Dropouts and Opt-Outs: Steve Jobs
“After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out… So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the […]
The Scoop: Inside the Praxis Community
Every time I check the Praxis Workplace page, I feel like I’m doing something naughty. I grew up thinking my life had a blueprint that I didn’t draft: Go to school. Go to college. Get a corporate job. Get married. Have children. Invest sensibly in an IRA. Retire. Have an open-casket funeral. It only makes […]
Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, Create a 30 Day PDP
It goes something like this: its almost New Years and you sit down to write out your goals for the following year. You begin writing and are surprised by how much you want to accomplish. You’re excited and inspired but also overwhelmed with choices. Where do you begin? How long will it take? New Year’s […]
Who Needs Philosophy?
This post was co-authored by T.k. Coleman and Grant Parker. A philosophy professor of mine once said “There’s a difference between talking trash about the air you breathe and actually trying to breathe without air.” Mocking the value of philosophy is like talking trash about the air you breathe. Living without philosophy is like trying […]
Throw Your Resume Away: Simple Steps to Developing an Effective Value Proposition
You don’t need a degree. You need a value proposition. This is the central idea of an article I wrote awhile ago. Here’s a summary: credentialism, resume padding, and rising standards of living and education levels, have all led to resume inflation. The resume is becoming an increasingly poor way to “sell” yourself to companies […]
How to Create a Useful Digital Paper Trail
Your presence online is either a liability or an asset. There is no middle ground. The trick is getting your digital paper trail to work for you. I don’t mean this in the way of your teachers in high school who cautioned you about putting pictures of parties online. I mean it in a way that’s […]
How does the Praxis education experience differ from a college education experience?
The Praxis education experience is unique in that it does not disconnect regular content consumption from regular content creation. Rather than, for example, studying for an entire semester to be able to pass a midterm and a final, Praxis participants tie each act of learning to a deliverable act of creation at least once every […]
Ditch Your Resume – Build A Pitch Deck
I have never seen a resume that I remember, and I have seen plenty of resumes from great and qualified candidates. This sentiment is echoed by businesses with whom I speak and the people who do the hiring. The reality is, a resume is much like a business card — it won’t ever get you […]
How to Get a Job Next Week by Doing Highly Valuable Free Work (Email Templates Included)
For some reason, there exists this trope that “there are no jobs available” or “businesses are not hiring.” I consider this part of the epidemic of entitled young people expecting to be handed a job simply because they exist and sat through classes for 4 years. The reality is that businesses are desperate to hire. […]
Kill Your Resume: Why Professional Side Projects Are the New Resume
Two young professionals are applying for the same job at a startup. Person one, a graduate from a respected university, has a resume he got professionally edited through a service online. The resume lists his education, competencies, and relevant work experience during some summer internships while he was in school. By all accounts, it’s a […]
This Business Partner is Making Waves in eCommerce Food Delivery
I had the pleasure on Tuesday to drive down to Richmond, VA, and visit the facility of TemperPack, a manufacturing and engineering startup devoted to the creation of reliable, effective, low-cost insulation for services like Plated, BlueApron, and Omaha Steaks. The facility was a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of the city, but when you […]
The Faces of Resistance
“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” This quote comes from Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art which explores what keeps creators from actually creating. There are a lot of things that can keep us from doing what we have […]
Get a $40k Job at a Startup Now, No Degree Required
Austin, Atlanta, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and San Francisco… All cities with high growth startups partnering with Praxis to get top young talent started on amazing careers. They don’t care about credentials and classes and degrees. They care about good people with the ability to create value. That’s what Praxis delivers. Participants accepted into the Praxis program get an intense […]
Dropouts and Opt-Outs: Ralph Lauren
“I never went to fashion school. I didn’t know what a designer was. I knew I had something, but I didn’t know what it was. And it could just have easily been nothing.” Ralph Lauren is an entrepreneur and clothing designer, and one of the best. His clothes are classically elegant, transcending momentary fashion trends […]
What My High School Business Teacher Taught Me About Entrepreneurship (and Business Classes)
There aren’t too many hours spent in class that I wouldn’t take back if I could. But like most people, I have one or two classroom experiences that I look back on fondly. Business class was one of those, precisely because it wasn’t a class. Our teacher was a local businessman. He wasn’t a teacher, […]