By Tony Selzo
Rainmakers Marketing Group
Last week, I had the privilege of spending half a day with one of the greatest minds in our time, Brian Tracy, an internationally-known author and speaker in sales and business performance. He was so animated about our country’s apathy towards learning, and how we should change it.Tracy made the argument that, right now, the average American spends 50 times more on entertainment than education. He added that successful people have a ratio that is much closer, if not equal to, a 1-to-1 ratio when it comes to education and entertainment.I think the sad truth about Americans is we would rather work hard than think hard.
We become so comfortable in our groove that we rebuke the challenge to think differently.Being a very patriotic person this disturbs me. I want to grab our country by the proverbial shoulders and say “You are being outlearned!” We need to rethink our learning paradigm, and how we teach our students, and even how we learn ourselves.A great example of rethinking our learning paradigm is the Kipp School in the South Bronx. This is a charter school that takes some of the “worst” students, measured by traditional standards, and creating a non-standard learning environment. This environment creates such a change that over 80 percent of their graduates attend some form of college. The majority of these students that go to college come from single-parent homes and are often the first generation to attend college at all.
How do they do it? What makes a school with the “worst” students in the system have an 80 percent college attendance rate, when the national average is 64 percent? They have highly motivated teachers, and a highly interactive and supportive culture. But a closer review shows the key to Kipp is over 50 percent more learning time with a school year that rivals an Asian school year in length (220 days). A day that starts at 7:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m. with classes on the weekend for those lagging behind. They are never outlearned at Kipp, and their success shows.If you don’t like your income, how your business is performing, your sales or what your competition is doing to your business, then go to work on your learning, and watch it reverse its course.
Never be outlearned!
Tony Scelzo
Rainmakers Marketing Group
317-216-6345
Tony@gorainmakers.com
