MM178 - Laying the Foundation

Why do children go to school and not senior citizens? To be productive and successful, we all need to have a solid foundation in our lives. Building the foundation is not always easy or fun, but it is essential.

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[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello, welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel. Thanks for joining me today. I truly appreciate it, and I'm glad that you're out there and I'm thankful for everyone who listens every day and comments and shares and is out there doing this and I hope that you're enjoying it now today.

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I've got another topic that actually this idea was spawned from a conversation that on the same conversation. I had with the gentleman yesterday that I discussed. I had this one have you guys ever I'm sure that you have I mean if you're an adult listening to me or even a child you have probably seen the construction the brand-new construction of a home or house, right?

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How does it start? You've got an empty lot, and the bulldozers came in and they scrape off the dirt and then the machines come in and they level it, and they flatten it, and maybe they stamp it down or what have you, and then they dig out the Footers and they pour concrete and you see these the metal rebar and all that and what are they doing?

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Well, you say Well, they're they're laying the foundation. They're doing the hard work up front. They're laying the foundation and you look at that near like when you see someone when you see a group of people construction workers when you see them laying the foundation for a building do you think wow that is amazing.

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That is the most beautiful well-thought-out attractive Foundation I've ever seen. I bet that you never have I bet you've never looked at in a group of workers pouring a concrete foundation and thought "Man, that house is going to be beautiful based upon how attractive that Foundation is." No, but later after the foundation is laid, and then they get the framework up and then they start doing the exterior work and then they start doing then they finish they do the trim and the shutters and the roof and you know that they do the porch and the patios and what have you. When you look at the house and you're like, "Wow that really is a nice house."

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Maybe it was your house. Maybe you were building a house or they were having one built for yourself and you watch them pour the foundation and you thought oh, that's the most beautiful Foundation I've ever seen. No, but what would happen if they skipped the foundation part and they just said, you know the foundation Parts ugly and no one sees it anyway, I mean once you put the house on it, no one sees the concrete slab or the or the pilings or the nobody sees any of that.

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So why are we wasting time with all that nonsense when no one's going to see it anyway? Just put the house, just built that, you know set the frame up put it on a piece of dirt and build the house, and you say, "Paul. Well, that's like idiot speak because obviously if they didn't take the time to put in a good solid foundation."

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It doesn't matter how beautiful the house is eventually some storms are going to come and the Earth is going to shift and that house is going to crack and eventually probably fall down. Really?  Why don't we send why do we send children to school? Why don't we send senior citizens to school? Like your you probably never thought of that happy.

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Well, you know in here on planet Earth, we have not always had elementary schools or secondary schools or high schools are Junior High's or what have you we haven't always had those and when we did it used to be a privilege for the rich. You know going to a formal school getting a formal education used to be something that was a privilege of the Rich and children just learned from doing at home poor children, they learned how to do chores and if they at they're going to learn anything about reading or writing or you know, mathematics or arithmetic or whatever.

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They were taught by their mother or father at in at the kitchen table at home. But only the rich children got to go to school, but here today. We send our children to school. Sometimes we actually lost our mind as a nation. We were trying to put children into organized schooling as young as two or three or four years old, which I think is wrong, but that's neither here nor there.

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But seriously, why are we sending children? Just school. Why don't we wait until people are older and more mature and have, you know, further developed brains, wait till their brains and their bodies are fully developed and send people to school when they're a senior citizen and I'm like, "Well, that would be stupid Paul."

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Why would it be? Well, because what the reason shank kids to school are because why because we're just trying to Corral them all up in a building so that they're now getting run over by cars or you know, getting into Mischief for trouble. No, we send kids to school because we're supposed to be laying the foundation you go to school because you are laying the foundation for your life.

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If we think about it, you know if you think about a person living to the age of 70 or maybe 80 years old the time that you're in school, isn't isn't all that long.  But it's important because why because you're laying the foundation now the foundation when you lay the foundation that's not always easy, and it's not always fun.

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You know learning how to diagram sentences when I learned how to when I went since you know, I don't know 7th or 8th grade and as part of our English literature class, we had to learn how to diagram sentences and to me that was some kind of just bizarre torture and I was not interested in it, but I had to do it because that was laying the foundation and people who are much older and had much more developed brains than I did understand.

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That's what I needed to do. If you hope to be productive if you hope to be successful, you have to put in the work you have to lay the foundation. Everybody wants to be a rock star. Nobody wants to practice the guitar.  Everybody wants to be an instant overnight success. Nobody wants to put in the long hours or the difficult times or and today we see, you know, young people that expect to come out of college making a hundred grand because they went to college there.

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No experience, have no real life experience. They have a diploma then I mean life experience and they expect immediately to be made, you know, the manager of the supervisor or do you know to get six figures because. No, not how that works. You know, we see liberals and socialists and weak spineless weenies in our world crying over, you know, McDonald's jobs or you know fast food jobs or entry-level jobs because they don't pay enough.

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They're not supposed to pay a lot that's supposed to be a foundation that's supposed to be where you learn something that you take and you build on. Kindergarten is not a career. You don't stay in kindergarten forever or elementary school or what-have-you. You're supposed to go there pay your dues to learn and move on.

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That's what entry-level jobs are all about. You're supposed to learn pay your dues get some experience and move on that's will be a lifetime job.  build the foundation. I know that everybody wants to be an overnight success and we see this constantly via our televisions or the internet, you know, everybody wants to have an instant viral video on YouTube so they can have success with no investment.

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But that's not real, that's fleeting, and even if you do have a viral video today, if you have no Foundation, you will be forgotten tomorrow or the next day. Just think about this ask a 20-year-old or a teenager who William Hung is if you don't believe me, all right, ladies and gentlemen, I know the foundation is not pretty the foundation is not easy.

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The foundation is not fun. But the foundation is essential if you hope to build a productive and successful life, you've got to do it. Remind your children of that, remind the young Millennials in your life that we can't build a house on an empty lot. You gotta have a foundation first. Alright guys, that's it. That's all I've got for you today. I'm your host Paul Markel and I'll talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.