E66: Taking Responsibility and Developing Physical Skills w/ Dr. Bill Coplin

Join us as we sit down with Bill Copeland, Syracuse University professor and author of "10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College," for an eye-opening conversation about the first two essential skill sets for student success: taking responsibility and developing physical skills. He sheds light on how owning your education goes beyond grades and content, preparing you for a rewarding career and a fulfilling life.

In this episode, Bill dissects the complexities of stress, offering practical advice on time management and stress control. We also emphasize the importance of treating college like a full-time job, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and learning to control stress rather than eliminating it, as these skills are crucial for long-term success. We also delve into financial responsibility, the pitfalls of overcommitting, and the significance of developing physical skills such as health maintenance. We explore why presenting yourself well, honing note-taking skills, and fostering self-reliance are vital for young professionals. This episode is packed with invaluable advice for young adults and parents.
Links:
BillCoplin.com
Bill on LinkedIn
Note: As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn commissions on qualifying purchases.
Purchase Bill's book: 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College
Intelligent.com article: "Nearly 4 in 10 Employers Avoid Hiring Recent College Grads in Favor of Older Workers"

Transcript

Mr. Webb: 0:00

Can students and adults completely eliminate stress? How important is time and money management in college and beyond? Did you know that some college graduates don't even know how to speak or dress appropriately in a job interview? Welcome to the conservative classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, Mr. Webb, and I'm glad you're here.

Mr. Webb: 0:29

This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination. Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values.

Mr. Webb: 1:18

In today's episode, we're talking again to Bill Copeland, author and Syracuse University professor, about his 10 basic skill sets to do well and to do good. Today, we're going to tackle the first two skill sets, about taking responsibility and developing physical skills that will help students become successful adults. Now let's get started. Today we welcome back Bill Copeland to the conservative classroom. Bill is founder and professor of the policy studies major at Syracuse University and author of several books. If you missed our first episode together, go back and listen to episode 65 from June 26, 2024. Bill, thank you for joining us again.

Bill Coplin: 2:05

Glad to be here.

Mr. Webb: 2:08

And for my listeners if you want to know more about Bill, go back and listen to episode 65. We kind of start out with his story and how he got into doing what he's doing now and writing books and so forth, but we didn't quite have time on that episode to get into the specifics of 10 basic skill sets to do well and to do good. I realized pretty quickly in our conversation that I should dedicate at least an entire episode on that topic. However, bill has graciously agreed to spread these 10 skill sets out over several episodes so we can kind of take our time on each one. So I probably won't release these back to back, though, but Bill, tell us again why these 10 skill sets are so important.

Bill Coplin: 3:00

Okay. So I think students who go to college, most of them want to be prepared for a career when they graduate. That's why they're going, that's why they're spending the money and the time. Now, what percentage of students is that? The number one priority? I think it's 80 or 90 percent. I mean some go actually, some go to party. So maybe it's not 90 percent. I mean some go actually, some go to party, right, maybe it's not 90 percent, but uh, some go to, you know, for intellectual development, to learn more um.

Bill Coplin: 3:36

And the model of college was originally you go to because you love to learn um, and that has changed over the years, especially with the rise in price of tuition.

Bill Coplin: 3:51

To be no, I want to be prepared.

Bill Coplin: 3:53

It's an investment in my professional future and the key to the investment is, in my opinion, the skills that are expected of anybody who gets a job if they graduate.

Bill Coplin: 4:10

These skills are also necessary, I think, to function in life generally and to be a good citizen. So my view is, the core curriculum in an undergraduate program is skills, and I developed 10 skill sets, wrote a book in the early 2004 where I articulated them, and then I've been working on them throughout, trying to incorporate them in my coursework, my programs, them in my coursework, my programs, but also in colleges generally, as well as in high schools, where I think these skills have to begin. And the school systems try to do some of this, but the emphasis on content and grades obscures what they're trying to do and the students don't know. Oh, I'm supposed to get skills, and so by focusing on skills, I'm hoping to give students a lighthouse on where they're aiming to direct their education so they can get what they want. So that's what, and I call it Skills Win, and it is informational and it's available on BillCopelandcom if you want to see it in more detail, and feel free to email me. I'm an advocate for skills.

Mr. Webb: 5:50

And tell us again the name of the book.

Bill Coplin: 5:54

Well, the book is called Ten Things Employers Warned you to Learn in College, and the revised edition was 2012. Even though it's fairly old I was looking at it it's pretty still on target, still the same message. It's about skills, and the skills you get you don't necessarily develop in your academic programs. Most college students spend little, relatively little, time on their academic programs compared to their social life and the kinds of tremendous student activities that are available.

Mr. Webb: 6:38

Uh, in most I would think that skill sets would not change much over time, except maybe those that have to do with technology, which we'll eventually get into. But let's dive into that first one. Bill Skill set one taking responsibility. And just to remind the listeners, within each skill set there are a few skills involved, so it's 10 skill sets, but it's 38 skills in total and I'm excited to get into them. So, skill set, one, taking responsibility. I'm going to turn it over to you now, bill Okay.

Bill Coplin: 7:23

So obviously this is the most important skill set, because if you don't take responsibility for your own education, you will not get the skills you need, because you'll be told to get high grades and learn whatever the faculty wants you to learn, which is not centered on skills. It's centered on content. So you'll study English literature or you'll study math, and what you're taught is how to get a good grade on either a paper or a test, and whether that measures your actual knowledge of that information after the test is over or the paper is written is open to question. The theory is, by studying all this content, you will develop certain skills, usually called critical thinking, which is also in my 10 skill sets, but more clearly defined so taking responsibility. I have four different skills and I'll talk about each one separately.

Bill Coplin: 8:52

The first is motivate yourself. If you're not motivated to see college as a skills gymnasium, a place where you will get better and better at typing, at sending communications, at problem solving, at doing the things you would do in your career, if you don't see it that way and you don't take it seriously, you're not. If you don't see it that way and you don't take it seriously, um I I like to say you're going to be a loser? Um, that's how I talk to my students you're going to be a loser. You want to be a loser? Okay, just sit around, get your grades, party and um, don't figure out how to practice these skills. So motivating yourself sounds sort of trivial, but it's really the key. People don't motivate themselves, they won't do it. And the thing about motivating yourself is it's hard. I'll think of a gym, like I have to. I have a personal trainer, because if I didn't have a personal trainer and go to the gym, I wouldn't be walking there. Do I like going to the gym? No, I hate it. I call my personal trainer. He tortures me. I have torture Now. Why do I torture myself? Because I want to walk. Why should you torture yourself practicing these skills? Because you want to do well and do good. It's pretty simple, but it's easy to say, yeah, I want it. It's another thing to do it, so I have to put that up as the most important thing. My second skill set is to control stress.

Bill Coplin: 11:00

Now, college students if the students are highly stressed admit stress. There's a lot of mental health information out there showing they are under stress. First of all, stress is a natural part of life. So let's get like serious here. I know there's a famous author who wrote a book. He grew up as a migrant farmer and he wrote in his book his name is Eric Hoffer, h-o-f-f-e-r. He wrote in his book that he picked peas for 10 years and then they decided to send them to a string bean farm. And then they decided to send him to a string bean farm. He couldn't sleep at night. Why? Because he was changing his behavior. Behavior change creates stress and until students learn to understand that and deal with that stress, they're going to be not happy, not perform as well.

Bill Coplin: 12:13

10% of all college students are in some special programs and many of them it's a function of stress. I would say 100% of college students, 100%, let's put it. Everybody has stress. 100% of college students, 100%, let's put it. Everybody has stress.

Bill Coplin: 12:28

How you deal with the stress is critical. And if you think about college, what could be more stressful? You've got to make new friends, you're in a dorm, you've got to listen to all that. Now you've got to deal with the professors. You can't even understand what they're talking about half the time. To deal with the professors you can't even understand what they're talking about half the time and you have to march to take these requirements, some of which you don't want. Then you have financial problems, then you probably have family problems, then you have your own personal problems. You're in a very stressful situation and over time you're not going to be successful if you're paralyzed by stress and you have anxiety.

Bill Coplin: 13:15

And I think college is a great place to do it, because you can make a lot of mistakes and then they're over with. So you get a B plus instead of an A. So what you know, you instead of an A. So what you know. You'll stress yourself over that. Right, you're going to stress yourself because you got a B-plus and you didn't get an A. Why are you going to stress yourself? Well, it may affect getting into graduate school. Were you going to graduate school? Well, I don't know. So you see where I'm going here.

Mr. Webb: 13:42

Yeah, I'd like to say a couple of things about the stress. I think a lot of college students think that once I graduate, once I get a job, the stress will be behind them. But there's always some kind of stress in your life, and that's the second thing I was wanting to note is you didn't say eliminate stress, but control stress, and I think that's very important.

Bill Coplin: 14:10

Right. And also, no matter what I tell my students, college is a day on a beach for you people. Wait till you get in the real world. I know Bill Gates gave a graduation speech and said you think your professor was tough. Wait till you get a boss.

Mr. Webb: 14:29

Oh, that's so true.

Bill Coplin: 14:32

And the thing about it is, you know you only go to class 15 hours a week. Okay, what are you going to do the rest of the time? Well, you know, fool around. I had a student one time. We sent him to an internship in New York City where he had to get up 6 o'clock in the morning, go to the school, and the school was not a good place and a lot of stress. Okay, after three weeks he got in his bed and he wouldn't get out and his parents had to come take him home. He had been so overwhelmed because he had lived this life in college, which is a day on the beach, compared about when you're 25 years old, trying to make ends meet and deal with an obnoxious boss and whatever else. You're dealing. So see, so you think your stress level is high. Now it's going to get worse. So college is a great place to learn how to manage it. And then you're absolutely right, you can't get rid of stress. Everybody has stress. Everybody has stress because everybody has to deal with change. Change generates stress because it's risk. And where are you going to learn that? You can't take a course on that. You're going to learn it by dealing and maybe you're going to get some help when you're in college. You'll get a counselor, you'll have friends to help you. So that's my second skill on taking responsibility. Now my third skill is managing time.

Bill Coplin: 16:14

College students are very, in general, very poor time managers and this is because they went to high school and middle school and the schools tend to be sort of loose on time management. Teachers will buckle under pressure to change deadlines. Parents come in and aggravate the teacher about well, johnny was sick. We couldn't get his paper in. When was he sick? Well, about three weeks ago. All the paper was due last week. I think the teachers and the system, high school systems, encourage poor time management. And the other example of poor time management is many students and these are high performing students as well as low performing students will turn in their papers the last minute. So that means an all-nighter before. So in a general way, that creates stress too. So learning how to manage your time is very important.

Bill Coplin: 17:30

I see my students use a planner or they keep an Excel spreadsheet. There are planners out there. I like to make lists, and then there are plenty of videos and information on time management tricks. My biggest trick, which I tell my students is if you have something that takes less than five minutes, do it now, because you can get your list from 20 down to 10 by doing that. But if you, if you say, oh yeah, I gotta, I have to, uh, I gotta write this short note, uh, that'll be easy to do, but it's still on your list, and then the list looks longer than it is. So that's one of them. If you have a big project, start it right away and you don't have to finish it, but start it right away, because until you start it, you're going to be more afraid of it than when you do start it. So I think time management big, big problem.

Bill Coplin: 18:44

I run my courses that are very tight on time. You lose points if you don't get stuff in on time. And I have a course where, if you get everything in on time, you get an A. Well, guess what? Half the class doesn't get an A because they can't even get it in on time. Well, hopefully, by failing, they'll learn how important managing your time is and it's just a matter of organizing yourself.

Bill Coplin: 19:22

Organizing yourself. Now the question to term organizing yourself raises a problem that most college students have, and I think high school students too, because there's more activities going on. I call it optionitis. It's a disease is you explore options and you take on too many options and you don't have enough time in the day to do it and you don't recognize that these options take time and create even more stress. So you have to make decisions. Let's say you want to join a club. Well, when you go to the club fair and there's like five clubs you want to join, you can't decide which club. Ok, so you sign up for all five. Then you go to three of the five and then you make a commitment to two of the five and you really should have made a commitment to one of the five and you really should have made a commitment to one of the five. It's only natural to have optionitis, but it's the key to bad time management because you put yourself in a stressful situation. You can't do everything at once.

Mr. Webb: 20:31

Right, I'm still guilty of that. I'm stretching myself too thin sometimes.

Bill Coplin: 20:36

I know Me too, yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, because these skills are things you practice, that you try to get better at. You'll never be perfect, but you should keep them in mind. The final skill in taking responsibility I have is well budget your money, this money thing this I'm talking mainly for college students, but even high school students. Don't spend more than you have. Learn to discipline yourself and take responsibility for, for your, your economic situation. Now, parents who allow them, their kids, to buy a lot of stuff are not doing their kids a favor. Parents shouldn't, in my view, should not do that. They can give well, we're getting into parenting here. But let me put it a different way. If I ask a college student will you have debt when you graduate college? Nine out of ten of them don't know, and well, five out of ten of them don't know, and nine out of ten of them don't know what the number is, and this is because their parents are financing them. One of the things you want to do by the time you graduate is to have a very good grasp of your financial situation, and you should start that right in college. If your parents give you a credit card and they pay your credit card. You should tell them no, I don't want you to do that, I have to, and I know what I just said will never happen right, but I think coming to grips with the economic realities of being in college and being aware of the expenses and understanding the threat of debt, it's very important. Now, if we're talking about high school kids, I see some parents will put it right on their back and say well, if you don't go to a state university, it's going to triple the cost and you're going to have to pay the extra cost. But some parents won't do that. They'll say oh, I want my child to get the best and to get what they want. Well, that's treating their child like a child.

Bill Coplin: 23:40

And one of the points of the whole skills-win approach is college should be a place where children are transformed into adults. They leave college. They should be an adult. To be an adult, they have to act like an adult as soon as they can, and so the institution has to teach them like adults. And that has to do with giving in on rules and getting argued out of a grade and letting the student get away with things, and it's a constant struggle, you know. Let's take well in taking responsibility. I don't have in here, don't use your cell phone in class, but I would somehow put that in there, right, um, because you, you're, you're. What you're trying to do is develop yourself to be a responsible adult that will be valued in the workforce. So that that's sort of a summary of taking responsibility I feel like, uh, let's see.

Mr. Webb: 25:12

Number two was control stress. And then three and four was time management and money management. Whether they're students or adults, money and time those two things are going to cause you so much stress and if you can learn these skills, manage your time, manage your money or budget your money. That's really going to help with the stress aspect and, in my opinion, that helps with the motivation aspect of number one motivate yourself. But that's just my two cents.

Bill Coplin: 25:49

I lump them all together. I'm glad you think it made sense to lump them all together.

Mr. Webb: 25:53

Yeah, it absolutely does, so that was taking responsibility Now skill set two developing physical skills. So let's get into that one. Bill, tell us about that.

Bill Coplin: 26:08

Okay. So the physical skills. People don't really think. Well, I go to college, I got to develop my physical skills. Well, physical skills are very, very important and I have four of them here and they are sort of very different and they're taken from the point of being career ready. I guess the way to think about my 10 skill sets is to be prepared to be career ready. So, to be career ready, the first thing is you have to stay healthy, and college is not a place where it's easy to stay healthy, both mentally and physically. But I'll talk about physically. The dorms are noisy, creepy. Students will set up fire alarms 3 o'clock in the morning.

Bill Coplin: 27:14

It's not easy to get enough sleep. It's not easy to get enough sleep. It's not easy to get enough sleep and what the student has to do is to figure out a way not to stay up all night studying and writing papers Myself. When I went to college, I said to myself I'm treating college as a nine-to-five job. I'm not doing homework after five and I'm not doing homework on the weekend, but I am going to use the eight hours a day. Remember I only have 15. That's 40 hours. I have 15 hours in class. That leaves me 25 hours to study.

Bill Coplin: 27:56

Now, that might be hard, but I think staying up late leads to poor health. It's already, you're already in a disease-ridden physical facility, so you've got to protect yourself and you have to sort of eat right also, and then that becomes becomes another problem. I have students that are so busy they can't get their meals during the day because they're so busy, and then the colleges give in to that by letting them get takeout meals. So I've seen you know students, no, they never eat in the cafeteria. They get in the morning, they get their backs and take them with them, or they stop and get them in the afternoon. I don't think that's really good. Of course we all behave that way. Right, we run around and eat in the car, and so the other thing is the students always complain about the food, and I don't believe they're not getting healthy food. They say they're not. I don't buy it. They're just choosing not healthy food, so sleeping.

Bill Coplin: 29:27

The other thing is this video game thing, especially by male students at night. I mean, that's a disease they can't break, that, it's a habit. It's not good. It's not good and there are other kinds of things. Um, like that people do, um waste time but prevents them from getting eight hours of sleep, when we know they should get seven or eight hours of sleep. Now also, they've learned not to take care of themselves while they're in high school and maybe middle school. As soon as their parents back off and let them make decisions about sleeping, they tend to not get enough sleep. So that's one variable. So how to stay healthy eat right, sleep right.

Bill Coplin: 30:34

I think going to the gym is a very good idea to you know, just do a workout every other day for a half hour. It sets a routine, it fills time and it'll make you stronger. So that's that one. Now.

Bill Coplin: 30:51

The next one we have is looking good. Now, this is done from sort of point of view of, well, if you go, look for a job, you want to look good. And what does looking good mean? Well, it means like washing your hair before you go. It means you know being welcomed, wearing clothes that are appropriate and realizing that your clothes provide a view of you where people will make judgments about you. And you do that. I think you do that if you're like going for fraternities or doing something social. But what about? It's part of a professional approach, but it's part of a professional approach. Now my third skill is typing well, which seems very trivial. They don't teach typing anymore. They don't do typing because typing is not intellectual enough. I guess I had typing when I was in high school. To me it me it was. Actually I was in the ninth grade, yeah, so it was middle school.

Mr. Webb: 32:13

Yeah, at the middle school that I teach at, they teach they have it. They have it for seventh graders as a part of the year course. I'm not sure that they have it after that and I'm not sure that other schools do that.

Bill Coplin: 32:31

Well, I know the schools in Syracuse don't do it at all and now the kids take state tests on computers. I think they do, yeah, they do, yeah. So typing 15 words a minute is an inherent barrier to doing well on the test. So what I actually? I have my students go into the high schools and they run typing competitions and they give awards. And the thing about typing now is you don't need to take a class because all you do is go to typingcom and you play the little games they have, and it doesn't have to be a class. This is another example of what's wrong with how our education system works. It creates classes for things and then it says, well, we can't fit it in because there's all these other important things where typing and all these skills in my skill sets can be practiced in courses and there doesn't have to be a course on it. It doesn't have to be a course on it, so there has to be exposure and practice in it which can be inserted in different places. So you know we did it. We walk into a clip. My students who walk into class run a typing competition which takes 10 minutes in a class and the average typing goes from 15 words a minute to 35 words a minute, over six times. I mean, we have them do it six times and I think what happens is they go home and practice some more. So, um, typing is important and then the final thing I have is taking notes.

Bill Coplin: 34:24

When I originally wrote the book, wrote the book I was thinking of you have to write good notes that you can read, because my writing is so bad I can't read what I write. So I actually put it in there. But now I'm drawing it to be. I don't think that as an operational discussion, that as an operational discussion, students take enough notes. So if it's individual, face-to-face, they should write down notes. But when you're doing Zooms with teachers and people or interviewing, you should be taking notes right on the computer while you're doing them.

Bill Coplin: 35:10

And I have, I have students who do that who and I say oh, how did you remember all that? Well, I took notes while you were talking. Oh, okay, in fact, now I say to them send me your notes when we're finished so I know what we talked about and then I can remember it. So I've actually it's actually taught me how important it is. I think taking notes are very when you get in the real world and the boss says you know, I want you to do these three things. Don't trust your memory, you've got to write it down.

Bill Coplin: 35:45

You're going to forget them and you don't want to go back to the boss and say, oh, you said three things. I know I think I had the first two, but what was the third? You don't want to do that ever.

Mr. Webb: 35:58

Right, I hope folks aren't cursed with a terrible memory like I am, but 100% that's me. I have to write it down or I will not remember it.

Bill Coplin: 36:12

Oh, yeah, me too, and unfortunately I violate this skill and don't write them down. And then part is I can't, I don't know I can't read my writing, but no, you have to. And then, um, I think, I think I am thinking, wow, it's uh, but I, I think, as you get older, you know, but like I never could remember, um, these things. And as you get older and you get, I think what's happening? Because these people in general are doing so much, they're multitasking so many things, they have to write them down.

Mr. Webb: 36:51

Right.

Bill Coplin: 36:54

You just have to. Yeah, so practicing, that is a good thing to do in college. So this skill set is pretty short. I don't think we have to spend more time on it. I put it in there because I don't think Don't forget, the book I wrote was for going to college, because I don't think college students think about things like health and typing and what they look like and taking notes. I think they get bad habits. Now, some have had very good habits through high school, but I think the majority don't have good habits. So that's why I put this list of skill sets in there.

Mr. Webb: 37:44

And as we were talking a few minutes ago about dressing appropriately, and as we were talking a few minutes ago about dressing appropriately, that caused me to remember something. Ted, I don't know if you've seen this survey from intelligentcom. I'll send you a link to this when we finish recording because I think you probably want to check it out if you haven't already seen it. But it was a survey, let's see. It was about 789 employers and so this is what employers said during job interviews Recent college graduates have struggled with eye contact. And it says 53% and I'll also put the link in the show notes for listeners that want to check this out and what I'm not sure of. I don't know if that means 53% of employers have said they have seen that recent College of Graduates struggle with eye contact or if that 53% means that 53% of interviewees struggle with eye contact. But the way I see this is that 53% of the respondents say recent college graduates 50% reported that recent college graduates ask for unreasonable compensation.

Mr. Webb: 39:09

Okay, but this next one this is what made me think of it. 47% dressed inappropriately and we're talking about a job interview. Yeah. 27% reported that recent college graduates used inappropriate language during a job interview 21% refused to turn on camera during a virtual interview. And I laughed when I saw that one.

Mr. Webb: 39:39

Oh, I'm going to say those folks didn't get that job. This one really floors me and it goes back to something else that you said earlier. So 19% brought a parent to their interview, and we're talking about college graduates. 19% of employers reported that recent college graduates brought a parent to their interview. That's almost one out of five. That blows my mind Again. I don't know if it's one out of five graduates or one out of five. Employers report that they have noticed that behavior.

Bill Coplin: 40:18

Either way. That's crazy. You know, 15 years ago I was pretty close to the head of recruiting for GE and he this is 15 years ago he was saying that the kids are bringing the parents to the interview and also having trying to have the parent negotiate a salary. Oh my goodness, you know what a salary? Oh my goodness, um, but you know what this is? Um, if you stop and think about this, this is the child still being the child rather than the adult. So parents don't want their kids to grow up, right? Um, so they make all these behaviors that keep them as children, and that's really very self, in my view, very selfish. They have to let their kids grow up, they have to let go, and when I get a hold of a parent, I start lecturing them on this. Like, don't do that.

Mr. Webb: 41:25

They're not helping them. They're actually making it more difficult, and if I was an employer, I don't care how good someone did on a job interview if they brought their parent.

Bill Coplin: 41:36

I mean that's it because even if you hire- this person?

Mr. Webb: 41:41

what happens, you know, when Billy has a tummy ache, is mom going to call in sick for him? What happens when he gets in trouble at work? Are you gonna have to deal with the parent? I mean, these parents are not helping these. I started to say kids, but they're not kids anymore, they're adults.

Bill Coplin: 41:56

I think that's I mean. Also, I think that college professors treat students as kids rather than as adults. They are going to tell the kids the truth and the kids are going to repeat it back, and also they'll also not maintain standards because they don't want Johnny to be unhappy. So I think it's inherent in the college structure to not treat them as adults. It's very interesting Like a professor might have trouble with his kids not coming to class, ok, so it makes a couple of threats and nothing to happen.

Bill Coplin: 42:45

So then he reaches out to the advisor and the advisor says yeah, we got trouble with this code. All the time he's doing that to everybody. And why is that? Well, because nobody will take a stand and let them have it. And this has to do with the whole bias about making them feel bad, and it's very destructive. It's very destructive. I just don't like it and it doesn't make sense.

Bill Coplin: 43:23

I've read, of course, conservatives blame this whole thing on Dr Spock, who don't punish, and you know what. There's some truth in that, and then that has now become epidemic. And there's other things going on in colleges where kids can pull and not. I mean, most of them do have serious problems, but some of them don't. And it gets back to the well, why is the parent putting up with this? Well, they don't want to get unhappy. So the answer is is and we're really getting back to set one is the student has to learn to take responsibility and not have the parents take responsibility. Right and um, yeah, and I know about that. Well, I've had, I've had students I've advised, and they'll say can you wait a minute? And then they pull out their cell phone and call their mother and ask them which course they should take. Oh, man, right in front of me, and you know, you've heard of helicopter parents, right, yeah, so that's part of it too.

Mr. Webb: 44:49

And the kids are yeah, well, it's good, you know, it's okay to have a parent as an advisor, you know someone that you can go to to get advice, but I think the problem is when you depend on them to make your decisions for you, exactly, exactly. So that's first two skills, wrapped up Of those two skill sets and those, let's see that was a total of eight skills. All right, what would you say out of those eight skills, are there any of those eight that's more important?

Bill Coplin: 45:35

If they just remembered one of these skills, which one's most important of those eight? Well, I have two. I have a tie between motivate yourself and control stress, and if I had one, it would be control stress, because I think fear, everybody has fear, and when you have a fear, the only way to deal with it is to take action. So I think stress which is stimulated by fear, controlling stress, in today's world especially, would be the top one out of all these eight, by far.

Mr. Webb: 46:21

Yeah, I tend to agree with you on that, and I mentioned before that managing your time and budgeting your money if you do those things, that will also help with stress. And then after that, you talked about staying healthy eat right, sleep right, exercise all those things help with that too, yeah, so I love so far, I love the order that you've got things. I think it's great, and I'll put a link to your book in the show notes Okay, great, and also put the link to that survey that I mentioned for folks that want to check that out.

Bill Coplin: 46:58

Yeah, I think that's very interesting. Yeah, I can't wait for you to check it out there's.

Mr. Webb: 47:03

you might realize that you've really stumbled onto something with your, with your skill sets here, but thanks so much for joining us today. Bill, on the Conservative Classroom, I appreciate it. I know our listeners appreciate and probably look forward to talking about the remaining skill sets. So thank you so much for coming on.

Bill Coplin: 47:23

Thank you, joey, I appreciate it.

Mr. Webb: 47:26

That's it for today's episode of The Conservative Classroom. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. If you liked what you heard, please don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Most importantly, share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. You can also connect with us on social media and share your thoughts on today's topic. Give feedback on the podcast or suggest a topic by sending me an email at TheConservativeClassroom@ gmail. com. We'd love to hear from you.

Mr. Webb: 48:05

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