What We Should Have Learned in School But Never Did

Srinivas Rao

For the last ten years, I’ve read 100s of books and interviewed more than 700 people. We have an ongoing joke at The Unmistakable Creative. My guest choices are usually a reflection of some problem in my life. I guess you could say I’ve been trying to figure out what we should have learned in school but never did.

Fortunately for me, it seems like most of our listeners are interested in those same issues. There’s one big lesson I’ve taken away from my guests on the Unmistakable Creative: There are many life skills that we should have learned in school but never did. I would have taken a different approach in college, my career, and my relationships knowing what I do at age 41.

Our current model of education is outdated and ineffective. We live in a world where access to knowledge and information is ubiquitous. The value of memorizing information to regurgitate it, pass tests and get good grades has declined. According to Chase Jarvis, we’re moving towards a portfolio model of careers. Kids growing up today will probably have five jobs at the same time. But the current model of education is preparing them for a future that doesn’t exist.

If the purpose of education is to turn us into fully functional, happy and healthy adults, it is failing on numerous levels.

What We Should Have Learned in School

When I started writing this article, I asked my community on Facebook what they thought you should have learned in school but never did. Three themes kept emerging.

1. Managing Your Psychology

These seasons of suffering have a way of exposing the deepest parts of ourselves and reminding us that we’re not the people we thought we were. People in the valley have been broken open. They have been reminded that they are not just the parts of themselves they put on display. — David Brooks

At the beginning of 2007, my life went into a tailspin. The girl I was dating had an abortion. During an already tumultuous relationship, I almost got fired from yet another job. And every business school I applied to rejected me. It was a low point in my life.

Rock Bottom

It didn’t get much better when I graduated from the MBA program at Pepperdine. I was broke, jobless and living with my parents at the age of 31. At the same time, my sister got into medical school. And she finished graduate school with one of the highest GPAs in her class.

I felt like she was the source of their pride and joy, and I was the source of all their disappointment. This was a major test of my own ability to manage my psychology. And it was the catalyst for my 10-year journey of building Unmistakable Creative into what it is today.

Managing our psychology is essential to navigating what one of my mentors referred to as a world of diminishing permanence. We have to deal with highs and lows. We have to avoid tying our self-worth to external events and circumstances. And in the midst of that somehow show up in the world as a fully functional, not completely screwed up human being. It’s what we should have learned in school but never did.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://medium.com/the-mission/what-we-should-have-learned-in-school-but-never-did-88450ce83963