Hey friends,

Here is what I know:

One of the biggest challenges our kids will face is to “continue going” despite obstacles, closed doors, and hearing “no.” 

Napoleon Hill said: ”Winners never quit, quitters never win.” 

My dream for our kids is that they are the winners. They know what they want, have a burning desire to achieve it, and are unstoppable in their pursuit.

Have you done cold calling before and got hung up on 99% of your calls? Have you tried to gain buy-in to a new idea to be shut down by “this can’t be done”? Have you gotten a rejection letter when you applied for a job, university, or team? What was your response? Have you ever given up? I know I have, and, looking back, I wished I would’ve tried again!

I bet our kids will get more “no” responses in their lives than “yes.” How can we help our kids develop the unstoppable spirit of a...

Hey friends,

The last two weeks have been crazy busy with events and meetings. Empowered Living Live conference, the rollout of the Physics Bus Initiative to one of the largest school districts in the USA, video shoots, marketing material development, and strategic business building in Jupiter Island and West Palm Beach with some of the top thinkers - just to name a few. 

While the content and opportunities were second to none, the biggest gift was the people. I was privileged to meet people from all over the world and all sectors of leadership. 

Here are some of my takeaways

(with my spin on how each can be applicable to our kids):

1. It takes courage to dream big

It’s too easy to marginalize ourselves and think in terms of current results. The Wright brothers did not know how to fly a plane, there was no evidence that it could  be done, but that didn’t stop them from dreaming. On the playgrounds and in classrooms, our kids...

Hi friends,

Here is something to think about:

Have you been taught how to create a vision, spend time with it daily, and overcome our mind’s sabotaging limiting beliefs?

Most of us haven't.

Schools and universities don’t teach it. There’s no time for it, just as there is no time in our daily schedules for 5 minutes to spend on vision (… up until now though, right?!).

My MBA, years of working with corporations and teams on forming mission and vision statements, and operating multi-million dollar projects have not prepared me to overcome overwhelming voices of self-doubt,. None of these experiences have taught me to overcome fears of getting my hopes up, or the baggage of a “surviving” mode having grown up inCommunist Russia. Until my mentors pointed it out, I didn’t realize how much I was self-censoring my vision before it even came to my conscious awareness. 

In school, we’re typically...

Hey friends,

We all have big dreams for ourselves and our kids. Nobody’s ever said “I just want to be average and have average kids!” What do our dreams actually look like?

In simple words (and for my busy parent brain, the need for simple, real things I can implement is huge): Vision = What do you want?

In my search for vision best practices, I spent countless hours reading, researching, speaking to the owners of multi-million dollar companies, and observing people who had achieved their desired results.

 Here is one of the gold nuggets to make your vision matter:

There is no shortcut to vision. To be successful and unstoppable, we must have one!

This famous phrase pretty much sums it up: “Without vision people perish.” I bet you can think of somebody who’s wasted their life being aimless and mentally just existing, rather than living. This is not what we want for ourselves or our kids. 

...

Hey friends,

Here is a big idea for today: 

Our vision is the biggest motivator or the lid on achievement and our futures.

These photos are of my kids and me in Peterhof, a summer residence for Russian Emperors in Sant Petersburg, Russia. As the tour guide was sharing how Ekaterina The Great met world leaders  and how much history happened here, there was an epic question in my mind. “Can I imagine my kids living in rooms like this? Can I imagine my kids making the biggest decisions of the world?” 

You can see my worried face, because the answer came in a split second - “No!!!” More than that, my mind immediately began justifying why these things were not for my kids and weren’t important.

Wow. Here I am, teaching my kids they are unstoppable, and without a second thought, a huge lid is put on the ceiling on how far they can go. Even in my imagination, my mind was not able to see my kids as truly...

As you brainstorm methods and tools, your mind will likely go into a pattern of asking “Tell me How!” If the mind can’t find answers on how to do something, it will automatically conclude “It can’t be done,” ask “Who do you think you are?” or “None of your results support this!” You may even tell yourself that none of the people you know do this, and other BS (aka “belief systems”). Any time when we try to do something new, our minds will not recognize it and it will act in the protective mode of a “terror barrier”. 

Here is the growth law that is like the law of gravity (it’s there whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not): 

The growth happens only outside of our comfort zone. It happens only when we step over our fears [our terror barrier], our sense of uncomfortable, of taking risks, of trying and failing.

I learned that the most...

Life evolves too quickly for any system to adopt proactively ahead of changes. If we want our kids to be successful in this rapidly changing world with continually-mounting pressure, we must do it ourselves.

Michio Kaku said “Our future is like a freight train. It is not a question of whether change is coming or not; it is coming whether you want it or not.” 

All we can do is decide whether we want our kids and ourselves to be in the driver’s seat or miss the train completely. 

Transformation is not an event. Transformation is a movement. 

It takes time, intentionality, focus, determination! 

You may think “My kids are too young for this, I have plenty of time.” When I was pulling my hair out because of what was happening with my 13 year old, it felt as if time was moving at light speed. I was Repairing, not Preparing. 

As I reflect on growing through the crises with her, I learn and am now...

Hi Friends,

This is Maria, Founder of After School University. One of my biggest passions is helping kids be unstoppable. I am a mom of three kids myself, and just like you, my dream is to give the world to them.

Here is a BIG elephant in the room: I don’t have all the answers and I’m not going to teach you how to parent, teach, or influence others. 

No WAY!

Just as our kids are incredible and unstoppable, so are you. The way we parent or teach our kids, the values we share with them, and how we define success are different for each of us, and there is huge beauty and power in each of our approaches.

The Story Behind the Story

One of my hardest years was 2016. That year, I felt I was loosing my teenage daughter, Tatiana. It broke my heart. That I was feeling devastated is an understatement.  We could not communicate or understand each other, we stoped being friends, and we did not feel like a family. I thought...