The Big Education Lie

Parents fall for this lie every time. 

Society convinces every new generation of families that education is the #1 solution for all of their kids problems and so they set their priorities accordingly. They believe the overwhelming key for their kids to have a great, stable and successful life is education!

Education, Education, Education! Above all things get educated and you’ll be set for life. 

Education is the key. Go to school, do your homework, get your diploma and the job is done preparing you for life as a responsible, productive, independent adult.

The truth is…NO IT'S NOT!

Millions of highly educated people, young and old, have plunged their lives into disaster by poor choices. 

You want examples? They are everywhere in all countries and all walks is life and more new ones show up on the news everyday. 

Bernie Madoff ripping off thousands of trusting investors- even his own relatives, Tiger Woods at the peak of fulfillment in live throwing it all away for a little extra forbidden pleasure, brokers on Wall Street snorting cocaine, Enron executives building a global company on total fraud and deceit, T.V. evangelists caught with prostitutes, female high school teachers running off with 13 year old boys…do I really need to add anymore?

It’s not what you know, it’s what you do with it. The source of all these disasters is lack of values and character. These must be taught. 

No two year old is going to have their first words be “yes ma’am” or “yes sir.” When they hit the Earth and gain consciousness, sight, mobility, and the ability to speak, they go right to work trying to organize the world for their benefit. 

The first word many babies say—announcing their presence in the world is…”NO!” They are totally self-centered, and why shouldn’t they be? They’re not independent yet and need others to take care of them.

It’s all about them. That changes when you go out into the real world. Now you’re supposed to be independent and take care of yourself. Jobs, marriage, and having children demand that you focus on doing things for others. Without character and values you can’t resist the temptations to take short cuts for extra pleasure, extra money, and extra glory. And you’ll do it even if it involves breaking laws, breaking confidences, or destroying relationships.

Kids need to be taught right from wrong. Kids need be taught respect for authority. They need to be taught respect for others. This isn’t going to happen by itself, and if it isn’t done it won’t matter what education they have. They will have knowledge but they won’t have a foundation. You can build a building but without a firm foundation, it’s just a matter of time before it crumbles.

Make sure your kids get a great education but also make sure they have a firm foundation of values and character to stand on as they go through life.  

Question: How about you? Do you know any very smart people who have done some very dumb things?

Winner's Book Club Selection of the Week: Called to Coach

What are his Winner Credentials?

Having coached young men in seven decades, Bobby Bowden is the second-winningest coach in major college football history. Bowden guided Florida State University to more than three hundred victories, two national championships, twelve Atlantic Coast Conference titles, finishing in the top five in the country in fourteen straight seasons, and he also led the Seminoles to Bowl Games in twenty-eight consecutive seasons during his thirty-four-year tenure. The patriarch of college football’s most famous coaching family, Bowden remains heavily involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, annually awarding The National Bobby Bowden Award to a student-athlete for achievement on and off the field, including his conduct as a faith model in the community. Bowden was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Reviews

This book comes highly recommended by Nick Saban, Head Coach, University of Alabama; Mack Brown, Head Coach, University of Texas; Lou Holtz, Former Coach, College Football Analyst, ESPN; President Jimmy Carter; Kenny Chesney and many others. Whether or not you're a fan of Florida State—or even football—you'll enjoy this book about faith, family values and a truly inspirational leader. >>Read more reviews at Amazon>>

Laziness is Not Your Answer

Do you dream of a day when you don’t have to work?

When you aren’t so busy, always on the run? Wouldn’t that be great? Just relax and rest and do what you want. Don’t you wish you didn’t have to work for a living?

Well here’s the bad news…a life of goofing off isn’t the answer.

A little rest and relaxation is fine, but too much can really suck the joy and fulfillment out of life. When you aren’t working you have lots of free time and you aren’t preoccupied with important things, you find your mind wandering to the trivial. Instead of making something positive happen that can improve your life, you wind up just wasting time. Time slips away.

Too much rest and soon you begin to rust.

Tasks that you once completed in minutes now take hours. The world is filled with imperfections and annoyances that you hardly noticed before now drive you nuts.

Without accomplishment there’s little joy. Without challenges, life becomes stale. For you to be energized you’ve got to be engaged. Those without work have no purpose.

Don’t dread your work, be thankful for it.

"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man." —Benjamin Franklin

Fireplaces & Horses—It Depends On How You Look At Them

I was excited to show my granddad my new big fireplace in our new dream home.

It was beautiful! Brick façade, great big mantle—it was spectacular! Granddad was not impressed, at all.

He said that since he had spent all his life cutting firewood for fireplaces, actually there were six in the house my mother grew up in, that he looked at them differently. They represented hard times, a lot of work and a way of life he had put into his past. His idea of a great house was one that didn’t have ANY fireplaces. That meant there was a great heating unit in there and he could stay as warm as he wanted by simply adjusting the thermostat.

Now to him, THAT was spectacular!

Now all that didn’t change my attitude about my fireplace but it did make me realize there was another way to look at it. It all depended on where you were coming from.

I ran into the same reaction when the subject of horses came up in a conversation with my friend Brian Mehmen. He told me he grew up on a horse farm and that his dad still lived on one. Warming to the subject, I told him I loved horses, had a horse farm myself and had that our family had been involved in all kinds of horse activities for years from fox hunting to eventing to competing on the Hunter Jumper show circuit.

However, it didn’t take long to notice Brian was not as gung ho about the subject as I was. It turned out he grew up having to muck out stalls. His entire experience was taking care of them, every day having to clean up after them, feed and water them. He was not on the fun side of the horse. I never got involved in that part.

Just like babies, horses are a lot more fun when you aren’t required to clean up the poop. When Brian thought of horses, that’s the thought he had in his mind. No wonder he wasn’t thrilled. That memory would never leave him. In his world, a great life would be totally without any horses involved.

Perspective. It changes how you look at things.

When you are on the enjoyment side, you love it!
When you are stuck on the work side you hate it.
When you do something because you want to, you love it.
When you do something because you have to, you resent it.

It's worth remembering, just because you love something, it doesn’t mean everybody will.