[This article by Robin Booth was published in Fast Company Oct 2017)

"Have you just wasted the last 12 years of your life at school?”

This was the question I asked over 2000 of South Africa’s top school graduates as their key note speaker at the Gibs business school annual career expo 2017.

They quickly quietened down when I shared the reality of their future:

1)    If you think you can choose a career, the trouble is that the top jobs in demand today, were not even in existence 5 years ago.
2)    If you study a technical degree today, and at the rate technology is evolving, the information you learn today will already be outdated in 3 years’ time leaving you with useless information.
3)    By the age of 34, you will have had more than 15 different jobs.
4)    In 5 years’ time less than 9% of you will have jobs relating to your degrees and studies.
5)    By the age of 35 over half of you with all these fancy degrees will most likely be working for a company owned and run by a someone less smart than you who just made it through school.
6)    The studies across the last 20 years show there is no correlation between success in school and success in business.

Six months ago my story sounded very different. I had kept doing what I had always done and had kept getting what I had always got. Then something changed.
My results in the last 6 months:

- Have a $15 million property development on the table.
- Started, grew and monetised three different businesses 2 of which are global.
- Spoke on 7 different stages with audiences up to 1800 people, in different cities, sharing wealth creation strategies and coaching outcomes.
- Featured in a high profile magazine for my international property and capital company.
- Interviewed on stage some amazing people like Ndaba Mandela and Randi Zuckerberg
- Coached high net worth clients to take their business to the next level. 

 I can still hear the words coming from JT Foxx at one of his events.
“I’ll take you to the top with me!”

The Mandela name is famous throughout the world. But did he pass on those values and that humility to his children and grandchildren? And how did Madiba understand success? I was determined to find out when I interviewed his grandson Ndaba Mandela (see the video of the interview)

Zuckerberg has a secret, and I think I have discovered it!

Zuckerberg is a household name throughout most of the world. Millions of people use Facebook and know that Mark Zuckerberg is the founder. 

And his sister, Randi Zuckerberg, is also known as the one who took Facebook to the next level.

I got to connect to her (both on and off stage), and asked her about how she builds connection and trust, both as a parent and as a succesful business person.

Here she shares her tips for creating this success, but the real secret is how she makes people feel when they speak to her.

Wayde van Niekerk is an Olympic Gold medallist at the Rio 2016 Olympics, smashing a 17 year old world record for the 400m.

And if that is not enough, he is the only person to do the following three: Run the 100m under 20secs, the 200m under 20secs, and the 400m under 44 seconds.

Even his close friend Usain Bolt’s jaw dropped when Wayde won the Olympic race!

I had the pleasure to connect to him recently, and took away 5 really important points from his story.

$500 000 to be donated  (R7 000 000) - and YOU can even get a part of it!

Robin summited Island Peak at 09:26 th on the 29th April 2017. The following days over 7500 online courses were distributed worldwide totalling over $550 0000.

Below is the outline of the project!

I have persuaded the directors of the non-profit education organisation, Synergy Schooling, that if I can summit Island Peak in May 2017 (it's a mountain peak just next to Mount Everest), they will donate $500 000 worth of online workshops to parents, schools and teachers around the world.

We want to parent to the best of our abilities. And at some point on our journey we promise this to our children.

And we want the best for our children.

But how can we prepare them and give them the best chance for happiness and success?

This lecture looks at the top skills that the top companies are looking for in the youth of today. These are the qualities YOU as the parent can develop and nurture in your children.

If you want your children to cooperatre and listen to you the first time around, then try this skill first!

Why? Well.... because it works.. no matter the age of the child, and in nearly all situations.

It's clever, it's fair, it's emotionally intelligent, and creates connection between you and your child.

If you don't know which techniques of yours are damaging your child, then how will you be able to change them?

This lecture covers some of the default ways most parents are currently using to get their children to cooperate.

Take note that they ALL are based in the negative and undermine the child. The result.... your child feels fear, guilt and powerless!

The most important thing about understanding our modern day parenting crisis is knowing how much this crisis could be costing us.

But we know it costs us frustration and patience.

In this lecture I show you how we calculate how much time we are wasting, as well as how much this could be costing us in money!

45 minutes x 7 days = 22 hours per month x12 months = 270 hours in a year.

The value of getting a child to do extra homework is not about force feeding them with irrelevant information and time consuming content, but in supporting them in the skills of self discipline, planning, organisational development and perseverance.

 But regardless of the REASON as to why your child has extra homework to do, the skills needed to get them to do so can be the same. 

We have found that what works best is to focus on the values that underpin the extra work, and not on the actual content of the work.

 So if your child has extra MATH to catch up, what we aim to develop (and celebrate), is increasing her self discipline to stay focused, and to persevere, in spite of her being bored and wanting to give up. 

These internal values (characteristics) are what support her in being successful in whatever she takes on in life. These values are within her control, and reflect the effort she puts in.

Learn how to tap into this motivational drive and then extra homework becomes easier.

As a pre-school teacher and then a primary school principal, my staff and I found many creative and intelligent ways to help families overcome the heartbreaking challenges of separation anxiety. 

 The key focus in separation anxiety is in supporting the transference of trust and safety from parent to school. And this will nearly always be done by building the quality of the relationship the child experiences in the school environment.

 By increasing a child's sense of belonging and sense of connectedness at school, their willingness to stay at school and explore new challenges increases. 

This lesson gives you examples of what to do, and how to empower yourself to do that, in spite of a school that ignores your requests for support. You don't have to wait for the school to sort this out. Take charge and make it happen!

Getting children to sleep in their own beds, and to fall asleep on their own is one of the most frequent topics that comes up between parents. 

And although each family has their own theory about this, there are general things you can do to support the implementation of YOUR choice.

The most strategic and intelligent way to resolve this is to find ways to give your child what they are needing, but on your terms, and according to your timeline. So a win-win scenario.

This lesson looks at examples of how you can implement some of these ideas.

Are you a shouter? 88% of parents find themselves shouting at their children and nearly all of them feel guilty afterwards.

When some people get angry they turn this anger inward and go quiet (and the anger burns inside). Other people vent this anger outward, and often this comes out as yelling and shouting.

And although this may be your default experience, you can change this with the skills I cover in this lesson.

Increase your awareness of what triggers you, learn how to express your anger intelligently and appropriately so your children hear you instead of fear you, and then find ways to practice saying this.

Just by knowing WHAT to do instead of yelling will help in over 40% of the yelling situations you find yourself in.