As most of my readers know I have three children...2 from a previous marriage. I have watched them grow into what are now their teenage years. It seems like just yesterday they were being born...crawling...walking...to the first day of school. I often wonder what the future holds for them as well as how I can better prepare them...as some obstacles needn’t be tripped as I have covered those for them. Then I watch my 3-month old from my new marriage and to see her go from being born premature at a shade under 3lbs to now close to 8lbs. It’s interesting to see all their prrsonslities develop and to see how they interact....collaborative learning at its best. It’s very true that time waits for no one...and although we have technology to capture moments it’s those internal memories and moments that we end up keeping close to our hearts. I look at CertificationPoint and how it’s grown to date and can’t help but wonder how well I have made each day count. There have been some struggles both those have been the stepping stones into another phase. I believe, as with plants, the first several years are the toughest because you can’t really tell what is occurring underground but as sprouting occurs there is joy...and a tendency to over protect and nourish. With experience comes more knowledge and understanding that there are times for allowing an amount of space with a watchful eye as well as a time for watering...sometimes more watering and sometime less. Understanding over time you can make each day count the same while sometimes doing more and other times seemingly doing less.

I was reading recently in an article that 50% of men between the ages of 18-34 still live at home. That seems like an alarming number and think of how many of these people are college graduates with a ton of student loan debt. Where are these student maintains there skills while awaiting a prospective job offer. How are they making time count? How do the college facilitate the process for these students post-college? I believe the jury is still out on the latter question. I continue to challenge our nations colleges...not only colleges but high schools and prep schools to put in place measures to assist in ‘making time count’ skills and to also maintain a collaborative environment. That 50% is not so much a problem but a prodding letting us know that it’s time add another lane or two to a highway that may be experiencing a bottleneck.

Again...as always thanks for reading my blog.

Feel free to share your thoughts here or via email at gilesb@certificationpoint.org