My Diploma Doesn't Seem to Work: Principles they forgot to teach in High School

By Moisés Castillo

"My Diploma doesn't seem to work" was written by a recent high school grad who is passionate about helping others see through an established system and find their greater potential. What you will get out of reading this book is a shifted perspective and an abundance of self-awareness of the systematic structure that every student is obligated to go through. Whether the student becomes successful outside of school, comes down to how well they are self-aware of their surroundings and environment. Concepts that the educational curriculum leaves out will be addressed in the book through a series of vignettes and analysis along with recommendations for further knowledge. High school education is a subject that should no longer be looked over, by rather understanding there is a hole in the system. And the first step in solving a problem is realizing there is a problem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Aug 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456628864

Book preview

review.

Prologue

School doesn’t teach you everything you need to know about success—at least in life. Now this is by no means meant to dishonor the individuals who work for and with the educational system. Professional educators are amazing people, and they often know how to supplement state-mandated curriculums to give students a leg up in life. But let’s be honest. The educational system is flawed. The average American high school is missing some important subjects in life skills, such as real-life problem-solving, goal setting, and achievement beyond grades. These are the things students need in order to leave a footprint behind when the time comes to kick the bucket.

Students are coming out just as clueless as when they went in, brainwashed into thinking that going with the flow is perfectly fine when really only dead fish go with the flow. Get your diploma, go to college, get a degree, get a job, pay into your 401k, retire and die—is that the best we have to offer? I’ve heard people say, If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you may not achieve much. So where is the Life Goals 101 class or AP Path to Personal Achievement?

Right…there isn’t one.

I’m not bashing on teachers or faculty or staff. They all had their unique style of teaching, some more effective than others, some more fun than others, and some more passionate than others. That’s not really my point. This is:

Taking that the average life expectancy age is 79, with only a high school education you will have spent 23 percent of your life in school (23%!). If you are going to spend almost one-quarter of your life in a classroom, shouldn’t it teach you something useful to help you through the rest of your life?

It is safe to say that by the time you entered high school, you already established a foundational base of cognitive and deductive reasoning. (You were pretty well aware that when your mother told you not to touch the stove because it was hot, she was right. But if she tried telling you that about the TV remote, you’d look at her like How old do you think I am?) If high school curriculums took leadership and finance as seriously as English and algebra, we would produce more leaders and independent thinkers, who would have a plan for the next five, ten, twenty years in the future. Instead we have the Department of Education promoting agendas that aren’t taking anyone anywhere! We’ve already taken away the Arts. How about we take away a science Maybe we should extend the lunch period Oooh I have an idea! Let's let students out 5 minutes early but let’s have school start 10 minutes earlier this year! Maybe we should extend the school year by a month Maybe we should shorten it by two weeks.

Politics and politicking. Utterly useless for the adults of tomorrow. How about we give a leadership development class, so when the time comes to lead a family, employees or a team we know how? How about a course on taxes so that future taxpayers understand what taxes are, what they are for and how to pay them? How about an investment club that will teach students to think longer term about production, rather than short-term consumption? How about supporting business incubation so that students come out of high school with solid business ideas that will promote financial independence instead of looking forward to retirement? Where are the classes on how to live an extraordinary life?

High school doesn’t teach you that. But this book will… at least get you on the right track toward it.

Wait! No, you won’t find all the answers here. This book is NOT an informational step by step breakdown of the difference between a 1099 and a W2. Or whether you should put your money into a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA. Or how to leverage your credit, or how take money out of your 401k, or where to find a good mentor, or how to approach networking… We’ll get to that (this is just the first book).

In life, you have to learn to stand up before you can walk. This is where we stand up and take control of our own education. This is where we stop blaming the system for what we don’t know, and we start to figure it out for ourselves. And here, I will give you some tips on how to upgrade that high school diploma in order to ace life.

This book does not have all the answers. But the answers are out there, and I’m going to help you find them. Socrates said The unexamined life isn’t worth living. But how are we expected to examine our lives when we are told to never question the system, go to school, get a job, work for forty years, retire, and finally die? Aristotle answers, Well begun is half done. You picked up this book, so you already know there has to be more to this than they say. And knowing is half the battle. Even if your diploma doesn’t seem to work, your brain does. It’s just a matter of figuring out who you are and what you want. To sit down and examine your life to see what tools and information you need and figure out how to find it. You’ve already begun. So keep going…

Part One: Mindset Mastery

1. Lemon Seeds Don’t Grow Apples

Adrian was depressed. He hadn’t been accepted to his college of choice in Florida and his second choice in his home state hadn’t offered enough scholarship money for him to attend. His mother, Samantha, advised him to think about enrolling in a community college in Florida. He would at least be able to start college, it was a much cheaper alternative, and he’d possibly be able to transfer to his first choice the next year. Plus, Adrian would be able to live with his uncle Robert (Samantha’s brother), who owned several small businesses in Florida. Robert was doing very well for himself, and she felt Adrian would have a good experience just being around him.

Mom, I don’t want to go to Florida if I’m not going to the university. And I haven’t seen Uncle Robert in fifteen years!

So I’m guessing you want to start paying the rent here, your insurance, phone bill and all your other expenses… she replied.

Adrian hesitated, ...I mean- well I don’t want to do that either…

With a smile, Samantha said, Then I guess the decision is made. You’re getting the hell out of here. And don’t be too hard on yourself, the community college you’ll be going to is much better than the one here. Plus your uncle will be glad to see you. He told me he wants to slow down a bit with his businesses and you’ll be the perfect distraction.

That whole night Adrian holed himself up in his room. He grabbed a notebook and started writing everything that he felt had gone wrong in his life. Not only had he not been accepted to the college of his choice but didn’t have enough money for the local college. He hated the fact that he came from a low-income family. He hated that his parents divorced when he was 10, and his dad hadn’t been around since. He hated that he’d never gotten a chance to really be with his father. He hated that he had no love life to speak of. He could never keep a steady relationship. His last two girlfriends had both broken up with him because he seemed too pessimistic—whatever that meant. He didn’t feel that way at all—he just saw the world for what it was.

At the end of the night, he had compiled a list of every wrong in his life. He folded it up and put it in his wallet. Then he was finally able to sleep.

The next morning he and his mom worked out the details. Adrian would stay home for the summer, but head down to Florida mid-August to get settled and register at the community college. The summer flew by in a cloud of boredom--a minimum-wage summer job and hanging out at the skate park. Adrian finally flew down to Florida. Arriving at the terminal, Adrian reminded himself to keep an eye out for Uncle Robert’s bright red Volkswagen. Sure enough, as he walked out the terminal through the automatic doors, there was the red Volkswagen, now instead of a new and shiny vehicle, he saw a 20-year-old car that looked old and beat up. Adrian thought to himself, I thought this guy was doing well…

Johnny! Adrian had become accustomed to his family calling him by his middle name. His uncle proved it was a term of endearment. There stood Uncle Robert, wearing a baseball cap, blue jeans a tee shirt, and a HUGE smile on his face. His uncle welcomed him with a bear hug.

While Robert was busy throwing all of Adrian’s luggage into the trunk, Adrian couldn’t help but give his uncle and his ride the once over. I thought this guy was a successful businessman? Is this the wrong uncle? I should have looked him up on Facebook at least... Now that I think about it, Johnny is a pretty common name and I didn’t even bother to question when he called me that.

Trying to make sure he was not in the car with a maniac, Adrian quickly asked, So you’re the famous brother of Samantha, huh?

Without wasting a beat, Robert blurted, Yep! That crazy tall lanky blonde woman. Hahaha! It was the perfect description of his mother. The weight came off of Adrian’s shoulders. Getting into the car and putting his seatbelt, he thought, Thank the Lord I wasn’t getting into the car with a psycho.

The car zipped through the hot Florida air. The humidity was so thick, it felt like you could cut it with a knife. His uncle’s house was nice, and Adrian’s room was comfortable. But it still wasn’t home. His uncle drove him over to the community college to enroll and it went smoothly.

After four weeks, Adrian had decided—he hated Florida.

He didn’t want to be in some unknown community college, knowing that his university was just thirty-five minutes away. He’d decided he wanted to major in Business Administration. His first semester he only had class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays: English Composition, Pre-Algebra, and College Success—core classes that didn’t seem useful for much of anything. Then he worked for his uncle on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (ugh!). Robert owned three businesses: a painting company, a plumbing company and a framing company. Since Adrian did a lot of painting as a hobby he figured painting the interior of a home wouldn’t be a hassle; so