Keys to Success: Buiding Analytical, Creative, and Practical Skills

Carol Carter was a C student in high school. During her senior year, she got a wake up call when her brother told her that she had intelligence, but she wouldn’t go far in life unless she believed in herself enough to work hard. She began college knowing she was “behind the 8-ball” in terms of her skills. What she lacked in experience, she made up for with elbow grease and persistence. She maximized her strength as an interpersonal and intrapersonal learner. The work paid off and she graduated college with honors and a desire to help other students.

                Carol is committed to helping students turn on their brains, get motivated, and discover their abilities. As President of her own company, LifeBound, she teaches study, interpersonal, and career skills to middle school and high school students in order to help them become competitive in today’s global world. She trains and certifies coaches in academic coaching skills, and focuses on at-risk students with her volunteer teaching at the federal prison and her LifeBound work in the Denver housing projects. “All students are at-risk for something whether it is academic, emotional, social, or economic,” says Carol. “If each of us is allowed to be human and accept our flaws, we can overcome our limitations and be the best for ourselves and others.” 

                Carol also speaks on educational topics nationally and internationally.  Her first book, Majoring in the Rest of Your Life, launched her writing career and opened the door to her work on the Keys to Success series.

Joyce Bishop has taught college students for more than twenty years.  After struggling with a learning disability as a student, she focused on her visual and logical-mathematical learning abilities and went on to earn a PhD in psychology. Right now, she is in her dream job as Staff Development Coordinator at Golden West College, training other faculty in effective teaching and learning strategies and also in how to teach online.  For five years Joyce was voted “favorite teacher,” and she was Teacher of the Year for 1995 and 2000. 

            Joyce and her husband, Dave, a former high school principal, started a program 17 years ago for girls who have no family support or whose families are unable to help them through school.  Since that time, the Pathways to Independence non-profit foundation has sent 215 young women to college, and 175 have graduated into gainful employment.  While the girls have come from backgrounds as diverse as prison, extreme poverty, abuse, or psychological disorders, Joyce and Dave have been their champions.  One of her Pathways graduates, Valerie, who obtained her degree in nursing and is now working at a major university hospital as a pediatric nurse.  “It is so inspiring to see what these girls do with their lives,” says Joyce, “once they know that they can do anything.”

Sarah Kravits lives the strategies for success she writes about. As an author and mother of three children aged 8, 5, and 2, she faces the challenges of time management, goal achievement, and fulfilling responsibilities (not to mention eating right and getting enough sleep).  In her writing and research, she works to keep up with technology and the growth of knowledge.  In her relationships with work colleagues all over the country as well as with friends and family, she strives for integrity, effective communication, productive teamwork, and, most of all, flexibility. Creativity also plays a dominant role. Along with her husband, an actor on Broadway and a musician, she promotes creative ideas and actions in the home (and needs lots of creativity in order to manage children’s strong wills and unique personalities).

           Unlike Carol and Joyce, Sarah thrived in school from an early age based on her strength in verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical learning. A few years after graduating from the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Scholar, she worked as program director for LifeSkills, Inc., a nonprofit organization that aims to further the career and personal development of high school students.  This work led her into co-authoring her first student success text and the realization she was driven to empower students to reach their goals.  “Lifelong learning is the essential success skill,” says Sarah. “I would happily trade places with my readers to have the chance to challenge my mind in a college classroom again.  Learning gives you a chance to go beyond just thinking about your dreams so that you can make them happen.”