summer i guess when it was a college so would you go to school so i grew up in canada and hundred years ago and so i went to teachers college in canada and i got a teaching certificate it's very different system and you know i taught for a couple of years and then i got my green card to come here and i was a little disillusioned with teaching i love the children but i didn't like the system and so i decided i wanted to explore other things and you know i did start to take courses and going to college and doing you know what you needed to do in order to so as a an immigrant so to speak you know i had to take american history i had to take sat in the other thing and i just lost interest in that i think i wanted more life experience interesting so so tell us how did you get from college to life success coach today  it's a long and circuitous journey so you know i when i came here i got a lot of different jobs and i started out actually when i first got my green card my sister was here and she was working at a resort in the poconos so i got a job working there for six months and then i met my future ex husband and then i you know came back to new york and did a bunch of fun things and  got married and ended up i was always kind of i love people i love teaching i didn't like teaching inside of a system and that kind of really i discovered was my real calling but i also love learning so in that journey i became really interested in personal development and eastern philosophy and ended up after my husband at the time finished his p we were both like exhausted and i really wanted to go to india so we went to i was looking for wisdom teachers so we went to india it was again a long journey it was supposed to be for four months and we came back two and a half years later  so we had lived in that part of the world i lived at a yoga center for almost a year but it was an extraordinary extraordinary journey and then i came back and we had children and i became a stay at home mom and then i got divorced and after all you know it was when the children were yeah and i had to reinvent myself so my first job i worked in the jail i had to take anything you know it's so interesting and the stuff it is a mother's invention so i did a lot of things but at some point and it was always in personal development training it just was my passion and  somebody i worked with at a company that was in the home fashions industry can saying to me i didn't even know there was such a thing as a life coach saying to me by nature her life coach look at train so i can hire you and she said it often enough meanwhile i had become a massage therapist again it's all about people and connecting and so she said it often enough that i thought let me check this out and then some of my personal development trainings i had been coached but not like by an official life coach and i did check it out fell in love with it got trained have continued training ever since it's been fifteen years sixteen years and i have my own business i you know work with individuals i work with groups i teach i design workshops and you know the best thing about coaching is you can do it in person or by phone one yeah so and interestingly enough she became my first client and she weaves back into my life as a client back and forth she goes out into her next phase she sends me clients all the time and now she's back to being my client again after sixteen years there has been so let's bring it back into college what is the transition from high school to college for a lot of the students well what would you say they have the they're going to be going through you know it's interesting because i was looking at it and i as a city before you know when i went away to college if i look back on it the word that describes my experience was the wilderness i just kind of felt like a stranger in a strange land alice in wonderland it's like i had no game plan i kind of just went and that was a huge lesson and the thing is you know i was thinking kids going to college to think seventeen eighteen years old they've only been on the planet for eighteen years they've only been walking for fifteen years they've only learned to read for twelve or whatever it is and now they have to make these major life decisions  what i'm going to study what's my major what am i going to do the rest of my life huge financial investment and the parents are involved too so the idea is we're not changing that anytime soon it's just the way it is but i think there's a way to make that work so that they don't end up feeling as challenged i think what happens when i've talked to kids in college is they feel bad a lot of the time they get there and they're confronted by it's different they have to manage a lot they have to manage nobody's micromanaging that nobody's checking on their homework the way it used to be you know and they haven't learned a lot of skills and what happens is they start feeling they start doubting themselves did i make the right choice oh my god all this money and then they feel bad about feeling bad oh my god all these other people look like they're doing it right and i'm such a loser and you know it's like really confronting and so one of the things i always tell them is you know transition we go through transitions all the time you know just starting with all the transitions of growing up but then student to college college to job job to marriage to children to potentially divorce to you know starting your own business retiring moving life is a series of transitions and most of us kind of just take what's coming at us and deal with it and sometimes it works but there's a way to prepare like an olympic athlete you know in order to play better and win bigger you have to be practicing for years sure so for me i think practice being a college student like what's going to be required of me and i think this is where the parents have to become engaged so and again i just keep telling students please please please don't feel bad about your doubts it's called transition you know you didn't learn to ride a bike the first time you got on you fell you hurt yourself and don't judge yourself don't judge do your uncertainty and we have to be willing to feel uncomfortable and there's a lot of discomfort and then there's the whole idea of you know am i popular am i for i got the right friends and all of that i was in a training once where they talked about people stood up and said you know i was kind of what i would call in group i never kind of figured out how to get into the a group you know the the winner is the and then the people who were perceived as in the a group said i never felt like i was in the a group so it's all the internal experience and so if you're going to spend a lot of energy trying to fit into the a group i want to tell you the a group doesn't feel like they're the a group you know so it's really looking at how do i succeed how do i do well how do i have fun and one of the things and i'm going to jump around a lot because there are some studies done statistics i interviewed a psychologist who wrote a book about teenage development in girls but it applies to boys as well and she said that statistically if families have family dinner at least a couple of times a week those students even if the family dinner isn't always pleasant you know it's kind of this sense of belonging to a tribe and having an identity inside of that they do better in school in college and in life really yeah family dinner so that's one of the simple things like has a family dinner have no tech available at family dinner spend some time together and again we keep thinking it has to be ultra law no arguing no no it's just being part of the family tribe community right yeah so that's one of the things the other thing that and there was some other statistic and i'll get to it because it slipped through but another thing is by practicing being a college student so it's ahead of time starting middle school like what are the skills one of the biggest challenges call it college students have as time management room and there are skills to that it's a learn about skills started in middle school you know scheduling breaking projects down into bite sized pieces and again it's there's a learning curve but it's like one of the keys to the kingdom because as you start to schedule you develop mastery over that and then you have time to fit in the fire and then you know again there are all kinds of time management systems do you see do you see a difference being that you are from can do you see  difference from the schooling that you have in canada compared to your kids schooling here in the united states yes but it was so long ago and it was also i was in this small isolated mining town my school wasn't like a typical maybe in montreal the kind of schools they had my school was strictly academics there were no sports no art no music it was academics that was it and you were carrying that load it wasn't like it was never a semester it was the year so at the same time i was i had english oral french written french algebra trigonometry geometry physics history english lit all year year after year wow for the four years there you go it things got added on like the algebra was introduced maybe in ninth grade and then trigonometry was in tenth or whatever but us home with books like this every night so when your kids went to american schools here what do you see that would if it looked a lot less structured if it there were i think art and and athletics are really important and music you know and i think those are really vital so i really appreciated that it just looked easier but i don't think they found it easy you know it's all depends on perspective right there so so when they went to school it was what kind of transition did you see your kids go through when they were in college did you see any type of transition you know i kind of floundered at that time i was just going through the divorce and reinventing myself and kind of to my ex took over the application process which was entirely great you know so it wasn't like we were or you do it was kind of ok at this stage you do that so i wasn't really involved in that and then when they would come home you know i would talk to them but and i even talk to them now and we have written like really close relationships but i think they were a it's a very easy one for a lot yes and again you know it's like one of the things they talk about when you if you're going away to college like friendships and again statistically they've proven that the kids who are happiest it's not the most friends it's just find one friend and again it's a learning experience if this friend doesn't work out you don't have to blame them or you move on you know find someone that you resonate with join groups that you know use on your resources join groups that might have some interest for you reach for your resources find your favorite coffee shop that nurtures you set up your living space so that your sanctuary you and again one of the things i think that it's important and again parents can be involved in this whole state you know teaching them or taking courses and i teach time management that they're involved in like enrolling their child in the idea that this you're practicing for the olympics your college is your olympics so you just like any athlete you don't just show up on the field if you want to succeed and have a great college experience you practice now so the other thing is kids don't know themselves that well you know so it's kind of in that essay they start to question and whatever but adults don't know themselves that well but you know it's like take gone line it takes them values assessment courses like what are my top values what am i going to do when i'm invited to a party and there are drugs start having those conversations even if it's only with your friends talk to people who have graduated and successfully come out of it ask them what were your challenges how did you deal with it what should i know what would you have a wish to know you know i interviewed this psychologist stand up comedian  ballasts and when he went to college his brother had had some issues with drugs his brother was older and you know when you're watching an older brother with drugs you can you have two choices copy them or go not me and he saw you know what it did to the family and whatever and his choice was not me so when he went to college he decided that he was going to start and he said to his roommate you know i'm going to start kind of a group of students where we're going to be committed to having fun but without any substance and his roommate said yeah good luck with that well the fact is he now travels around the country he's gotten grants because it's very successful not everyone wants to do that lifestyle but they don't see alternatives so if you don't see the alternative you can start to ask other students hey do you do you do you work with any college kids or high school kids right now going to college not as a group not you know i have individual clients and if you did what are some of the things that you you would you would tell them to do when going to college yeah well part of it is in the preparation you know even if you're going to college next year start preparing and thinking like a college student what are my challenges who can i talk to reach out for  resources you know again how do i plan it so you know as a coach i you know i say live by design not by default so what that what that is is you have to live with intention so what that might look like and again the parents have to get involved and the parents are short circuiting too because i didn't feel like i had all the skills and so again they can start practicing being the parents of kids and college and ahead of time hey let's talk about this and then again stay open because if your kid says well you know i don't know what i'm going to do it's like not you don't know you know again ok so what is it that you don't know what would you want what kind of advice would you seek you know even as i interviewed the woman from the new jersey coalition pat patricia teven heart new jersey coalition against sexual assault and the whole thing about sexual assault on college campuses and so you don't want them thinking about that as my mother used to say watch out there are bad people out there who have ok what is watch out mean what is it i would be doing when i'm watching out you know yeah and so it's really getting down to the nitty gritty you could even start groups where you sit and discuss possibilities like what point do you do you know who would you reach to support for and it's really again designing ahead of time what's the kind of college experience i want at the end of my four years what do i want to be saying so do you tell them to write down some goals that they want to achieve in those four years it's more  like writing the essay about what i want my college experience to be so here i am graduation and i'm writing about my four years i did well i was so happy that i reached out for all the resources that were available i was so happy i worked with a coach getting me ready i'm missile happy my parents insisted that i learn to tie manage i learn to schedule i actually had fun and i managed to stay away from the groups that were going to you know kind of maybe lead me astray you know we go to college if you don't have a plan somebody has a plan for you and it's like many shiny objects and which ones do you reach for it comes from deciding ahead of time it's those whatever you put into schools where you're going to get out of school yeah but again it's really about thinking ahead of time getting in the game ahead of time so  get involved in school activities in different types of sports or clubs or things like that the in college yeah yeah but not as again it's it's really a time where you can start to blossom so you don't want to do the things that you should do the club that you should belong to or you know i'm less of course it's going to help you academically but it's really what resonates for me it  wow that's what i want to sustain your own identity sustain create the support system that supports you in blossoming unfolding being more of who you are so stiff a call for sixty sevent now it's not like you know you get all the nice gym clothes and you have all the equipment but you haven't got the muscles yet so practice it now even in little snippets go online do research take a course there are tons of resources out there again work with a coach who's going to coach you to success even with the parents and so time management is one of the biggest challenges they have feeling lonely feeling bad about feeling bad is another one and again you kind of develop this awareness that feeling that is part of life it doesn't mean you failed it doesn't mean you made the wrong choice it means that you know when you were learning how to walk you fell a lot and you hurt yourself a lot but here you are wanting you know so don't give up just because you feel bad feeling that isn't doesn't mean you've made a mistake be willing to feel bad and then take a look and say ok so what do i want right now what's missing so i'm missing a sense of belonging what are some of the things that kids might be thinking about at that age sixteen seventeen eighteen year old they're not thinking a lot about a lot that is that's the whole thing i think that's our job as parents and where you know again we haven't been trained for the most part i wasn't and so it's really you know it's sixteen i mean all your attention is going like oh you know and just so if for to expect them to kind of you know reach for it themselves is a little on realistic and then all of a sudden they find themselves in college and they're not prepared on the fights short circuit so i think really it's up to the parents and even the schools and you know just hearing something that that resonates and says wow i can actually practice to win so does it get better when they're in college to go out of college and get a job or that you see the same thing over and over again i think that that's useful because again it puts you in a different environment and that's what i say explore a lot of different environments don't look at say oh that's the a group that's where i need to be and i'm not going to ignore all these other possibilities that may be quite wonderful but it's not the a group it's really learning to be a stand for yourself and that's hard you know even adults throw themselves under the bus all the time you know to it rather than be a stand for themselves so again that's where the family has to come in that's where parents have to say you know let's talk about this let's prepare you because although you may think it's going to be kind of oh just more of the same but a little different it's not going to get better with age it depends on the person how you've gotten better with age i hope  what was the thing that you would have liked somebody to have told you when you were going to college yeah i think i think it was definitely something where if someone was there to tell me well what college is going to be about  because it really is time management it's figuring out on the down time that you have you know you go from high school where you have so many things going on and then you go to college and you have a lot of free time on your hands and that's that's were you know a lot of a lot of kids find where they go wrong as they have so much free time they don't know what to do yeah yeah and that's why again routines are important you know you have routines in your family life you want establish routines that are going to support you so the routine of maybe going to the library the routine of going to the coffee shop the routine of joining a club that maybe appeals to you and if it doesn't leave there lots of other ones you know but there's no fixed way don't buy into you should belong here and you should belong there again unless it's going to academically support you yeah that's that's the key in college is is just that it's just finding a way and always being positive with yourself i mean you you profess that a lot yes is staying positive and being gentle with yourself you know and the fact is you're not always going to be positive just recognise that there's a positive way to look at that it's ok it's ok to feel bad it's ok to feel lonely it's ok to feel challenged it's called being human being and we keep pushing it away pushing it away and then we never deal with it and then we think oh i'm doing it that their sons or daughters sixteen seventeen eighteen years old they're transitioning from high school or college what advice you want to give those but i would give them the same advice as the kids don't feel bad about feeling bad don't feel bad about oh i didn't teach them everything i should  my god it's too late or whatever it is you know as parents we are as human beings we're evolving so it's like start now where ever it is start looking at and working with your kids teaching talking to them about transition talking to them about you know what are your fears but also start you know having them look out for again most adults are good time management people you know so again it's start practicing have the college student practice being a college student and you start practicing being the parent of a college student well thank you very much because they took you for having me thank you so you've been watching the secrets of college planning on