Five Things I Wish I Knew In Fifth Grade


The future is in your hands
by Pete Blazek & Dennis Stevens


When I was in the fifth grade, I didn't think much about my future. I was focused on hanging out with my friends, playing baseball and swimming, getting my school work done, avoiding bullies, and trying to get girls to talk to me. School was more of a chore or social event than the main event. Many of the lessons I learned in school have never proved valuable to me in my career. What I didn't know was that over the next four years I would form habits that would shape everything I would become as an adult. These habits shaped how well prepared I was for the world when I got out of high school.

When you are taught something, what you already know affects what you learn. If you don't know what you are looking for you may miss the opportunity to learn something important. When you learn something and put it into practice, it becomes a habit. Habits are built into your brain and they become part of who you are. Habits happen without much thinking and they will influence everything you will become as you apply them in other life situations. Whether you do it thoughtfully or not, you develop habits in all areas of your life when you are young and the habits you form shape how you participate in the world when you grow up. If you develop bad habits when you are young, you will only be able to change them with great effort and strain when you get older.

For most of what you are being taught in school, the content matters. The core skills of reading, writing and math are important. But these are not the most important lessons you learn in school. The most important lessons are the ones you will learn about people, time management, and teamwork, since these will have the greatest impact on your success. The world is changing so fast, we don't know what content will be most important to you. The issues we face are changing and that rate of change is growing faster. The growth of consumption and movement of jobs and wealth around the world are altering the work place into something different from our parents' work place. The good news? You can learn to focus on forming the right habits to help you succeed in this changing world.

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Pete Blazek and Dennis Stevens lead Synaptus, a consulting firm that helps executives improve business performance by connecting strategy to execution. For more information, please visit www.synaptus.com.