Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Is a gap year a good idea?

July 25, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

It’s time for parents in the U.S. to realize the benefits of sending their kids off for a gap year before college.

They’ve done it for decades in the UK and Australia, but for some reason many parents in America are unaware of this possibility, or fear this may lead to:

laziness
waste of time
waste of money
a kid who refuses to go to college after their gap year

Well I disagree, and here’s why.

Your child has been learning in school for about thirteen years straight. He’s burnt out. He’s not sure what he wants to study, but as a parent, we prefer him to get into college right away so he doesn’t miss an opportunity to get a degree. Everything is so competitive that we believe if we don’t act now our kid will never get in. Wrong. In fact, Princeton encourages a gap year. Harvard’s a big fan too, and so is Tufts and MIT.

So why are some of the most prestigious universities in the nation urging students to consider something that would make most parents cringe? “Better-prepared students mean higher completion rates. And it’s completion that matters,” according to the article, “Should your child have a ‘gap year’ before college?” With nearly 30% of all students who enter college not returning for their sophomore year, and three out of five students not finishing their degree in four years, parents and students are potentially “wasting” a ton of money.

Of course, all parents want their kids to succeed, but not all kids are ready for college; some like Rebecca in this video below, aren’t sure what they want to study and end up wasting an extra year or two switching majors. This turns out to be even more expensive in the long-run than had she taken a year off (which she did) and discovered what she wanted to do with her life.

So what can a student do during their gap year?

Travel
Volunteer abroad
Work
Internships

Usually a gap year involves travel abroad, volunteering and work experience as well as internships.

Global volunteer network: Is an example of a non profit organization which places volunteers in community projects worldwide.

Rebecca, a young student in the video, says she had no clue what she wanted to study after graduating high-school and her gap year working on projects in Romania and Ghana, taught her life skills and offered so many opportunities when she returned home.

The benefits of a gap year to a student:

Experience the world
Meet another culture
Grow as a person
Discover yourself
Open your mind to other possibilities

The gap year is not just for 18-year-olds graduating high school. In the onlineathens, Smith, 23, had a year off before starting medical school and decided to ride in the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race — a 2,745-mile run from Banff, Canada, to a border station near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Smith and his friend Giannini finished the race in 17 days, 22 hours and raised more than $4,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network.

“There’s not a lot of times in your life when you have the time and you’re still in good enough physical shape to do something like this. Most of the time we were basically out of contact, so we couldn’t have any real responsibilities, like families or jobs that we had to take care of. But it was worth it.”

For those of you looking for information on what your student can do during a gap years, Education.com offers helpful tips and links.

So what do you think of a gap year for students? Any experience you want to share?

What about for adults? Please stay tuned. That will be in a future post.

Photo of student credit

My 7 links post for Tripbase

July 21, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

Sonia at Crystal Cove, Laguna Beach, California

Tripbase is running a My 7 Links project to unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Miss Footloose from Life in the ExpatLane, and Annabel Candy from GetintheHotSpot. I feel very special thanks to both of you.

1. My most beautiful post

Did I cry when I said “Goodbye”

Emotionally, it was tough for me to say Goodbye when my second son left for college. This post was picked up by More magazine .

2. My most popular post

What does number 11 mean?

Never realized how many people also see # 11, and read this post, although it has a twist.

3. My most controversial post

Pregnant at 53 (my video)

Many thought this was real. What about you?

Why do we let young girls dress like that?

4. My most helpful post

Creating an Awesome Blog

It gets you thinking about your goals. It’s a simple post that gets to the core of what’s important in blogging.

5. The post with the most success that surprised me

Is education a right or a privilege?

I discuss how my sons were influenced by what they heard from our Belizean caretaker about how lucky they were to get an education.

6. A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

Do schools kill creativity?

I am very much into comparing educational systems around the world.

7. A post that I’m most proud of

My Italian Lover (my video)

A story I wrote and was filmed reading at Dime Stories in Laguna Beach, California. I got way more laughs than I expected.

6 (I’m only supposed to ask 5 but like to take a risk) Hot Bloggers I’d like to nominate to participate:

Satisfying Retirement

Zero to 60 and beyond

Blog in France

Prolific Living

Always Well Within

THE BIG RISK***The Art of Non Conformity (Chris Guillebeau) It never hurts to be Gutsy and ask a tribe leader to join.

(Comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading and sharing.)

The new Dr. Phil of man and horse: Buck

July 18, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

You’ve just come out of a movie feeling intense emotions of love, kindness towards others, the good in life, and you long to share and inspire others to pay it forward.

This is how I felt after seeing the movie “Buck.”

“Buck” is the story of Buck Brannaman, a true cowboy who endured a violent, abusive upbringing, and succeeded in overcoming tremendous personal odds.

After years of being physically beaten by his alcoholic father, Buck was placed in a loving foster home where he developed a phenomenally successful approach to horses. A real-life “horse-whisperer”, he is described as the “real deal” by Robert Redford. Everyone who meets Buck for the first time is taken by his authenticity.

Buck admits that the violence of his upbringing transformed him into the person he has become today, and his approach is to teach people to communicate with their horses through leadership and sensitivity, not punishment. He’s able to transform horses and people with the approach,

“I’m helping horses with people problems,”

and the movie succeeds in showing us the animal-human relationship and how it becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges of life.

I’ve never been exposed to horses, ranches or cowboys. Growing up in the suburbs of Paris with museums, cultural events and gourmet restaurants, could not be further from a cowboy’s lifestyle, yet Buck showed me the human side of horses and an understanding of how they can teach us so much about our own insecurities, problems and character flaws.

Buck Brannaman explains that a horse views a human tossing a saddle on his back much the way he would view a lion attack. He has a way of explaining to some doubting horse owners, who attend his clinics, his techniques which are all based on love and not punishment.

“Your horse is a mirror of you. Some may not like what they see. Some might.”

His no nonsense advice reminds me of the approach that Dr. Phil takes with those who seek help on his show. Buck shows us that raising horses is like raising children, they need guidelines and sometimes “tough love” is also required to build trust and mutual respect. Trying to bribe a horse with carrots and sugar leads to a spoiled, unresponsive horse, the same argument can be made for that type of parenting approach.

Strangely enough, you never see Buck whisper; he just snaps and waves a couple of red flags to convince the animal he cares about them. He has the ability to control any horse, even the feistiest and most deadly horses, and manages to appease them by remaining calm and non-threatening.

Buck is equally successful in his interaction with people and he holds clinics all over the West to show owners and trainers how to tame the liveliest colts. The movie shows his loving relationship with his wife and daughter, who performs at rodeos with him two months out of the year.

Buck’s turnaround was in great part due to the love he received from his foster mother. She is a delightful old lady who raised Buck with all the love that he didn’t receive from his own dad. Her love for Buck is obvious and what struck me as a major learning lesson in this film is just how much a parent can influence a child’s life into adulthood. I sensed that everyone watching the film was thinking about two things:

their childhood and the choices they have made as adults.

their parenting skills.

Have you seen the movie? Please share your thoughts even if you haven’t seen Buck.

Photo credit Buck Brannaman

How can I turn my passion into a job?

July 14, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

Alissa Everett photo

How many of us dream of getting paid for something we love to do?

Lets take a look at Alissa Everett’s adventure. Ever since she was a kid, she wanted to be a National Geographic, photographer. Like many, she grew numb in her ‘cubicle’ job working 100 hours a week, and applied to business school “because that’s what everyone else was doing,” she said. After looking at what it would cost to study something she wasn’t even passionate about, she decided to toss her acceptance letters and save her money. Instead, she took time off to think, and do what she loved: snapping photos while backpacking in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a turning point for Everrett. She decided “to go where the news was happening,” hoping that this would help her get her photos published. She happened to be in the right place at the right time and showed her photos to an NBC producer who ran them on Dateline. Everrett has continued her photography career with her own twist: a desire to capture the more mundane human dramas such as a rape victim refugee starting a sewing business in the Congo. “I’m drawn to under-the-radar stories that have passion, hope, and optimism,” she says, and her goal is to tell the stories of people who can’t. (You can read her full story on page 36, of the August 2011 issue of The Oprah Magazine, by Bill Fink.)

Although I haven’t met Alissa Everett in person, I’ve met several people who succeeded in turning their passion into a career like Pamela Slim, EscapeFromCubicleNation.com , a seasoned business coach, author and professional speaker who helps frustrated employees in corporate jobs break out of their business. Karen Walrond, a former engineer who is now an author and a photographer and wrote, The Beauty of Different, “a book that will convince you that the thing that makes you different might just be your superpower.”

So how do you know if you have enough passion to turn it into a business? Is there a business you’ve been dying to start for years? One way to find out is to ask yourself this question: Can I do this for 15 hours a day, seven days a week? If your answer is “Yes,” you know that you have found a passion that you could possibly turn into a business. According to personal finance expert, Suze Orman, it takes this level of commitment, energy and perseverance to get a business up and running.

Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher developed the concept of Mondo Beyondo dreams. I heard them speak at the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon in June 2011. They asked people, “What are you dreaming for yourself?” and started this series of Mondo Beyondo classes which you can sign up for on their website.

Here’s what I learned from their presentation.

Trust: Whatever you dare say out loud.

Courage: Take tiny brave steps.

Vulnerability: Is that wobbly space, you’re not sure it will act out.

Intuition: Listen to your heart

Flexibility/Openness: Look at life in a new way

So as I continue forging ahead on my path of writing, blogging, learning and becoming a motivational speaker, hopefully with the necessary ingredients stated by Suze Orman’s of 15 hours a day/7 days a week, well almost, I ask you to please share what you or someone you know is doing to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. If you’ve already turned your passion into a career, we’d love to hear what you do.

Is Work/Life Balance a Myth?

July 11, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

Work/Life Balance

How often do you hear about the importance of finding balance in your life? And what exactly does that mean?

We hear “experts” talk about the secret to achieving the perfect work/life balance as though there’s a “magic formula” hidden in some secret cave that some people have access to but most of us are struggling to grasp.

What if I told you that secret doesn’t exist.

Take Barbara Walters for example, a highly successful career woman. In Dr. Lafair’s article, “Does Being Gutsy Activate Being Guilty,” Walters admits there is a tricky balance between work and family. As a Gutsy woman, Walters put it succinctly when she said “Just do not expect balance.”

Obviously if you place too much emphasis on family, your work suffers, and if your work takes priority your family suffers.

It’s almost as if the work/life balance can only be achieved once you take work out of the equation, or raising a family out of the equation. Am I oversimplifying? Perhaps, but why are we so focused on defining everything and questioning whether our work/life balance conforms to the magic formula?

I think the problem stems from guilt, especially the guilt women express when they have a full-time job and are raising a family. A friend of mine has three children and a very successful career. I envied the fact that she always seemed in control of her work and her kids’ activities until one day she confessed, “I feel like a failure as a wife, a mother and at my job. I can never give 100% of myself to any of my roles.”

Women are experts at feeling guilt, why is that?

Dr. Lafair, the author of Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success brings up the issue of women and guilt and suggests that women have an intimate relationship with guilt.

“It is harder for us to compartmentalize emotions and thus we worry about how our behavior impacts family, friends, community and with the worry comes self-doubt.”

So I asked my husband, “Do men feel the same guilt as women when it comes to balancing work and family?” His response:

“Men feel it too, but the expectation is different.”

Some of you may disagree with his statement, but even today, where women are often the major bread-winners, most men still feel a sense of wanting to provide for their family. What do you think?

Some men manage to step out of their “crazy” corporate life when they realize their whole life revolves around work, and they rarely see their kids. Take Nigel Marsh for example. In a previous post I wrote about his views on How to Achieve the Perfect Work/Life Balance. He quit his high pressured corporate job in an advertising agency to stay home with four young children.

I think when we feel overwhelmed we realize that we’ve lost that sense of balance which is a personal thing, not a one-size fits all magical formula. I also believe that Barbara Walters suggestion to “Just do not expect balance,” is quite liberating especially for us women who have a tendency to feel guilty.

I’d love to hear your thoughts from both women and men on this topic.