The incredible Frank Bruni spoke today at our local theater- Landmark – as his book, Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be, just came out in paperback.

He started with a story that I think summed up a good portion of his speech, his book, and the mantra of One on One Mentors: He was asked to teach a class on writing at Princeton. he received 48 applications for 16 spots. After reading them all, he couldn’t pick betw…een them given their high quality, so he simply chose at random. Midway through the semester he noticed the actual work assignments for more than half the kids never again approached what he had liked so much in their applications. He asked a number of faculty about this, with all expressing no surprise at this outcome. The takeaway: kids are being taught that the idea is to be great at getting into things – so they prioritize that – and that it is not so important what happens afterwards.