Yesterday my husband Shayne and my 26-month-old son, Shawn became engineers and used Lakeshore Fort Builder poles to build structures. As they were building, Shawn kept identifying the shapes he was using, mostly on his own but sometimes prompted by his father. It was cute ... then it struck me. He’s...
She gave me life. Therefore the least I could do was give her the stars. This was the thought that ran through my mind as I watched my mother lounging back under a blanket of twinkling lights at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. Following her gaze I stared above the cliffs....
The robots are coming. Wait! They are already here! 5G and quantum computing is already here. We keep warning people that the sky is falling and we need to be more creative in order to prepare for the tech advancements on the horizon. We need to retool our workforce...
I was bumping through life, not really aware of the importance of financial and creative literacy. Then when my husband quit his job to start his business, and we found ourselves under $100,000 worth of debt, I was startled into asking questions. "Why am I educated with a UCLA degree...
Recently, I have had several people ask me to write a dynamic curriculum that deals with financial literacy but also addresses creative abuse recovery. This opened my eyes that many adults are in need of recovering from being creatively abused as children. They were told to follow directions and color...
Last month my father died. It makes me ponder how my life is steadily turning into a curriculum. It seems that everything I go through turns into a lesson for my students, clients and for myself. So here goes my latest lesson... My father was a smart man. He, like my...
There’s Your Difference “…Genein, you were taught to be an employee and a consumer. I was taught, from kindergarten, to be an entrepreneur and an investor. There’s your difference..." Once I heard this statement, I was stunned in disbelief because he was absolutely right. He went to a school—a very expensive private...
The Hidden Opportunity Cost of Student Loans, Scholarships and Financial Illiteracy In May my student won over $2,915,374 dollars!! Sounds unbelievable right? Well if you look at it the way she has learned to look at scholarships, students debt, investing and opportunity cost, this statement is very true for her....
My baby, Shawn just turned one. He babbles. He screams. He laughs uncontrollably for no apparent reason (I swear he sees angels playing on the walls!). His life coach (aka his nanny) says that he’s discovering his voice. He is coming to the realization that his vocal cords can...
As the plant manager of my school walked the campus, I would know he was coming before I saw him. How? His keys. I would hear them from afar and watched how he would go into rooms and spaces that I have never entered. He would have access to places that...
I just sent my little ones off to college this past month. As I looked around the table at my graduating seniors of my non-profit, Alumni360, these seven young women (who started with me as kindergartners) were about to embark on a journey like no other; the undergraduate experience. While...
Births. Weddings. Funerals. These are the events that force us to stop, reflect and evaluate exactly what we are doing with our lives. Sadly, I had a funeral of a dear colleague I attended at the end of June. I saw her on the last day of school two weeks...
I should have been happy to see this but just I sighed. I sighed because in 2017, I did a TEDx Talk on why our students need creative and financial literacy to increase their success as productive human beings. *crickets* I sighed because in 2006, Sir Ken Robinson challenged America with the...
You are creative but here’s why you think you’re not. I am so passionate about this issue that I just quit my job to take on this quest. The terms ‘creative and ‘creativity have been hijacked. And I’m here to say we are taking it back. It has been misaligned and there...
