THCC Episode 140 – Choosing a Career Path

Brad Baldridge
Why we should be picking a career path before we pick a major? An interview with Kristin Clark.

Presenter
You have kids, they grow up. And before you know it, it's time to plan for college. Where do you start? How much is it going to cost? Will you qualify for financial aid? Should you be looking into scholarships? When will you be able to retireme? What about student loans? The list of questions is never ending. The good news is all the answers are right here. Welcome to the Taming the High Cost of College Podcast. Here is your host, certified financial planner, Brad Baldridge.

Brad Baldridge
Hello, and welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host, Brad Baldridge. Today, we have a great interview with Kristin Clark. She is a consultant that helps students figure out their career path, and then ultimately their major and what they want to be when they grow up. There's allot of great insight here about dealing with the undecided situation, where if a student can get some sort of goal in mind that they can appreciate and that they're going to be passionate about, it makes college a lot easier. There's a big challenge out there, I think, with a lot of families where the student doesn't really have a direction, and therefore they don't have a lot of motivation. And that combination leads to a lot of challenges as far as getting into a college, staying in a college, and then ultimately graduating. Now, of course, a lot of families or a lot of students do what we would call the 'sharp left turn,' where they change careers midstream, or they change majors while they're at college. And that happens to a lot of us where we change our direction. And that's not unusual. But again, if you have a target in mind, even if it's going to change at some point, I think a lot of people if you ask them would say it's better to have a target that's moving than to have no target at all. And then of course, stay tuned afterwards, because we've got a Brad Recommends where I talk about a great podcast where you can learn about coaching, which I think is a great concept that I think parents need, really need to understand because it could make a big difference in the parents' life or the students' life around college, but also around many other areas of life. Let's go ahead and jump into the interview.

Brad Baldridge
Right, today I'm meeting with Kristin Clark of Kristin Clark Coaching. Welcome, Kristin.

Kristin Clark
Hey, Brad, how you doing today?

Brad Baldridge
I'm doing well. So you have an expertise in coaching students around career paths and majors and that type of thing? Can you tell us a little bit more about why you got into it and what you do?

Kristin Clark
Absolutely. And so Brad, I can tell you that when my kids were heading off to college, I've got two boys. I'm a boy mom, and they were heading off to college and I remember sitting at the ballpark and a good friend of mine looked over and she said, 'Well, Kristin, you've got Chris enrolled in SAT and ACT classes, right?' And I was like, 'What, what?' And this world began where it was, 'Oh my gosh, I'm a bad mom, I'm not with it. I don't know what I'm doing, what's next.' And I talked to so many parents. And they feel the same way, right? That this whole college planning process is just overwhelming and confusing. And when I really went through this process with my family, what I realized is all of our consultants, all of our counselors at the high school, their job is to get these kids into college. Right? They help them with the SAT tests, they help them with the essay writing the college applications, finding a college, but nobody was really helping these kids figure out why they were going in the first place. What did they want to do for the rest of their life? What did they want to major in? That was a step that I looked at, and I went, 'Why are we not helping these kids?'

Brad Baldridge
Mm hmm.

Kristin Clark
And that's really what got me interested in this.

Brad Baldridge
Right. So I think something that comes up on your website, is you mentioned a lot about career path, versus you're not necessarily saying major. So I think there's a distinction there, then, how do you see that affecting the situation?

Kristin Clark
Yeah, well, here's, I gotta tell you, Brad, I struggle with this name all the time. The name of my course is called 'Pick the Right Major.' And and the reason I've done that is because parents are in this checkbox kind of mode.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
Right? It's all about getting the kid into college. So that's what they know that they need to do.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
What I truly do is 95% of my training is talking to the kiddos about a career path and what they would really like to do with their life. And the reality is, a major falls out of that. The major's easy at that point.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
You know, and one of the crazy statistics is two thirds of kids go into college, the most overwhelming part to them is picking a major. And you see them freshman year, sophomore year in college still kicking the tires and thrown around ideas. And they're looking around campus and they're going, 'Wow, everybody else has their act together, I'm the only one that doesn't know this.' So you get a lot of confidence issues. That happens at freshmen and sophomore year, and I looked at, and I'm like, there shouldn't be. There are opportunities to have this discussion with those kiddos before they go off to college. So that they can at least get into I call it the 'pie shape.' And if I know this is people can't see my hands. But I always show this, my hands where it's a circle. And I'm like, if these are all the career paths you could ever think about, if I can get a kid into a pie shape. And now they can go to college. And they can focus on that pie shape, and get rid of all the white noise that's around it, and go and play in there and try new things and get to do what college is supposed to do, which is let you experience all these awesome things within this pie shape. And then when you start to get to that senior year, that pie shaped starts to narrow. And when you get out, you've got a much better idea of what type of job you'd like, once you get out of college, right, where that career path starts. Right. So yeah, the whole idea of not having these discussions before college, I think is, well, it's how we used to do it 40 years ago, Brad. Things haven't changed that much, right? We didn't have the discussions before we went to college. But I'll tell you back then...

Brad Baldridge
Yeah, back then we just changed our major four times and it didn't matter

Kristin Clark
Right

Brad Baldridge
...because if it took us six years to figure out our life, there wasn't nearly as high of cost for sure.

Kristin Clark
Exactly. Right. And it's crazy to me that it's taking a four year degree, 41% of kids get a four year degree in four years.

Brad Baldridge
Exactly.

Kristin Clark
40%. You know, those numbers are not awesome. And I think something just needs to change, I think we need to to change the way we're thinking about this.

Brad Baldridge
Absolutely. And I think there's a lot of change coming to higher ed, I just don't know how quickly it's going to get here. So if your students are in high school, I mean, you're probably going to get what we know today. If your kids are too, it's hard for me to predict for sure how things will be different, but I think they could be. So I think that's one challenge. But so let's drill into an example. Because I think this would be helpful for most people to really understand. So I got a case study here. And you haven't heard this before. So we're gonna put you on the spot a little. But if we have a student, and I'm going to put this, I'm going to build a continuum here. So some students would, they would essentially say, we're no clue, right? I just, I have no idea what I want to do. And I think there's two areas there. One is they don't feel like they excel at anything. Or the other is they feel like they excel at everything, right? I'm great in Math and Science, but I like to write, and I'm interested in doing good things for the world. So maybe I want to do volunteer type stuff and be a police officer or firefighter and give back to the community. But I love Math and Science, and I love Music. And I love... So there's that, there's that undecided. And then there's the undecided of, 'Well, I got B's and C's in high school, and I think I want to go to college. And I didn't really like Math, or Science or English or anything. And I'm not really an academic, maybe that's the problem. I don't like to study stuff, I would rather do stuff or get out in the world or whatever it is. So that's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is someone that might say something to the effect of, 'I want to be an English teacher, I want to teach juniors and seniors in high school, probably writing and literature will be the topics I want to cover.' Right? That's someone that that sounds like they've got it all, quote, unquote, figured out. But then there might be two steps in between where someone might say something to the effect of, 'Well, I like to write. Other than that, I'm not exactly sure. But I know I'm not the Math and Science-y, I'm the writer, I want to be some sort of something writing related. And then maybe one step above that would be I want to teach and write. And perhaps I want to teach writing.' Right? So there's kind of that continuum and and you see students that fall. And you could do the exact same continuum in the sciences, right? I'm interested in some sort of science all the way to 'I want to be a chemical engineer, and go work for chemical when I grow up.'

Kristin Clark
Yeah, so you're brought up a whole lot of different ideas in there

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
Let me tackle a couple and you can keep throwing them in there.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
I think one of the most amazing things are those people that knew what they wanted to do when they were five years old. Very few of that was, right, that they're like, 'I'm going to be a doctor.' I think they can also be the most dangerous for families

Brad Baldridge
Right

Kristin Clark
...And that they've had this idea in their head forever and ever and ever and ever. And nobody's ever challenged it. Right? They've always been like, 'Oh, yeah, you got to do that you've you've been talking about this, since you've been knee high.' For the ones that are just super clear on it, you let them soar, right, if they're super clear. But I would tell parents all day long, still challenge it. And for this reason: when you've told yourself for so long that's what you're going to be, and you go to college, and you start down that path. And for some reason, you figure out that it's not the right path, man, that's where your identity has been. So I would say parents just challenge it very healthily, if that's the right word. But I'm in a healthy way, let me say it that way, and let them tell you why they want to do that. Okay, you'd brought up the kid that has no idea. And what I found, Brad, is that, I'm going to say about 75% of kids have an idea. I think that they're just afraid to say it out loud. And a lot of what I see is that parents plays such an important role for all of us. And they have such a huge influence in these kids lives, that the very first reaction that the parents have, when a kid comes to them and says, 'I think I want to...' Boom. And a lot of times, for parents, we've been picking them up since they've been babies, and making sure they don't fall and helping them and telling them what they should do. And this is the point in kids lives, where you need to not have an opinion. You need to just sit back and when I call is being more of a consultant at this point, where you ask questions, right? You ask, 'Why do you think that? What do you think the good outcome would be for you?' And let them talk, don't tell them what they should do. Because then when mom and dad come to them go, 'Yeah, we think you should be a lawyer.' They're like, 'Okay, check the box. That's what I'm going to be, I'm going to be a lawyer,' and they get off to school. And two years later, they're like, 'Well, that's not what I want to do at all.' Right? So it's let them explore and talk about what they want to do. And I will still go out on that 75%, most of them lean in Brad, when we're on Zoom calls and they're like, 'Kristin, I do have an idea of something I want to do.' And I'm like, tell me what it is, and you can just see their face light up when they start talking about this.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
So yeah, so what other scenarios did you have?

Brad Baldridge
Well, so in that scenario, is I like to write, good enough to go or do you feel like it needs to be honed more?

Kristin Clark
Definitely, it needs to be honed more, and

Brad Baldridge
Okay, I want to be a teacher and write and, and perhaps teach writing? Is that enough? Or do you need to own that more?

Kristin Clark
I think the answer is always going to be, 'This is not a decision that you're going to make in six weeks, in 12 weeks, in a year. This is a lifelong decision you're making.' Right?

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
Let's say your career path, ebbs and flows and moves and shakes. And knowing how to think through this process now and to be able to use that for the rest of your life, I think is hugely important. Because how many people are sitting at a job and going, 'I'm 45. And I don't even know like what I'm doing anymore? What am I doing?' I think challenging yourself continuously is healthy. And the way we should all approach this, right, because we've got this awesome life to live. And if you get an opportunity to try new things, and that's your jam, I'd say, get it done, make it happen. Don't be afraid to move and change.

Brad Baldridge
Right. And the reason I'm asking these questions is I'm trying to help parents diagnose the problem that they might have in front of them, or even realize that they might have a problem. Right? When parents come to me and they say their student is completely undecided. Again, I've done this enough that I'll say, 'Okay, well, you've got two choices.' You can make a college plan around undecided, which means you're going to go to a college that has a lot of majors, in case you start switching a lot. And you're not going to necessarily focus, you don't want to go to that engineering school or business school when you might say, 'Well, first I'm a teacher. Now I'm an engineer, now I'm a lawyer.' If you're going to be doing that, you gotta go to a big enough school that has lots of majors so that wherever you're exploring, it's available right there for you. So I think there's a lot of parents out there, who were that focus type, right? Dad's an engineer, mom's an accountant and they, they kind of made that decision in high school. They stuck with it. They've been in that career for their whole life now and they look at their 17-year-olds, and we'll just figure it out, pick one, let's go. It's not that hard. I did it, right? And they don't have much empathy for the undecided. And of course, on the flip side, when parents change their major four times, and they're looking at their student, who is also potentially going to change majors, they at least understand, but they're also thinking about how much it's going to cost them. So they'd rather they didn't happen that way. Right?

Kristin Clark
Absolutely.

Brad Baldridge
Right. So we're in that spectrum... Again, I know you offer services and courses and stuff and that's the point of when is it time to get help? And where can we get help? And when is it time to just say, 'Oh, I think that part's done, what we really need to focus on is getting the test scores we need, or what we need to focus on is doing our visits or finding scholarships, because we're done with the choosing major thing. And we did that well.'

Kristin Clark
Right. So there's a lot there. So you get parents a little bit comfortable. You can work on checking the box stuff, like getting the test scores, writing essays, all that good stuff, you can be working on it while you're thinking about a major because you really don't have to declare your major until the summer before, right? So there's time to think about this. However, if you think about it a little bit earlier, to your point earlier, now, you can make sure you're going to the right college because they do have that major that you're looking for, right? And that may come into play for somebody that wants to be an art major, or wants to go into medicine, where that might change their idea of where they want to go to college. So the, having that idea or thinking through what you'd like to major in prior to is definitely something I think that we need to think about. Now, this is a little bit of a new concept, Brad, in that, did we have these conversation walking into college? We didn't.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
Right? Before our point earlier, we could afford to do that because I put myself through college on a waitress salary. These kids can't do this today. And now we're handing them basically the keys to a starter home for them to go to college. It's a much different playing field. So we can continue to bury our heads in the sand and not have these conversations. Or we can have this conversation at 17 years old about what do you want to do when you grow up?

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
And I'll tell you go ahead because I'm going to get the typical male response to this.

Brad Baldridge
Well, I think there's a the whole coaching across all things. Right? If you want to become, and parents don't quite think about it that much. But right, if if you have no idea how to play piano, and your eight year old says, 'I'd love to learn how to play piano, I think that'd be fun. I you know, I've got a friend that plays.' And if you say, 'Well, that seems like a good idea.' Well, you're gonna buy a piano and you're gonna hire someone to teach them you're not gonna say, 'Well, I gotta go learn how to play the piano so I can teach them how to play the piano.' You just don't even think that way when it comes to piano.

Kristin Clark
Right?

Brad Baldridge
Do you think that way about playing baseball? Again, if you're completely not athletic, it's like, 'Okay, well, I'm gonna let the peewee coach deal with that. Because I have no idea, I can't.' Right? And some parents will say, 'Well, I know how to play baseball, and the coach is going to do it wrong,' so we get that situation. But now we have coaching, career coaching at all levels, right? If you're a high paid executive, all the way down to someone that's unemployed and looking to change careers, there's coaching available. And the reality of coaching in general is it can and often does make things better, where you have better outcomes. But most people don't know it exists, especially around things like college.

Kristin Clark
You're right. And this is something very new, that we didn't think about doing this for the longest time. And when I heard that 30% of kids go to college and don't go back after their freshman year. I was like, okay, that can't be ignored, why is that happening? Why are only 41% of our kids graduating from college that in four years that go. That's kind of what got me started thinking about this business and seeing this little niche where it was like, nobody's helping our kiddos do this. Right? And here's the other, the other thing that we run into Brad, and I'm just coming out of this, but as parents to the 17, 18, 19 year old, we're stupid. We've not lived alive, we are just morons, right? They're like, 'Yeah, you don't know anything. My friends know it.' Right? So having myself a 21 and a 24 year old I'm just starting to get smart again.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Kristin Clark
And where they're coming to me right. So yeah, this coaching around this is something thing that very few people in the country are doing quite honestly, I seek them out. Because I'm always like, 'Hey, how are you doing this? And let's talk more about making sure we're giving these kids the best we can give them.' And there aren't a lot of us.

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Kristin Clark
But I do think it's where I thought you were gonna go with this, Brad, is I always have the dads raise their hand and like, 'Kristin, really? Can you get a 17-year-old to figure out a career path.' And I look at them, I'm like, what's the right age? Is it 18? Is it 20? Is it 25? Is it 45? When's the right age, to start thinking about a career path? And I look at it, I'm like, why would you not start as early as you can to start really delving into, 'What am I interested in doing?' You know, I was talking to a client. And he had no idea, it was one of those kids that's like, 'I really, really just don't know.' And we got talking about sports. And he did the leaning in, his voice went up, his eyes just started shining. And he was like, 'I just love sports, Kristin...' And I was just going on and on and on. I was like, why don't you do something in sports? And he's like, but hold on, he goes, 'I'm really not that good of a player.' And I said, 'Imagine all these jobs that you can have around sports. And if you could be around that all day long, will it make you happy?' He's like, 'Oh, my gosh, if I could be around athletics all the time.' Now we're talking about, okay, let's at least get you excited about a path to go down. And then we dug into his CliftonStrengths, which we can talk about in a second. But all of a sudden, we realized he was all about people, about building relationships. Now we had something to work with, because he was so people-oriented. It was like, okay, what in sports could we help you do that would really get you excited about sports? And he's now going to school to getting into psychology, and doing sports psychology, helping players just get better at what they do by getting past whatever is stopping them from being awesome. Right?

Brad Baldridge
Right. Certainly sports is a great example of, everybody's got a coach in sports, right? I mean, there's pitching coaches and batting coaches, and just one sport, and etc, etc. But I guess there's a kind of maybe a finer point there, I want to delve into a little bit, which is choosing an industry, like sports, now still leaves wide open, you could be a sports writer, you could be a sports caster, you could be a sports coach, you could be the accountant for a baseball team, you could be hiring and personnel, you could be the lawyers that argue about the contracts and sports you could I mean, they're just many, many different majors can all lead to sports. So how do kids work that part out where again, I think most kids don't think that hard about it. If you had this discussion with them, they would say, 'Oh, yeah, I guess that does make sense. I never thought of it that way.' As you mentioned, the student said, 'Well, I'm not good at sports, I can't play well enough to have a career in sports.' The only thing he could think of was to be the person on the field. He didn't think about the hundreds of support people off the field that's involved in any sport.

Kristin Clark
Yeah, and I'll tell you, Brad, part of it is because when we're sending a kid to college, right, we're telling them I always say, 'Open the book of majors.' I know, I'm dating myself when I say that. And they can be a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a policeman or this. So that right, so I think that book of majors kind of puts them into this box. And it doesn't help them expand their thoughts on, 'What can I do with this? What do I want is the end goal?' And if you can get them excited about one thing, and for this kid, it was sports. Now all of a sudden, his mind is wide open to, 'Oh, if I could do something within sports, here's what might get me excited.' And to your point, you also have to delve into what skills do they have? What did they enjoy in school? All of those things play a role. And sometimes you look at it and you go, 'Yeah, but interest change.' Absolutely true. But if we get them excited about sports, and they now are going, 'Yeah, you know what? Sports Psychology sounds really awesome to me.' Now, we go back to that pie shape. They go to school, they're playing around in that psychology place, they're getting lots of experiences that they would not have gotten outside of college. And now they figure out what type of psychology they want to do. And I've used psychology very broadly. You know, they're going to get into things that I could not even begin to, tell you is an option, but they go to college and I'm going back to. Now, you let college do what it's supposed to do. And that's expose you to all these really cool things. within psychology, and when they come out, you know what, they may not be excited about sports psychology anymore. But maybe the psychology part leads to something else, right? And because now they've got experiences they can draw off of, but you got to start somewhere, just for all of us, you have to start somewhere. I can tell you, when I got out of college, I waited tables for a little while, putz around and then put out my resume all over the place. And a guy hired me to be in marketing. I was like, okay, now I'm a marketer. It served me well, I enjoyed it, I got to do some great things. But it chose me, I didn't choose it. And what I'm really saying is, let's give these kids an opportunity to choose what they're going to do.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
Yeah

Brad Baldridge
Exactly. And I think, parents, you know, another thing that you mentioned is, as a parent, doing this kind of coaching is really hard for that... And again, not all 17-year-olds, but many of us have had that 17-year-old that, again, essentially, if it comes out of your mouth, they immediately say it's wrong. Why? Because you said.

Kristin Clark
Yep.

Brad Baldridge
An uncle, or a teacher, or someone else could say the exact same thing. And they'll be more than happy to accept it. But it's that process of leaving the nest where they have to start breaking ties with parents, and just the way it works. And I think there's a lot of value in having an outside neutral party get involved in some cases, right? A lot of times when I am working with a student, which most of the time I work with parents, but when I do talk with the student, a lot of times what I am doing, literally is saying the same things the parents have said, but because I'm not the parents, they'll come to it with an open, more open mind, and maybe they'll hear it. Now again, a lot of times after that meeting, I walk out and say, 'Well, I have no idea if I got through to them.' I don't work well with students generally. Or at least I don't feel like I work well, because a lot of times they just sit there. And then I'll get a call from the parent and say, 'Oh, I'm so glad you did that, they were talking about it and talking about it. It's like, really? Were they in the same meeting I was in? Because

Kristin Clark
I know. Isn't it amazing? Yeah

Brad Baldridge
So sometimes you get through, sometimes you don't, as what I feel, and obviously you work a lot more with students. So I can see having someone that's had this conversation, hundreds of times is gonna be better at it than me, who's only done it twice, with my two 17-year-olds.

Kristin Clark
Yeah. And I'll tell you the other beauty, I teach in group classes. So I'll take up to six students, Brad. And the other really cool part about that is not only are they hearing it from me, but now they're getting to hear their peers talk about what their ideas are as far as a career. And it really expands their thinking as well, because they'll hear a kid talk about being a financial planner, or the sports psychologist or whatever. And they'll be like, 'Yeah, no, that's not what I would interest me at all.' And it really reinforces that whole idea of, 'I really need to do what makes me happy. And what I think is going to interest me for the next 40 to 60 years of my life.' So they really embrace this whole idea of thinking about it, because they realize that, and we talked about this a lot in class where I'm like, 'Guys, high school is about getting in. College is about focusing on you, and what you want out of your life and finding your people.' And they really see that in that group class. So it's pretty cool.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Alright, so let's kind of circle back around a little bit more to the, the process. So many high schools have some interest inventories, answer these 25 questions or answers the 50 questions, and the kids come home all the time where, my eighth grader comes home and she says something like, 'Well, I can either be a garbage person, or a scientist based on the this little quiz we took, or'

Kristin Clark
Brad, my kids were gonna be a ditch digger and a bartender.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
And I was like, wait

Brad Baldridge
Exactly. You're gonna take that test again and get put down different answers, please. But, so they do try and work on it at school. And I think for some kids, that might be enough. But then also, as you move into high school, they also offer maybe some more advanced tools. And a lot of parents, I don't think realize that the high schools even offer the tools. But within their college curriculum, a lot of high schools will offer Naviance or a number of other, choose a career, choose a major interest inventories, and maybe they're not very good, but they're at least a place to start. And the cost is bright, because they're already paid for. And you get to have them. And I think the next level would be to go to something paid like CliftonStrengths or Myers Briggs or there's a number of them out there. So can you talk a little bit about that piece of it of, what's the difference between the various There's products out there, and how do you know what's the right one and that type of thing?

Kristin Clark
Yeah, yeah. And you're right. And a lot of our high schools do have programs that they've bought and paid for, that the students have access to. And I would tell you, absolutely have your kiddo take advantage of those. I think the challenge is within the high schools, they get 15 minute slots to walk into their counselor. So if they're not walking in, with real specific objectives or questions, they're really not walking out with, 'Okay, I've got a clear understanding of how I'm built and what I might want to do for my career.' It's really on the kid, or it's really on the kid and the parents. Okay, so the end of the day, that's what you get. Our counselors just don't have enough time in their day. But I will tell you for the kiddo that's invested. And they put the time in and thought about and done that and gone to the counselor with the right questions. I think that there's a great opportunity there for families. As we've talked about, the CliftonStrengths Assessment is the cornerstone of my business. And why I fell in love with it is this. A lot of times with your disc testing, or your Myers Briggs, you're like, 'I'm an ENTJ.' Okay, and you're like, 'Great. Now, what does that mean?' I can't remember. So I've got to dig it up, right? And what do I do with it?

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
What I love about the Clifton Strengths program is there are 34 themes of talent, and their names that you can actually recognize, number one, and when you understand how you're built, you can actually choose to do more of these activities. And I'm going to give you an example. I'm high activator, which means I really have a need for speed, I'm not really interested in directions, because I want to go now, right? And I'm going to take a lot of people with me, because I'm going to get them excited about moving forward fast. In my work, and working with clients, that's really the thing that I do well, is they don't sit there for a long time pondering about it, it's like, let's get started. Come on, let's go. And when I'm doing that activity, Brad, I get excited. And I walk into the conversation excited, I walk out even more energized than when I walked in, because it's what I do well. It's a natural talent I was born with. And I can choose to put myself in more situations that I get to use my activator, right? So I raised my hand, even in my work in corporate America, I ran marketing departments for 20 plus years, I could put myself into situations where I got a lot of starts, where I got to go and go, 'Okay, we're going to get moving on this project, here's what we're going to do everybody get an order, let's go,' and get people motivated. That's what I love about the program. And just even back up a little bit and talk about what the CliftonStrengths does is it gives you this list of 10 to 12 strengths is where we typically work within and the top five are called our signature strengths. And they're these talents that energize us and make us happy. Another one that's kind of easy to explain is ideation. So people that are high ideation are just really good at coming up with different ways to move forward and coming up with ideas. So you, have you ever had that where you're like, 'We've tried everything. We have tried everything, we don't know how to move forward.' I am telling you, you get somebody high in ideation walking into the room, and they'll go, 'Really? Have you tried? Have you tried? Have you tried? Have you tried?' And they're throwing all these ideas at and you're like, 'No, I haven't tried hardly any of those? Yes, let me grab one, and I'll run with it.' And they just have this way of thinking that's so different.

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Kristin Clark
That. And when you see these strengths that you don't have, they're amazing. You know, you're like, 'How did you do that?' And when you walk into a room with your talents, you're like, 'Well, everybody thinks like I do.' Reality is they don't right? You bring in these really unique gifts that are just amazing. And when you have that language to be able to describe what they are, and ask for those in your life, the world's your oyster.

Brad Baldridge
Right. So I guess another continuum that I want to talk a little bit about because I think parents struggle with this too. And this is one of my frustrations of... If you work with enough kids, you realize that they're so different that the, 'Well, why can't you do it this way? Because your cousin Sam had no problem with this.' He's not your cousin Sam and they have everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. And I think another you know, one continuum would be how focused they are knowing what they want to be but another big continuum that's important around college is their motivation, their self-motivation, their drive. And again, right, the top 10 or 20% of students that are the go getters, they're probably going to be fine no matter where they go, what they do, because even if they pick wrong paths, they'll figure that out, then they'll pick a new path, and they'll solve the problem and they'd graduate with a lot of debt, they'll figure out how to pay it off, and that kind of thing, so that's one. And then of course, the other end of the spectrum is, 'This kid's never going to be out of my basement, and I know it.' All they want to do is Xbox, and they're not it, we could push them into college, if we fill out the applications for them. And if we make it really, really easy, and then pay for it all and serve it up on a silver platter, then we have a shot at getting them to go to college. But if we leave it up to them, junior and senior year are going to pass by and then they're going to essentially they're going to pop their head up and say, 'Oh, wow, that now what?' And obviously, everywhere in between. So if you have a highly motivated, I could see where this could help. Again, usually the highly motivated those kids where they are good at a lot of things. And they're afraid to commit to a particular path. Because if they say yes to one path, they're saying no to the 10 others that they think are really good. But what about the kid that's on the other end of the spectrum who's not thinking college is where he's going to go, because parents have said, you're going to college, because, and again, a lot of parents believe and it's got some truth to it, that college is the path to success. Therefore, you shall go to college, and especially if parents are educated themselves and can afford to pay for college or a portion of college, they're like, 'Well, let's make it happen.' Every job in the world these days says you must have a four year degree. So let's go get one that, since you don't know what to do.' How does what you do help in that regard? I have a theory that maybe that lack of motivation is because they don't have a path. So they're not excited?

Kristin Clark
Oh, my gosh, you just hit the nail on the head, it is that they're going overwhelmed. 'I have no idea where to start. Everybody else is talking about this, that the other thing, I'm getting pressure from mom and dad that I need to figure this out. And I don't know what I'm doing.' And I'll tell you, Brad, I always say that my best clients are the ones that are afraid enough that they know that they don't know what they're doing. They really are where they're like, they dig in. And I'm telling you, these kids do not miss my class. So it's a six-week course, right? And the parents every time I talked to him, they're like, 'Kristin, I don't know what you're doing. But I don't have to prod them, I don't have to remind them. They make sure they're going to your class.' And I think it really is Brad that they know they don't know what they're doing. And when we're in this environment, and we're walking you through step by step, how to think through this. They're like, 'Oh my gosh, okay, it's starting to make sense.' And you think about that kid that came to me. And he's like, 'I've got really no idea. I've got no idea what I'm doing.' And then he leans in, he talks about sports gets excited, and you're like, 'Man, you can do something with sports.' Now you've got a kid that's energized, right? Then I layer in, and let's talk about all these things that you're really good at. And they're like, 'I am good at these things, Kristin.' And I'm like, 'I know, because you're giving me examples, right?' And it gets them to the core that they're like, 'I have things to give, I have things that I'm good at, and I have things that I'm interested in.' Now all of a sudden you look at them, they go, 'I'm kind of excited to go to college.' Right, because they have the end goal in mind. And I think that's where we get challenged is we're handing these kids 125, 150 ,300 thousand dollars to go to college, and they get the joke. They know this is expensive, right? And they're going, the ones that are going in and going, 'They're telling me just to figure it out as I go. I have no idea how to do this.' The ones that are walking in with at least in that pie shape, where they're like, 'I've ruled out a bunch of stuff. So now I'm going to go in and play in this area.' They at least feel like they've got a plan. And they know how to replicate that decision process because we've talked through it. They're thinking about their interests. They're thinking about their skills. They're thinking about their strengths. They're thinking about what's important to them. Can I make money at this? Is money important? All these things, now they're like, 'Okay, let me keep refining this.' And they've got a plan. I hear this all the time where I was went to a hairdresser and she's like, Kristin, I went to my roommate when I was a sophomore and went, 'Oh, I really want to do his hair. I don't really even know why I'm doing this.' But she went through the four years because she had to check the box because the parents expected. She got out, hated whatever she was studying and went and got her hair and dress her license, loves what she's doing every day is doing very well for herself. If we could have had that conversation before she went to college, she could have been making money as a hairdresser for the last four years, instead of going through college, feeling disappointed in herself, not feeling confident about what she was doing, knowing she's spending a bunch of money and walked out with $120,000 worth of debt.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Kristin Clark
And now she's picking up, right? So it's all about getting these guys confident about I'm working through my plan, the plan may change, right, because our career paths change. But at least I know how to work through it.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kristin Clark
So it's that confidence. Yeah, that that they can get by just thinking about it versus putting their head in the sand and going, 'I'll just figure it out as I go.'

Brad Baldridge
Right, absolutely.

Kristin Clark
Yeah.

Brad Baldridge
All right. Well, I think we've learned a ton. People want to learn more about your group classes and some of your free resources and that type of stuff. Where can they look you up?

Kristin Clark
Yeah, so kristinclark.com is... And my name is spelled on Brad's information.

Brad Baldridge
Yeah, we'll put all this information in the show notes. So if you can go to tamingthe highcostofcollege.com/140. And that will have everything, all the links to the stuff that we're talking about. But go ahead and shout him out anyway. So that

Kristin Clark
Well, and I, oh, I'm sorry, but I've got a really easy way for you to also to get a college planning timeline. And by the way, it includes all this information about thinking about a career path and a major as well as the timeline, you can text timeline to 71441 and get my timeline, or go onto my website, and you'll get a pop up and you'll get one of my downloads, and you'll get put on my email stream. And I'll tell you, I've got such a rich amount of information on there about planning for college, that you will absolutely want to be on there.

Brad Baldridge
Absolutely. All right. Well, I really do appreciate all the great information. Hopefully people that need your services will look you up. So thank you for coming out and spending some time with us.

Kristin Clark
Thank you, Brad.

Brad Baldridge
All right, that was a great interview. Hopefully you learned a ton. I know I've got some clarity around the concept of a career path first and a major second. I think that's a great bit of advice because a lot of students are trying to choose a major instead of a career path. And a career path might be easier to comprehend. And or finding a passion, and then a career path, and then a major may make a lot more sense for many families. As always, we've got shownotes available at tamingthehighcostofcollege/140, where we will have links to everything that Kristin talked about, as well as links to the podcast I'm about to recommend here. So stay tuned for Brad Recommends.

Presenter
The latest tips, tricks, and tools you can use today. This is Brad Recommends on Taming the High Cost of College.

Brad Baldridge
Today I'm recommending a podcast called Against the Rules by Michael Lewis. And more specifically, I'm recommending the series he did on coaching. So in May and June of 2020, he put out a series of episodes, titles like The Coach Effect, The Coach in Your Head, The Data Coach, The Unfair Coach, Aim High. These are great episodes where he talks about coaching and the effect that it had on his life as well as how coaching works and how coaching can certainly help many different professionals and non-professionals as well excel at a sport, excel at their work-life balance excel at their career. There's lots of different ways and types of coaching. And coaching just seems to make a big difference in many areas. So you want to learn more about coaching, then you can think a little bit how that might help your student as far as do they need coaching around ACT test prep or essays? Or do they need coaching around choosing a major or figuring out what they want to be when they grow up? Do you as parents need coaching around planning and paying for college or building a budget or figuring out if you're on track for retirement so you can figure out whether or not you can afford to pay for college and how much you would have leftover. All those things are different types of coaches that could help. Now all of those things are different types of coaches. And they could provide a lot of clarity around what you're trying to do, and what path might be the best way to get there. Of course, we'll put information about the podcast in our show notes so you can find the links there. But again, if you're just going to go to your podcast app, it's Against the Rules, Michael Lewis, it's a Pushkin podcast. You should be able to find it pretty quickly. It's a pretty popular one, has 8000 ratings in Apple podcasts. Alright, that's all we have for today. As always, we appreciate reviews at Apple or Spotify or wherever it is you're getting your podcasts. We will see you next week.

Presenter
Thank you for listening to the Taming the High Cost of College Podcast. Now it's time for you to take action. Head to tamingthehighcostofcollege.com for show notes, bonus content, and to leave feedback for Brad. The next step on your college journey starts now.

Brad Baldrige is a registered representative of Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Brad owns two companies: Baldrige Wealth Management and Baldrige College Solutions. The Baldrige companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai