Webinar- 3 Strategies to Overcome Adversity and Stand Out to Colleges

Hello everyone, welcome. Uh, we're going to go ahead and get started in just a few minutes. Thank you so much for being on time, and, uh, you might want to grab a, a notepad and maybe something to drink as we go through. We're going to share some great information on how you can support your students, your children, and, uh, we'll get started very soon. So thank you so much as people start to file in. We will know when it's time to launch it, but, uh, we will get started shortly. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Shellee Howard, and I am the CEO of College Ready, the founder of See Our Future Now, and I have the privilege of introducing our guest this evening. You are in the right room If you would like to learn strategies to overcome adversity, and I think that's just part of life. I often talk to my students about what it will be like when they go to college and they're amongst all the other students who get straight A's or who amongst all the other athletes that were the best at what they did. So we're going to start out in the world of strategies to overcome adversity, and I am really excited to introduce our guest speaker. And to get moving. So without further ado, Jeff, um, Heggie is an entrepreneur. He's an author, success coach with a passion of helping others achieve their biggest dreams. Sounds like college to me. Jeff helps athletes to reach their full potential by mastering the mental game and Constantly competing with a high level of confidence. He also teaches people to become optimal performer— performing entrepreneurs and reach their 10 times goals. Sounds good to me. He starts with a focus on mindset. Getting to the next level always begins with the right mindset. So Jeff, welcome to the show. We are so looking forward to having you.

Hey, Shellee, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to speak with your guests.

Outstanding. Do you have access to share screen?

I sure do. Let me just get that going. Okay. We up?

You're good.

All right, awesome. Well, thank you. Um, like I said, Shellee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And, you know, that's one of the things I love is speaking to parents, coaches, students, and athletes, because I think this is a really important topic. And I work with Tammy Matheny in a program we call the Confident Athlete Program that we work specifically with parents, coaches, and athletes to help them develop their mindset. But on this topic that we're talking about tonight, Tammy and I recently wrote a book, um, called Challenger Deep: Athletes Rising Above Adversity. And it's stories about dealing with adversity, because we all, we all face adversity. We all face adversity at different times in our lives, at different levels and everything. But it's how we choose to respond to that adversity that determines who we become, who our future self is. And our hope with this book was to create some stories that people could relate to and be inspired by, be motivated from, that they could take these stories and when they face their own adversity, maybe one of these stories reminded them of something specific. And rather than, you know, the easy thing is to quit adversity when it happens, it's easier to just throw in the towel and find another route. But, you know, when we fight through that adversity, and we can look at our own lives, anything we've done where we've faced adversity and we fought through it, it's something to be proud of, and we grow because of it. And the whole idea of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset is how you face adversity. And with that growth mindset, you can really develop into something stronger and better in the future. So What I want to talk a little bit about is what Tammy and I call the circle of success and how we've tied some of the stories from Challenger Deep: Athletes Rise Above Adversity to kind of talk about these different concepts. And we use this saying, you know, in the circle of success, it's confidence, focus, and unity. And when you can combine all those together in the right way, we can have a powerful mindset that will help us achieve more, do more, and be able to face those tough times. And that all is centered with our why. And so I just want to talk a little bit about each of those areas just to kind of give you a bit of an example of how this all ties in and hopefully something that you can relate to. The very first story in the book is a story about Michael Jordan, and it's What It Takes to Be the Best. And the story is actually from when he was in college and he was at the University of North Carolina. And after one of their practices, this was when he was just a rookie there. He went to Coach Williams, who at the time was one of the assistant coaches, and said, I want to be the best that ever came out of here. And Coach Williams said to him, well, if you're going to do that, you've got to have no excuses. You've got to be able to put in the extra. You've got to do And he outlined a bunch of different things. And Michael Jordan's response to him was, but I already win all the sprints, you know, I'm putting in all the extra that no one else is. And the biggest impact of this whole story was Coach Williams' response at that time. He says, oh, excuse me, I thought you wanted to be the best. And he turned and walked away. And Michael Jordan, he's mentioned it often about this story, how that impacted him. To how it impacted him all the way to today. And Coach Williams said there's a few days later he came back to him and he said, I get it. I understand that message. And I realize what you were telling me. And often we think, you know, we're working hard, we're doing everything that is required of us, but we've got to have that mentality of, you know, what else can I do? What is being the best version of me mean? And how can I get there? Because a lot of times we are going through the motions and sometimes we just need that change of perspective. And so a few of the things that we teach around that whole idea is, are your goals result goals or are they process goals? Are you setting your goals so that you know the things that you need to do that are going to lead to those results? And then one of the favorite— my favorite things that I work with athletes is what we call our 5-in-1. And this is a process of really bringing into focus what are the things that you're doing, because it's so easy for an athlete, whether it's in a practice, whether it's in a game or anything, and especially if, if say it's after a game that they've lost, to focus on all the negatives and forget about all the positive things that happen. And that can really be detrimental on their growth. And this can be with athletics, this can be with school, this can be with entrepreneurship, any of these things. So with the 5:1, what we do is after every game— I do this with my basketball teams, they have journals— and after every practice, every game, it's all right. What were 5 things that you did well? And they've got a list of— it doesn't matter if we won or lost. What were 5 things that you did well? And then what's one thing that you're going to work on? And when you can change your focus on that and focus on more of the positive growth things that, you know, even if we lost, there's these 5 things that went well. And have that growth mindset that we're going to learn from this experience and get better because of it, then we can really grow from it rather than just feel like we lost, we're losers, what's next, right? The next part of the, the circle is confidence. And I think this is a big one. Tyson Durfee is a friend of mine. I don't remember if in the introduction we talked about it, but I used to rodeo professionally and Tyson Durfey is a world champion cowboy. He was world champion in the calf roping, and I had an opportunity in one of my podcasts to visit with Tyson and we talked about a lot of great things. But this was probably the area that impacted me the most on his entire story. We talked about preparation and how it ties to your confidence. And it's a great story because he talked about, you know, Tyson wanted to be a world champion from when he was a young kid. He, he had that as a goal and he went to work doing it. And he got to the point where, you know, he was getting up before school, working on his skill. He was every extra hour he was working on his skill. He talked about how there's a lot of times all his friends were going to the football games, the prom, whatever it was, and he wasn't. He was working on his skill. He made a lot of sacrifices intentionally. And he says what that did for him is a lot of times when he would go to a rodeo to compete, he would have a feeling of confidence thinking, you know what, no one else here has done what I've done to prepare. No one else is more prepared than I am. And he had that feeling that, you know what, I deserve this. I deserve this more than anyone else because I've put in everything that I've— I possibly can. And he had an extreme level of confidence because he knew he had put in all the work. That doesn't mean he, he was guaranteed to win everything, but he could compete with confidence. And so I think that's really an important thing because when we look at confidence being such an important part of our success, if you think of any time that you've done something, whether— I mean, I've, I've seen a lot of people that they have a speech or something they have to do, but they don't prepare for it. You can't go into that speech unprepared and be confident about it. And so think of anything you do, how you feel if you're prepared or if you're unprepared, and the different confidence level. And so one of the things we really like to teach is take an honest assessment of yourself. Are you putting the intentional practice into the thing you're doing? Let's look at exams for students. Are you putting in the intentional studying to help you be successful in that class? Because if you are, you're gonna go into that exam a lot more prepared, a lot more confident about it. If you're not, you're not gonna have that level of confidence. So that's one of the things that we wanna do. And even On the screen you see create a preparation game plan. One of the things with athletes, and this can be in any area of our life, is we like to create a preparation sheet that they use before all their competitions. We showed up at one of my son's playoff basketball games. His shoes weren't in his bag. How prepared was he for that game while he is wondering, is Dad gonna get back with my shoes by the time the game starts? And you know, you, you look at those things and how does that prepare you? And so what are you doing? Maybe you're going into an exam. What are the things that I need to have for that exam? Do I have my pens? Do I have whatever I, I'm gonna need? And create that list of things that you're gonna take into that exam so that you are prepared. It's the same thing we teach with, with our athletes. You know, are your socks in your bag? Are your shoes in your bag? What are the, what's the equipment that you need? And by putting in that effort to be prepared, you're gonna be able to compete with maximum confidence. Unity is a, a, a big one in this, in this circle. And the story that we use here is Desi Linden. And there's a story from the 2018 Boston Marathon. Now, it was her 6th attempt to try to win this. And she was an incredible runner and she's from the US and she was prepared for it. But unfortunately, on that day in 2018, that morning, it started out as bad as it could be. The weather was terrible, you know, 25-mile-an-hour winds, raining, all of those different things. And there is a point before that race that she just decided, you know what, It's just not my year again this year. And almost defeated, defeated at that point. And there is another, um, American racer. Her name was, uh, Shellee Howard Flanagan. She was the 2017 New York City Marathon champion. And Desi went to her and said, hey, you know what, it's just not my day. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you and I can help you out. And you know, they went back and forth. She's like, what's wrong? She says, no, nothing's wrong. I'm, I'm gonna race. It's just not my day. And Desi started focusing on how she was gonna help, um, Shellee Howard through the race. End of the story is, as they worked with each other and helped each other through the race, Desi won the race. Desi was, um, I can't remember in how many years, I think it was over 3 decades, the first US woman to win the Boston Marathon. On that day. But it was when her focus changed from her to how she was going to help someone else, and that whole team unity thing came together, that she was able to kind of push some of those, um, thoughts aside and be able to reflect on other things that are— and helped her end up going and winning the race. So as we do those things, um, It's really a— it's real. Even, even in an individual sport like a marathon, there's a team with you. And how can you use that team to build your confidence, overcome adversity, or whatever it is? So we encourage our athletes to turn their focus to their teammates, to their teams, and all those things to help them have a bigger plan, have a bigger vision. Also on the screen, we've got TNT. What, what that is, it's a— we encourage our athletes talk and touch, and that really brings a team unity. And when they focus on a lot of communication, a lot of high fives and those sort of things. And so unity is a strong part of creating this circle of success to help you be more confident, overcome adversity. And then, as I mentioned, it's all encompassed by the why. You know, I think this is a real important part on achieving goals, all of those things, because your why is really what drives you. You know, it's, it's what's going to help you put in the extra work. It's what's going to help you put in the extra time. You know, when you have a strong enough why that I want to graduate, it's going to put in the extra time of preparing for your exams. Whatever it is, you've got to have that, that why. Now, the story that we share in, in the book is one about Bruce Lee. And if you've heard of the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Bruce Lee actually took, took that book. And in there, Napoleon Hill talks about creating a definite chief aim. And I actually want to read it to you. I want to read what Bruce Lee wrote for his definite chief aim. He says, I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest-paid Oriental superstar in the United States. In return, I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality of capacity as of an actor. Starting in 1970, I will achieve world fame, and from then onward till the end of 1980, I will have in my possession $10 million. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness. Bruce Lee, January 1969. He had a definite chief aim that was his why. It was his why that this is what's going to push me through whatever I face to achieve my goal, because this is my overall goal. And he worked tirelessly towards that goal. With an incredible focus and commitment because he knew what his why was. And so as we're working with athletes, entrepreneurs, students, they've got to know what their why is. You know, it's even— I was working with an athlete just this last week and she was having some struggles on some things she was dealing with, with a coach and with what she was doing. And I asked her, I said, why did you start playing soccer? And she said, you mean this year? I said, no, ever. Why did you start playing soccer? She says, well, because it's fun. I said, right. Are you still having fun? Well, she says, of course I am. And so, okay, who, who were you playing for when you started? She said, well, myself, because it was fun. I enjoyed it. I said, who are you playing for now? And she thought about it for a while and she says, you know what, I think I'm playing for my coach. All my decisions are trying to please my coach. And that's where we changed her focus and we talked about creating a why behind what she's doing and making sure she was playing because she was having fun. She was playing for herself. Of course, she needs to listen to her coach and get the advice and what whatnot of her coach. But who are you doing this for? And as students go into university, are they going to university for them, for their future, to create that future self they desire? Or are they going for mom or dad? Or are they going for a specific teacher? And I think they really need to understand the why behind what they're doing. And on the screen, you can see that QR code. It actually takes you to a training I do on It's called the 7 Levels Deep training because even a lot of people think they understand what their why is behind their goals and different things. But this is a training that will actually take it to a lot deeper level, a lot, lot more of an emotional level rather than a surface level. This is why I'm doing it. It's an incredibly powerful training. I'd encourage everyone to do it, whether you're a parent, a student athlete, whatever. It's a, it's a great tool. The other, just like what we had there with Bruce Lee, is write out your definite chief aim. What is your true purpose? And I think it's on this next— maybe I don't have it. Oh yeah, right here. If you write out your definite chief aim, I encourage you to read it first thing in the morning, before practice, before school, before competition, after practice, and then have an accountability partner. I even have if you can see me on the screen, mine comes up on my phone every morning, every night. I also have it right here at my desk, reading that all the time and reminding you. And I've, I've incorporated my why into that. So my why is part of that. I have daily accountability calls with my entrepreneurs, and before they speak of what their accountability is, they state their why. We've gone through the 7 levels deep and they state their why. I think it's an important thing to always Remember what your why is, why you're doing the things you're doing. So when things are tough, you have that why to push through. So those are some powerful tools to use. I think, you know, whether Shellee Howard and I were talking before we came on and kind of when I started working more and more with athletes on the mindset was probably when I started relating how much the entrepreneurs I was working with was— were so much of their success was with the right mindset. And at the same time, I'm coaching basketball, working with athletes and thinking, you know what, it's the exact same thing. And that's when, when I started putting things together, whether I'm working in my entrepreneur coaching group or the Confident Athlete program, the way I teach things is different. But the concepts are all the same. We all have to have that powerful mindset to be able to achieve our best. Like I said at the very beginning, I mean, dealing with adversity comes back to your mindset as well because we're all gonna face adversity and it's how, how we choose to respond to it that'll determine who we become. But the same thing when I talk with athletes, I say, you know what, the physical game to reach your full potential is obviously important. You've gotta work on it. You've gotta put the time and effort and practice into it. But the mental game is just as important. You've gotta be able to put the time and effort into the mental game to reach your full potential. I've worked with so many entrepreneurs, athletes, whatever, that have the same talents and resources, but one will outshine the other and it comes down to their mindset, how they deal with these things. And so that's really my love, is working with entrepreneurs, athletes, helping them develop powerful mindset, helping them overcome their adversity so that when they're facing that adversity, they're able to overcome it rather than face it and pack it in. So hopefully, those are some things that each of you, you can take and apply to your own lives, because I think they're all tools that we can use that are going to help you to overcome adversity, develop a powerful mindset, and really reach your full potential.

Yeah, outstanding, Jeff. Thank you so much. I knew you were the right person to kick us off. And so now, as we transition into the standout to colleges part of the presentation, I'm looking forward to helping you connect the dots, right? Students nowadays, they're— they have different struggles than maybe their parents did with technology, social media. Um, but the one thing that remains the same is the mind is still a very powerful, um, thing. It can either work for you or against you. And so that's why I think it's important to address that and help your student understand that it's, it's okay and normal to not always feel confident, but you can't expect to go in and win without confidence. Doesn't matter if it's athletics or academics or business. And so giving them the skills now to be confident is going to be massive. So thank you, Jeff, and he will be on with us to answer questions. So please do not leave. I'm going to jump in and talk about how do we take that, that competitive advantage or planning and preparation and really think about how are we going to stand out to college? Because it is a competition. As much as I like to tell students they're not competing because I want them to stay in their own lane and really be clear on they're making themselves the very best they can be. In all reality, it's a competition. And so I'm just going to share just a few slides and we're going to open it up to Q&A. And hopefully you will be inspired to, um, see how you can help as a parent, or if you need our support, whatever that looks like, we're here to support your family. And so let me go ahead and share my screen and I'm going to jump right in. To the beginning. So as I mentioned, this is where we're headed. We want to use the strengths of the students. We want to help them overcome some of the challenges, and life is full of them. So as we look at how we're gonna do that, I'm gonna share the how, because— sorry, I'm moving our faces all over the place. I'm gonna share how to be successful in the college application process. In '21-'22, our students earned over $29 million in merit scholarships. That's on top of need-based. And how did they do that? They found their passion, right? It seems like such a simple thing. Jeff called it a why. I call it a passion. Basically, it's what drives you to get up in the morning and helps you to fight through that competition. You can see, um, bottom right, that's myself and my oldest son graduating from Harvard, uh, pre-med. And my daughter, uh, who was at that graduation at the time, was at University of Alabama. He is now an orthopedic surgeon, and she is now a pediatric RN. Working in the emergency room. So they're my why. Jeff talks about the why. That's what motivated me to start College Ready. We've been doing this now 18 years. It's my 18th application season, and my third child is graduating college a year early, completely debt-free. So first went to Harvard debt-free, second Alabama debt-free, third San Francisco State a year early and debt-free. I feel really bad for sibling number four. Talk about being competitive in your own family. That's kind of a hard place to be. And we try to love and support her as much as we can. Now she's like, they did it all their way. I'm going to go study international business in the Czech Republic of Prague so I can travel on the weekends. So as beautiful as that is, it just goes to show with preparation and your why, anything is truly possible. I also share on the screen, we offer— College Ready offers no cost to you an opportunity for your child to find their passion. So many parents call me and they're just so frustrated. My child doesn't know what they want to be when they grow up. They don't have a clue what they need to do. They are just lost and they're overwhelmed. And so I thought, I need to do something about this. And so we created what's called Empower Education. And why did we do this? Because we wanted every child to find their passion and turn it into scholarships. We wanted every child to use their passion to lead others to create positive change. We wanted every child to use their passion to position themself to stand out for college. So there's the transition. You have a student, they find their why, they prepare, they succeed. That's exactly what Jeff was sharing with us. The outcome is your child chooses which college versus the college choosing them. Right? That's what we're talking about. As any student who wants to go to a college can go, but not every student can go to their dream school. And that's what I'm hoping I can help you understand. So you're in the right place if you would like to learn how to help your child break through the mental and physical barriers that hold them back. And then they do— when they do, you can be ready to help them stand out and get accepted to their dream school. That is the goal, and we want to help you help them. So the first thing I want to talk about is finding passion., and then finding their purpose. Sometimes it's not one and the same. So you take a student— we start students in our program as young as 7th grade up to 12th grade, so I know that world really, really well. We've had thousands of students go through our program. Some students can find their passion the first time I ask. They're bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Some of them have Well, I'm just really, really good at this sport. And I said, no, what's your passion? And they're like, yeah, I just told you, I'm really, really— and I'm like, but are you excited to get up and to stretch and to tone and to do the preparation to do really well at your sport?

Right?

So when, when parents ask their child, what are you passionate about? And they shrug and they go, "I don't know," and that's it. They walk away, and that's kind of the end of the conversation. If you're lucky to have a child who is engaged, and they'll say, "Well, how do I even know how to figure that out? How do I find it?" And then the parents, well-meaning as we are— remember, I'm one of them— will say, "Well, you're really good at this, and you're really good at that, and I think you're passionate about this, and I think you're passionate about that," and, and all this time that the, that the parent is speaking, the student is thinking, no, no, that's not what I'm passionate about. And sometimes they don't even want to tell us what they're passionate about because they don't want anybody to tell them not to feel that way. So first thing we have to do is figure out what they're passionate about. We start with their core values, their gifts, their talents, and their advocacy. Because that's the ingredients we need to pull out the passion. Now we have to come up with the purpose. Why are they gonna do anything to change the situation that they advocate for? So we, I, I encourage you, you don't have to do it right now, maybe after the meeting, but go to crfuturenow.com. It is a sister company of College Ready and is where we start all of our students. Because we know this is not an easy competition. We know it's not a cheap competition. We know that without preparation, there is no competition. So very important that you start first with the student's passion. As I mentioned, warning, warning, warning, do not ask a child, "What are you passionate about?" because they are going to either hold it close to them or they're going to say what they think we want to hear. But what's really important is to ask them this question. This is, this is the secret sauce right here, parents. If I gave you $1 million cash, you had 24 hours to spend it, or you had to give it all back to me, what would you do? And all of a sudden they're gonna buy a yacht, they're gonna fly their friends to Hawaii, they're gonna go in— I mean, you will find out the car they want, the clothes they want, and you'll even find out the kind of communis— community service they want to do. You're gonna find out what motivates them. You're gonna find out all without having to ask them. So it's a really fun thing to do at the dinner table as long as the siblings understand that they have to remain quiet and they will get a turn. So we do this as a starting, a jumping off point because it allows the teenager to get out of their own head. It allows them to not feel judged and it allows them to get excited. Once we lean into their passion, Right now we're getting to their why. Number 2 is use their passion to lead others to create positive change. Okay, here's the next website I want you to look at, and it's called empowereducation.world. Why is this important? Because I lead leaders to lead students to create change in Uganda and Oaxaca, Mexico. We have an international program that I'm happy to share with you. There's no cost. There's nothing to it other than I want this for your child. And what we did is I spent 17 days in Uganda last year and found out that there is a lot of need there. I'm sure none of you are shocked. What I didn't understand is how easy it was for us to fill the gaps. So students in the College Ready program, we come together once a week online with students all over the world, and we share their passions. We have STEM groups, we have visual and performing groups, we have business entrepreneurship groups. We have all of these individual passion pods. With the main goal of changing the life of another child, all from the security and comfort of their own home. And so they are motivated, they're driven, they're excited to work with all of these other students that they don't feel in competition with because they're not their friends at school. So we meet, we really set some very big audacious goals, and so far they have achieved double. In one year, they built 3 schools that will educate 150 children per school. That is massive. That is un— nobody else has done anything like that in this area of Uganda. So what's happening now is they're leading other people to create change using their passion. Are you starting to get ramping up how they're going to stand out for college? Yes, they're finding their why. They're leading other people to change the world. Their essay is going to be pretty outstanding. The next thing is use it. How? I'll give you an example. So my firstborn He had a really awesome resume. Obviously, he got into a great school. He had a good GPA, not the best. He had a great test score, not the best. But he had the standout strategy. And what we realized is colleges are looking for more than just a brilliant student to come and take a seat at their school. They're looking for somebody who's going to come and lead others to create change to make a difference in the world. That's your standout strategy, but it has to be your own. If your student is feeding the homeless and they're doing it because they think it's going to get them into college, they need to stop doing it because it's not their passion. It might be somebody else's passion. And, you know, feeding the homeless is good, but not if the child is like miserable and kicking and screaming to get there, then you're teaching them that service is not fun, it's not helpful, and they don't want to do it when they're an adult. If you start with what are they passionate about and then lead them to lead others to create this change, they're unstoppable. So how we help them do that— I'm going to give this to you. We're all about giving free resources at College Ready and See Our Future Now. Because if you wanna do this on your own, I did it with my firstborn, right? I, I spent 30 hours a week on top of my full-time job, and then I had 33 spreadsheets, and my son wanted to hurt me, and then he did what I suggested. Okay, there's a lot of potential for, like, it's not gonna go well. Went really great with child number 1. Child number 2, so-so. Child number 3 is like, yeah, I don't think so. And child number 4, I had to pay, pay one of my consultants to educate her. So I'm telling you, like, I understand from a parent's perspective, it works with some of our children, but not all others. So the first thing we have to figure out is what do they want to do? Then we have to help them figure out the why they want to do it, what is their mission, and then the how are they going to do it, right? For a 15, 16, 17, 18-year-old, this is like starting their own job, own company. It's an entrepreneur's dream. But if you don't have an entrepreneur's mind, little, little intense, little scary. So what we've done is we have come up with EmpowerEducation.World, which I'm inviting you to. There's no cost to join, and your child can embrace this idea of finding their passion and living with purpose. You can actually see me. I'm right here. This is last year in Uganda, and we are actually building their school with mud. And so it just goes to show With passion, with desire, with purpose, anything is possible. And these students are doing this. It is not just a made-up fantasy. So please check it out. And if your student is stuck, I encourage them to come play with me weekly where we have a really good time and make a difference in the world. Now, everybody wants to know the secret to scholarships, so I'm just going to sit here and give them to you real briefly because I've never told anybody, oh, I I don't like that screen. So here you go, secret number 1. The reality is that most students do not get a full ride. Most athletes don't get a full ride, but scholar athletes with a Y are amazing and have sky's the limit. My, my son was a scholar athlete, but he did not get into Harvard because of his athleticism. Because there is a bar. There's a certain GPA and a certain test score that they have to be able to, to, you know, to, to fight with, or they're not going to be successful when they get there. So it takes a strategy. Are they a scholar athlete? That's one way. Number 2, private scholarships. You can start right now. If your student is in 7th grade all the way through finishing college, they can be earning scholarships right now. You do not need to wait until their senior year of high school. Secret number 3: there are legitimate websites to help with your scholarship search, but be very careful, families. You want to create what I call a throwaway email, one of them that is going to get spammed like you've never seen spam before. Because your child is going to say, yes, we own a home, yes, we own a car, and then they're going to send you refinance, buy a new car. So just please be careful and help your 17-year-old know that there's a lot of unfortunate bait and switch going on out there. We help you to know the good ones, but there are good ones out there. There's one right now, my favorite one, $10,000 if you're a vegan. I'm just saying, I think students can be a vegan for a little while, and that's pretty good scholarship, and it's legit. Number 4, look for scholarships from your employer, credit unions, department stores. My son won the Nordstrom's, um, scholarship, and he never shopped at Nordstrom. He had nothing to do with Nordstrom, but I knew about Nordstrom and I told him about the scholarship. So just know there's scholarships out there everywhere. Number 5, there are no tricks, but there are just old, good old-fashioned hard work. If your student doesn't look at this as a part-time job, they're not going to win the big scholarships. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Number 6, passion equals scholarships, or finding your why. Number 7, consider your background. Number 8, if a scholarship advertises no essays, run for the hills, because everybody's going to do that one, because no student wants to do an essay. You won't get— unless you have a really, really sad story, the chances are very low of getting those scholarships. Secret number 9: if your student does not go looking for scholarships, they will not come looking for them. And then finally, have your student follow directions carefully. 91% of families who complete the FAFSA do it wrong. They think they make too much money, and they tell the government exactly that. So be careful, be mindful, have them make sure they're following directions. So there's a couple ways you can do this. You can do it on your own, which is the one on the left, and help your child find their passion with purpose as I guide you through the 6 steps. Or you can set up a 30-minute free complimentary discovery call where we can help your family navigate what is the why. Or you can enjoy empowereducation.world, and just know that we're there to support you and your family as you navigate this process. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions, and I'm going to stop the recording.