silly right i think it's i think the words are used i mean puts too much stress on students because again since thinking about like oh man these are all the things we have to do now this is i think essentially goals become like an odd to do list you know it becomes something that you're you're trying to  i don't know for some reason you're trying to you know these are all the things i wish i could kind of took a wish list you know and that's a there's a difference between like goals and a wish list and i think goals have become that sort of wish list as students do and then  think what's really helpful is if it becomes more like a well formed outcome where you have a goal with say getting all a's but then you're looking ok so what could i completely control in that process i can completely control making sure that i turn on my homework on time that i study for tests like for a certain amount of time you do certain things and i think that's what that that's what it's for me it's are like looking at well from the outcome of the system it's way more important than creating a goal which last chris like not having goals but like and like like a plan there again i don't plan yeah i mean i think having a plan is way more important than having a goal so like separate all you're saying like a whole like a life plan type novel it's more like a what your ok so the same thing a college application you know so i have a goal to get into a great school that's great that school is going to cause a ton of stress yet so it's way more that into smaller ok so i found you these two weeks like this two weeks i'm only going to focus on my application and i'm just going to sit down for my computer and write my application for like two hours just like i was so tired for two hours brainstorm whatever just create something in two hours and that's it like you've accomplished you know you've done what you can do to best support you reach that goal yes all right well we're going to take a quick commercial break i'm only right back mind i'm someone who cares about smiles and i live and work in your community i'm the one who puts a smile on your child's face i'm an orthodontist a dental specialist who corrects crooked teeth misaligned jaws and dental irregularities i received an additional two to three years of specialized education beyond high school for my i'm the maker of healthy beautiful smile for more information visit braces dot org ideas out there and it's it's in there stuck in the stuck in the book and you can't it's like well who's going to read it you know and what will they think about it is so the process itself i took two years to put it together and as i was writing it i'd always get a new idea and you know i was doing research and writing at the same time like oh it's so we constantly just want to keep adding to the book and adding another chapter adding another essay and then to a certain point time is going to say you know what this book is done ok has to be finish it sort finish this line whatever new stuff concert different book and i really try to make it a complete thing and as it got closer to completion and my illustrator lauren she was fantastic and he also tried to put every chapter has an illustration that gives a visual representation of the main idea of that of that chapter that say so these are some forty i think there's forty two or forty five different illustrations in the book and idea was that you would read it and then flip through and i mean i designed it really for high school students to read it and to get something from it and then pass on to a friend like you know it's the kind of the reader quickly get a lot a lot of valuable information from it and pass it on  but writing it so it was like a little bit like a dream of writing something and then coming back i mean i guess is something that i've created so you wanted to do and yes and i would actually let you see it i thought it would be in some ways yes and a lot harder in others but i think it's you know if any of you students or people you know people out there want to write a book do it it's really fun you know it's when you see it and hold it i remember the first time i took out the proof copy and they sent me the mail you know saying this big box and this little book in a big with coming to the high school and then they now have like a graduation project here so what would you give advice but you know i think there's so much emphasis on organization you know and using a planner i was giving a workshop once and this is a school and i was teaching southern oregon and it was really it was really apparent that you know students who use their plan or get the grades that they want to get and students who don't use a planner don't get the grades that they want to get so i guess if i said be as as much as i can hear people say use your plan or use your plan or my plan or i have it all written out  planner talk to your teachers and understand your learning style so that you can study for tests and if the show why they do those two things are going to get us all right and then this is like a not like a personal question but for then the high school do you think it was do you think it's a good idea to have like many career options in mind like do you think you should be set on one or like your mind can change of course yeah of course your mind can change i mean you're you're only like sixteen seventeen you know trying to figure out hey if you want to be like i'll be like your student you know go to peter's township football games and do like a little like two minute clip throw it up on you tube and then tell the radio station hey sportscaster person if you want me if you have a little clip for you and they just send you know just just you know promote that and a lot of people want to help high school students because they're like oh this isn't actually you are going to be the next generation and so people are more than willing to help out high school students so i think that's  you will find people you will find mentors who will go way out of the way to help you and it will be so valuable to you not just in your learning about what what it is like communications about being television but also  the yeah she went through it yeah and she can make connections with these people that's the deal i mean i think you have going to stand there's such a power in networking and reaching out to professionals and really you know building those relationships that the yeah forty forty families right now and then the other thing i do is i train other coaches to do what i do so there's a coach in pittsburgh who i'm training right now to do i do jason bokhari and he's he's fantastic and you know from asia yet but i'm sure that it will spread there like yes so that's a big that will be a big part of some training people to be certified life coaches especially life coaches who want to work specifically with teenagers in the academic life coaching program so that's that's a huge part of what i do and then the third part of what i do is really what i call a product development or we'll just restrike research you know i'm really curious about what skills specifically help teenagers you know what what is it that teenagers in this  think this is my audience and this is the devoted basically my professional life to figuring out what skills and knowledge to teenagers need and trying to find solutions that that that support teens so that's that's a huge part what's what's in the works with that couple huge opportunities opening up you know just to work with institutions and to do this kind of work in let's say a public school like to come into a school like peter's with a team of ten coaches and put every student through the l c program in a matter of a year yes things like that are going to crop up so that would be that's right the three to five year plan and and it's you know i've already been asked by a couple of school districts not in pennsylvania yet but a couple of school districts mostly in california that are interested in putting on you know this kind of program there and they still have funding for these kind of things and so that's that's where the plan and so it this point you know it's looking like what i'm really after is sort of and to augment education with this kind of one on one work so that students can take full advantage of the education the classroom time that they have with their teachers that's what i'm really after you know it's so setting up a nonprofit organization to you know create a standard you know for the l c program and a lot of other things so yeah that's that's where my master plan you