Lesson Learned
Recently one of our sons, Chad, started classes at Columbia University. Although Chad was extremely excited about returning to school he was also very apprehensive. The reason for his anxiety was the fact he was a freshman at the age of 25.
You see Chad is a Former Marine and a Veteran of the Iraq War. He was but one of the thousands of Marines that were the first to go into Iraq during the invasion. Chad was fresh out of Salem High when he went to Boot Camp in 2002. He was still in high school when he enlisted after 9/11.
Now as he struggles to adapt to “Civilian” life he wants to finish his education. For that I as a mother am both thankful and proud. He hopes to one day join me selling Columbia real estate and I do indeed look forward to that day.
In addition to Chad’s anxiety about his age as a college freshman he admittedly has a few cobwebs in the “grey matter” area. He came over to the house to discuss these concerns with his father and myself. His father told him to grab a tablet and he did. His father then said “I never was very good at math but I was lucky enough to learn the formula for success.” On the paper my husband scribbled the following formula: W x (K+S+A) = X. He then said “this formula applies to anything you do including school. Any trade, any business.”
My husband then explained the formula:
W = Work Ethic
K = Knowledge
S = Skill
A = Ambition
X = Success
Each of us needs to rate ourselves in my husbands formula. Use any figure you wish for the first 4 parts ie 0 -10 or 0 -100. It matters not how high you rank on “K”, “S” or “A”. If you rank 0 on “W” the answer to “X” is 0.
The reason I share this little private story with you is that not only did it help Chad overcome his anxiety after only one day in college the young man learned two valuable lessons….. The formula for success and that Dad is much smarter that he ever imagined.
~Rhonda McMillan
Broker
March 14th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Rhonda,
Great post and reading it brought back memories. I can relate from my first year at the University of Georgia after my service in the military. While I had only been away from the school scene for 3 years (one of the last recruiting periods of a 2 year comm. and then Desert Storm) I can completely relate to how your son feels.
While I did have the opportunity to take several freshman classes at the University of Maryland while I was in the service, it was still quite an interesting experience returning to school full time with plenty of distractions to say the least.
For me, oral presentations in front of a class of people much younger then me was certainly daunting. I always just had to remember from the Real Life Education and Experiences of the Military to remember that school was really easy compared to some of the things I had already done.
Perhaps I’m a little biased, but I feel that the younger generation that I meet that have had some kind of military experience before college have a far better grasp of the big picture of what’s really going on in the world.
And yes, Mom and Dad are much smarter then we ever imagined. Even today, I look back at their advice and the way they did things and realize just how right they were. (Pay off the mortgage, save money and invest wisely, etc, etc..)
Keep up the great work on your blog!