Author Ana Homayoun on her Latest Book, "Erasing the Finish Line: The New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades and College Admission"

Feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of preparing your children for college applications? Join me and my guest, early career development expert Ana Homayoun, as we navigate this daunting journey. I share my own struggle with the pressure, and Ana provides me with invaluable insight and perspective on the fallacy of "finish lines".

With Ana's guidance, we explore the importance of executive functioning skills, systems, connections, perspective, and acceptance in shaping our definition.

It's time to challenge ourselves to redefine success beyond the traditional concept of grades and college admissions.

Find out more about my guest, Ana Homayoun:
https://anahomayoun.com/
https://anahomayoun.com/erasing-the-finish-line/

Transcript

Jessica Kidwell: 0:00

This podcast was created to be a space for conversation. The topics will vary, but the conversation will always be honest, authentic and sometimes even a little uncomfortable. My hope is that through these conversations, we will build a community of people who might not always agree with each other, but will definitely feel less isolated and alone. So I'm Jessica Kidwell and this is. We Should Talk About that. One, two, one, two. Hi. How are you? I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Uh oh, that seems to be becoming a trend. I think that has been like the third or fourth time I've said that in an introduction. Maybe that is why I do this show to be able to talk to people at the exact, precise moment about the topic that I am feeling overwhelmed about and, frankly, today is no different.

Jessica Kidwell: 1:05

Joining me today is Ana Homayoun. Ana is an academic advisor, an early career development expert, who has been focused for over two decades on helping students and parents discover practical solutions to promote purposeful learning. Her newest book Erasing the Finish Line, the New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades and College Admissions. She is the founder of San Francisco Bay Area-based green Ivy educational consulting and the founder and executive director of Luminaria Learning Solutions, which is a nonprofit developing the Life Navigator School Advisory Program. She has authored three other books. She writes for publications like the Atlantic, the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has been featured on Good Morning America, msnbc, the Today Show and NPR, and I have cashed in on our shared knowing and respect for Amy Hepburn to have her on the show today and I'm extremely grateful for her time. Ana, thank you for being here.

Ana Homayoun: 2:12

Thanks so much for having me.

Jessica Kidwell: 2:13

I want to start with a personal anecdote to get us started on this conversation. I have a junior in high school and an eighth grader and I am feeling the pool of keeping up with the Joneses for preparing them for their future applications to college and assuming that that is the path they are on, and I already feel anxious that I'm behind or that I'm not doing enough. And I also happen to be in a peer group of people with children around the ages of already going off to college or about to go to college, and I have seen firsthand and heard the acceptance stories, the deferment and rejection, let downs and people having to almost justify if their child has a non-traditional post high school plan. Can we first start by normalizing this overwhelming feeling of mine?

Ana Homayoun: 3:10

Absolutely, and it reminds me of a story that's actually in my first book. "That Crumpled Paper was due last week. That came out in 2010. And so the story was probably from 2007.

Ana Homayoun: 3:23

And I share this story that I would always get these full page emails from parents after they had run into this one parent at like the grocery store or the soccer field, and after a while I just started picking up the phone because I'm like I don't have the energy and nor do we need to do this email back and forth. And sure enough, I would pick up the phone and I would call and people would be like I just ran into so and so and I was like you all need different conversation starters with so and so, or you need to be able to change the conversation and I say this to kids all the time too, because they'll be in lunch with their friends and then the default conversation becomes college admissions when am I applying? So and so? Got in this place, did you hear? They didn't get it anywhere.

Ana Homayoun: 4:10

Like all of this thing that just creates the sense of fear and anxiety and overwhelm. And so this is not a new story, but it's just amplified because, remember, in 2007, we didn't have the iPhone, we didn't have Instagram, we didn't have all the different ways that the information is becoming bombarded not just at us as adults, but at our kids, and so you are absolutely right to feel this way and we just like we need to give our kids tools to navigate this. We also need to support parents and caregivers.

Jessica Kidwell: 4:45

So I normally tie in my theme for the season, kind of as a way to wrap up the episodes, but for you I feel like it is necessary because it's kind of the cornerstone of everything that I want to talk about. The theme for this season is evolution, and you are on a mission to evolve and expand the notion of what success looks like. How are you doing that?

Ana Homayoun: 5:12

Well, I really want us to step back and so this new book that I wrote, "rasing the Finish Line I went back and I interviewed my students from 15 to 20 years ago, and these are young adults now in their early 30s, and what I realized and I realized in my work over 20 years with working directly with students and in schools is that we're so hyper focused on college admissions as this faulty finish line that we are losing sight of the fundamental skills that all kids need to feel connected, to feel a sense of agency, to feel a sense of there's multiple pathways to success.

Ana Homayoun: 5:52

There's not just one like way to feel successful in your life and we need to expand the notions of what that looks like. And then also that we need to have acceptance of who we are and be okay with who we are in every moment, and be okay with personal growth and opportunity and areas for growth, but not come down on ourselves if any one thing doesn't work out in the way it's planned. So my whole goal is that we move beyond this conversation of grades, test scores, college admissions and really redefine this notion around these four pillars. So the first is systems and connection, then perspective and then, lastly, this idea of acceptance, and when we do that, we help every student develop their own blueprint for success rather than borrow someone else's. That's a term I often use in the book.

Jessica Kidwell: 6:48

With Erasing the Finish Line. I really enjoyed so many aspects of the book. The number of pages of handwritten notes that I took is embarrassing and we will not cover them all A) to respect your time and B) because people need to buy the book to be able to get access to all of those notes! But I really enjoyed you spending the time that you do pointing out that the notion of a finish line is faulty, not just from this high school perspective but this whole concept of culturally we are obsessed with finish lines. Can we talk a little bit about how there's many different kinds of faulty finish lines that we hold ourselves up and then therefore our kids too?

Ana Homayoun: 7:39

And remember it starts from birth or even before, right? So we have those little pregnancy apps that say this should be, this then. And then when kids are born, we have these things that say these milestones should be happening at these times and these can be helpful if there's an intervention needed for sure. So I don't want to, you know, say everything is wrong because it's not, but at the same time, what it's done is created like oh gosh, if this isn't happening at this time for my child, then there's something wrong.

Ana Homayoun: 8:08

And one of my mentors from years ago she we were talking about math class and she often said you know, in my community we're in the Silicon Valley. I grew up in the same town. I moved there when I was 12, I talked about in the book that my office isn't right. So I've been on the same block working since I was 16 years old true story and I really found that we sort of create all these finish lines at different moments in time and you know whether it is on college admissions, whether it is on getting your first job, and what happens for a lot of kids like and young adults so let me give you an example is that I was at a company two weeks ago in New York and a recent college graduate raised her hand at the Q&A and she said you know, we just did all these things to get through school and do all these accomplishments to get this job. And it's like now what?

Ana Homayoun: 9:04

And I felt for her because we have sold this sort of false bill of goods that if you do all these things, some like magical thing and then they're like magical thing is work. And meanwhile they've been like so stressed out at every moment of their middle school and high school to get to this place and they haven't really figured out what they like. They haven't figured out the fundamental skills around, you know executive functioning skills or connection or feeling a sense of underlying purpose and being able to expand the notions of depth and the definition of success. And we're short-sighted kids and we're short-sighted young adults when we do that. So I think that we didn't realize that it's sort of just multiplied upon each other and there are so many different finish lines that we've created that I would like to do away with, and that is the whole point of a racing with finish line, and I love that you have so many notes.

Jessica Kidwell: 10:00

Well, you know I do try to build good systems to keep myself organized. How's that for a transition of one of the pillars of the four pillars systems, connections, perspective and acceptance? The first one is talking about systems and within systems. I think you encompass this concept of executive functioning and life skills outside of just getting the "A. Can we talk a little bit about that pillar and systems and how they should be looked at?

Ana Homayoun: 10:33

Sure. So for over 20 years that's what I've been doing in my office in the Silicon Valley. We work with students all over the country and actually on three continents, on executive functioning skills and teaching these skills. Before it was actually in the lexicon, so it's actually become more of a term that's used over the last decade because of a book that coined it in the way that it did.

Ana Homayoun: 10:54

But you know, organizing, planning, prioritizing, starting and completing tasks, being an adaptable thinker, all of those are things that you are going to need in life, not just to get your schoolwork done, and we under emphasize the importance of that right. Each different part of that is really important. So you may have a student that is great at organizing and planning and prioritizing but really struggles at starting and completing tasks, or they could be great at all those things, but gosh, if something goes out of whack or they have to navigate uncertainty or deal with uncertainty, then everything comes apart, and so there's every student has different places where they can benefit from extra support, and so one of the reasons I wrote about this and so importantly around life management is that I have gotten an increased number of calls to my office over the last few years, and I think the pandemic amplified this because there were such truncated learning experiences at a key developmental time for kids. And so there's so many kids right now in college young adults that don't have some of the very basic life management skills. So they have gotten into these universities and now are really struggling with the day to day, and so part of my message for families is to audit you know what are the daily tasks you are doing for your child or that you have to remind your child to do that they're going to have to do on their own when they either move out of your home, they go to college or they join the workforce one or all three of those things. And so doing that earlier, right, because I have people who call my office in, you know, after the kid has graduated from high school and say, oh he's, he's going to college in two months.

Ana Homayoun: 12:37

I'm like, well, this is a multiple year thing, it's not. You know, we got, we got 40 tasks that we're doing. Let's, let's do it all, because you also don't want to stress out the student in a major time of transition, which going to college already is. So this is something that you can start doing in middle school and high school. You know and collaborate on the list because challenges are. You are going to come up with very different things than your child on what you do or support them with, and the goal is that they identify one to two things at a time that they're going to start to take control over. It is a, you know, not a perfect thing. It's all about progress, not perfection, but to really think about these things as a way of giving kids agency, making them feel competent and also helping them feel relatedness within their school or greater community.

Jessica Kidwell: 13:28

Then that brings us right back to this whole thought of the faulty finish line. Like there might be people thinking, oh no, I haven't been doing this, maybe it's too late because my daughter is a junior, to use myself for an example. There is no time that's too late or even too early to start kind of arming these kids and young adults with life skills, as opposed to just the academic skills. There's a man on Instagram who does this very humorously. He will often read texts that he gets from his child or his children who have been off to college, and then he will read the comments from other parents who write in and it seems to solidify that the most basic knowledge, things that we take for granted, our kids leave us and we have not armed them with this information. What comes to mind is a text that he received, like what is my shoe size or what is my blood type, or how do I make an appointment for a doctor's visit? Like these are necessary life skills that I think you point out very well have been undervalued.

Ana Homayoun: 14:52

Right, and some of this is around the economic pessimism that came out of the 2008 downturn. At the same time, we had the iPhone come out, so you had all of this information and you have all of these apps that share all of this information at our fingertips, right? And then, at the same time, we're so worried that any one thing we do will make sure that our child is not quote unquote successful. And yet, to your point earlier, I want to make sure that people that are listening understand it's never too late, right? And that every child is at a different trajectory with their own learning, right. And so that's why, at 18, some students are ready for certain things that others might not be, and that is okay.

Ana Homayoun: 15:38

And when I talk about that math thing back to that story I was going to tell, was that this idea was?

Ana Homayoun: 15:44

My mentor was like no, it doesn't matter when they get it, it just matters that they get it.

Ana Homayoun: 15:49

Because near my office, everybody is so concerned about fifth grade math and being an advanced fifth grade math, and you would have thought they're like you know.

Ana Homayoun: 15:59

You know life earnings outcome was determined by whether they were in the high math for fifth grade, and what was happening was that these kids who were so confident in the math level they were in and they were learning and they were excited and they were feeling good about themselves, would be pushed into the wrong place for them at that moment and suddenly they feel like they're in the deep end with no, you know, ability to like maneuver and they're just trying to try to water. But we don't need to do that If we can celebrate every student for where they are, helping them grow with the skills they need in the moment, meeting more than where they're at, with the understanding that we're all moving forward. You know there are plenty of adults that when they skipped over too many things, they're trying to go back as adults and learn them. So you know, allowing kids to be where they are and blooming, and also, you know, keeping them feeling challenged but not overwhelmed is really the key.

Jessica Kidwell: 16:56

I don't want to linearly skip the second pillar, we'll have to come back to it which is connections.

Jessica Kidwell: 17:02

But what you just talked about made me think about the third pillar, which is perspective, and the perspective of what success looks like and celebrating that, as opposed to looking around at the people around you and thinking your success isn't good enough because it's not the same as someone else.

Jessica Kidwell: 17:24

When you talk about that fifth grade math, I will see you that story and raise you speaking with a neighbor whose child in second grade didn't test into the advanced academic cohort of the elementary school and the amount of panic of well then, that means X won't happen and then they won't be able to take honors level courses in middle school, which means that they'll go into high school with less, without having a GPA established. And I remember falling victim or prey to that mindset at the time. But because I am farther along in the process with my kids, I now have the perspective of wait, wait, wait, wait, deep breath, it's okay. This is not going to define your child right now. This is not the death sentence that you think. It is because I have lived through it. But how do we keep that perspective when you kind of feel yourself getting swept up, either as a young adult or as a student, or as a parent who's trying to model that behavior for our students at home.

Ana Homayoun: 18:48

Yeah, it's such a good question because I think a lot of times us adults have to do the work right and asking ourselves what's the fear based in? And I think about this question. You know it's so funny going. Writing this book really helped me like kind of look back on 20 years of 20 plus years of working with students and their families, and I'll never forget this is years ago, because this is.

Ana Homayoun: 19:12

This student isn't in a racing with a finish line. He's now in his early 30s, but one of his friends is, and I'll never forget that. His mother marches into the office and she has. He's a freshman ninth grade and she has planned out math and she is very stressed if he is not in this certain math class by senior year. And I had the honor of working with this child all four years to know who he is and he's a very talented writer and he uses writing skills in his work today and she was so hyper focused on math. It was like you know and I'm not saying there's anyone, be all, end all, but what I am saying is we become so fixated on the things that aren't in our purview or aren't available to us, and this is true for me. This is true for all of us. We're all, we're all imperfectly working on this right.

Ana Homayoun: 20:02

I just had a book come out, you know, five weeks ago. I can tell you it's my fourth book. It's not my first rodeo. But you have to stay off social media after a while because you're like, oh that, this, this, am I doing enough? Am I not doing enough?

Ana Homayoun: 20:17

And it can make you baddie, just like almost anything else with teenagers, you know, for teenagers, I, so I, you know, coming from a place of we are all navigating this together. And then for parents and caregivers really sitting with what's really bothering me? That my child didn't get into X, y or Z, fill in the blank. Is it the sports team? Is it the advanced class? Is it the whatever? What is that really rooted in? Because a lot of times what comes up for people is rooted in their own stuff from that has never been like, addressed and certainly not meant meaning to make this a psychological endeavor. But you know, really, the more we can practice that fourth pillar of acceptance and what do we have going on, what are all the good things that are in our purview in this moment, the more we can, you know, build on the strengths, and and, and do it from a place of honoring where every kid is in the moment.

Jessica Kidwell: 21:15

When I look around at the people who I admire the most or I have the most connected relationships with, or who are doing amazing things, I have no idea where they went to college. I have no idea where they went to college. They could have been rejected from 20 colleges and gone to community college, but it has not impacted the brilliance in which they are living their life or impacted my feeling of them. I just wish that that mindset could be so much more pervasive, as opposed to someone feeling like their worth is built around whether they achieve a certain finish line.

Ana Homayoun: 22:10

Sure, and that's true of several of the students in the book that I talk about, because there have been so incredibly talented and wonderful. And yet, for example, I worked with the conclusion story, louise, which I hope everybody gets to because I think it really wraps up the book very well and I won't spoil it. But you know, I had worked with him for two years as an adult, as an adult, as an adult in the workplace, before I knew he'd spent three years in community college and three years at a state university, and he was working at a job where everybody on his team had gone to an elite 5-E level school and he and his ability to connect and his ability to have perspective was far beyond his peers, which is why his boss realized she wanted to sponsor him and support him and his growth with systems. And so the whole notion of the book, which is what I want you know people to read and see about, is that if you look at these four pillars, all of us have places that come easy to us and all of us have things that may not. So when I have a student who is so academically focused and advanced and just, school comes easy but the connection part does not.

Ana Homayoun: 23:31

That, to me, is that's what we work on right and right now, because we have this finish line. I can't tell you how many times I have people call my office say, oh well, you know, my student has this perfect GPA and they have a near-perfect SAT score and they're terrible at connecting with others and they're not good communicators, and I was like, well, what are we gonna do in college and beyond? So let's focus on that piece versus you know, just the. So that's why I built out these four pillars, because if we really Examine it in this way, it gives us an evaluation For ourselves and to support the students in our lives in saying how do we support your personal growth and academic growth, and then later professional growth, in a way that you know moves beyond the faulty finish line of grades, test scores, college admission and Not that any of the pillars are more important than the other, and they all need attention.

Jessica Kidwell: 24:24

But that's second pillar, the connection that we've touched on a little bit. I want to move into that a little bit more deeply and I don't want to say it's a soft skill that most people Maybe don't emphasize as being as important. But there there is lots of data and science that you point out that shows the importance that connection has on later success. Can we talk about that a little bit?

Ana Homayoun: 24:50

Yeah well, the ability to connect with others across differences was consistently the thing that I found in my research, in going back and visiting with these students, but also in the, the scientific research that really benefits our well-being, our Economic well-being, our social well-being, because the students that I interviewed that were able to do that really well and no matter what their academic intellect like background or you know how easy school came to them or was difficult, but that ability to connect with others across differences and find multiple points of connection Was really beneficial because it led to things they couldn't even have imagined. Right. So sometimes we say, okay, come up with your five-year plan or goal. But my whole thing is, you know, leave yourself open and curious To things you never even thought of, right, like I think. You know there's this hard or fast rule like every no is really a yes to what you want. I Agree with that to a point, because some of the most amazing things that have happened in my life and are continuing to happen happen as a result of me saying yes to something that I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that was an option, and being open to something like, huh, okay, and that takes a little bit of openness and curiosity and Expanded definition of what success and opportunity look like.

Ana Homayoun: 26:15

So to me that that comes from connection, and one of the key pieces that you know I want all readers to understand too is this connection between Inhibitory control or impulse control, and we often talk about it in terms of managing distractions, but I talk about it in terms of how does it support connection right?

Ana Homayoun: 26:34

How do we support emotional regulation, how do we support time and energy management and that way of connecting? Because if you are somebody who, when you become exhausted, become emotionally dysregulated which is not uncommon and you don't realize what you're doing as soon as elementary school, right, middle school, high school becomes very hard to make and maintain friendships, and so a lot of people haven't made that link in that key because we really are like oh, impulse controls, short and long-term, you know consequences, but not around that connection piece. And that's really what I want people to read and understand and in the book I really put in practical strategies of if this is the challenge, how do you help your child develop practice skills with face-to-face introductions, help them practice small talk skills, help them with that, just as you would help them with developing a system.

Jessica Kidwell: 27:28

I also think that you do a lovely job at tying in that within connection. It's not just about connecting with others that these young adults need to connect with themselves, to learn more about who they are and what their interests are outside of what they think they should be doing.

Ana Homayoun: 27:53

Yes, and why that's so important and it's important for adults too is the more that you can practice acceptance and the more you have perspective around what your own values are, the more you can silence the comparison culture that is overwhelming in our world. If you can work on using these four pillars to develop your own blueprint, the goal is that once you hear what other people are doing, it doesn't put you in a feeling of never enough or the feeling that what you're doing isn't good enough. What it does is you just sort of reframe and you're like hey, I'm really happy with what I'm doing and what I've got going on. Wow, that's really cool. I'm open and curious about that, but that doesn't make me feel less than because this is the path that I'm focused on right now and that's a great way to reframe it for adults as well, because I think we all could use that reminder now and again.

Jessica Kidwell: 28:48

Definitely, definitely. I think that the blueprint is incredibly helpful and the pillars are important to understand in the book, but what I thought was one of the more unique aspects of how you've done this book is how you have gone back and revisited these previous clients. Can you just share how that process has been for you professionally, and then also personally, to check in on these now adults and their families from when you first knew them?

Ana Homayoun: 29:25

I consider it an enormous gift that they were open to interview with me in their conference rooms or their jobs at their desks over Zoom, some of them in person such an enormous gift. The thing about my work was that some of these students I knew for three, four, five years. It wasn't like I only had them for one year and some of them I knew their families for like 10 or 15 years. It came about because one of the students, henry in the book, his mom, emailed me years ago and she was like you know, henry is using the very same things he learned in your office on his job. And then I kept hearing that from other people I ran into one of my former students at a wedding and he now has two kids and his wife is like, oh my gosh, he still uses the binder system you taught him in like 2005. I thought, gosh, this is really funny and how does this really connect with workplace development and workforce development? Then, when I told the story in the book, when I started working with the companies, I started to connect the dots. I really wanted to go back and those people that were open, the students that were open again, it was really funny because I'd get on Zoom and I'm like you look exactly like you did when you were 15 and your voice is just deeper. But in my mind they're the same person, same personality and, oh gosh, I consider it a huge gift.

Ana Homayoun: 30:45

I also consider it a huge gift because I really you know, I've been doing this over 20 years now. I never thought I would be doing this for more than two years. People who know my story. I do love my work, even when it's crazy. And back to school, working with high school students and middle school students and college students. I consider it to be an enormous gift so that these young adults would trust me with their stories. After all these years, how many people have come back Just even it's only been out for like five or six weeks and said, oh my gosh, this has been so helpful. I actually forward some of those messages to the students who were in the book. One of the parents what parent wrote me and was like you know, near a story was so helpful. That is so my daughter and I was like see, it's valuable and that's been really rewarding for them as well.

Jessica Kidwell: 31:35

I think that I would feel guilty without pointing out that the economic privilege that is inherent with families who are able to use an outside private executive, functioning coach or an academic advisor is. It can't be ignored, which is why I want to talk about the nonprofit and why you are absolutely passionate about getting these fundamental pillars and the way to erase the finish line into every community.

Ana Homayoun: 32:14

Thank you for bringing that up. So my life's work is all about having every kid benefit from this work, and so what most people don't know is for the last six years, I have piloted a program in Charlotte Mecklenburg for three years and now it's being used in other schools and with the idea that you know so, the Life Navigator school advisory program is a weekly school advisory. We have developed everything you can think of around teaching these skills and then supporting faculty development of these skills and also parent and caregiver family education. It has been a huge endeavor. It is something that I took on and you know, as anybody who started a nonprofit initiative knows, people are always like, yeah, let's see what the date like, how it turns out, before we fund you.

Ana Homayoun: 33:03

And then the pandemic happened. But that's really my life's work is to bring this into the hands of all students. Now, if I didn't know what the most economically resourced kids were getting, I would never be able to say, okay, let's offer this to all kids, and that's what I help my staff know too. It's like we are doing this work individually with students so we can see what's happening in schools, so we can see across different schools, so that our ultimate goal is at every kid and that is my ultimate goal. So, for those that are interested in potentially bringing it to their schools, for those who are interested in funding the work, my goodness, please find me, because this is so important and we are now in schools where, in year two, they're saying the culture is completely changed, that kids are doing this, they're doing it in community, they're collaborating, and it's what keeps me going, because it's a side project, that's a full time job and it's so important. Every kid should have access to this work.

Jessica Kidwell: 33:59

Yes, and I really appreciate that you see the both and that the economic resource experiences that you're having help inform you to be able to put this out on a larger scale process to more and more kids. I think that sometimes some people feel like they have to do one or the other, and I think that you are showing a both and aspect of how a really good system can help, all if done correctly. Thank you. So, for people to get in touch with you, what are the best ways, anna, to get their hands on a book, which I will obviously put links into the show notes for everything we have discussed, but for those who are listening and like to learn that way, how can people find you and learn more?

Ana Homayoun: 34:54

Erasingthefinishline. com is where you can go to get the links for the book, but also we will have a reading guide. So if you'd like access to that to help you with your reading group, all of those pieces are there and then you can link there to my website, anahomayoun. com.

Jessica Kidwell: 35:17

Well, Ana, thank you so much for spending your time with me today helping me feel a little less overwhelmed about what I should, or maybe should not be doing to get my kids towards the finish line, because it's a faulty concept. There is no finish line. We need to be flexible and adaptable and willing to think in new ways, so I really appreciate it.

Ana Homayoun: 35:42

Thanks so much for having me. This has been wonderful.

Jessica Kidwell: 35:45

We should talk about. That is hosted and produced by me, jessica Kidwell. The audio engineering is done by Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios in Alexandria, virginia. The theme song Be when you Are is courtesy of Astrovia. Graphic design is by Kevin Adkins.

Jessica Kidwell: 36:04

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