In today’s episode, we cover navigating college and your career with Belle Liang and Timothy Klein. Belle is a professor of Counseling Psychology and Principal Investigator in the Purpose Lab and Tim is an award-winning urban educator, clinical therapist and school counselor, and together they wrote How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, and Beyond.

Society places a ton of pressure on kids to follow a certain path through life, but does that path set them up for success or failure, what mindset should we be instilling in kids before they choose a college, and why is the pursuit of happiness leading them away from a fulfilling life?

What to Listen For

Introduction – 0:00
What mindset do we learn at an early age that sets us up for failure?
What is the career and college navigation crisis?
What’s wrong with how we perceive higher education – 12:20
What do we get wrong about guiding students into the higher education system and what should we do to set teens up for success after high school?
The Three Mindsets for Success – 18:50
What are the three mindsets you need to chart the correct path through higher education?
Why is it a bad idea to follow your passions?
Why is it important to balance passion with performance and purpose?
The Value of Being Purpose-Driven – 34:00
What does it mean to live with purpose and how do you figure out what your purpose is in college?

Committing to only pursuing your passion places an unnecessary focus on only doing things that make you feel good and avoiding discomfort and hard work. That is the same as living a life in strict pursuit of happiness. If we chase happiness as a goal in life there will always be a gap between where we are now and the happiness we desire. That leads to a constant state of never being happy enough, thus defeating the purpose of trying to lead a happy life.

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Resources from this Episode

How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, and Beyond by Belle Liang and Timothy Klein
How To Navigate Life website

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