Curiosity #72 - Think in Decades, Not Days

🎤 Quotable quotes: “Selflessness is a form of compound interest"
— EJ Carrion
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🎧 This Week’s Guest: EJ Carrion
If you have ever seen EJ speak, you know this is not a sit back and nod conversation.
EJ is the co founder of Student Success Agency, a first generation college student, a Gates Millennium Scholar, and someone who believes young people deserve real access, real agency, and adults who do not phone it in.
He brings energy. He brings urgency. He also brings a challenge.
We are living through an economic shift, a technological shift, and a political shift. The question, according to EJ, is simple but massive.
How do we civilize?
Schools, he says, are still in the Blockbuster era while the world has moved to Netflix. AI is here. Human capital is tight. Budgets are shrinking. And students are growing up with three lives at once.
Personal life.
School life.
Phone life.
The phone is not just a distraction. It is a door.
🎮 Leadership Rule of the Week
Think in decades, not days.
EJ shared three rapid fire principles that stuck with us:
• Think in decades instead of days
• Selflessness is compound interest
• Choose we instead of me
He is trying to make his 65 year old self proud. That lens changes how you act today.
💡 Other Topics we Loved!
• Why we need a “digital YMCA” for students
• Why banning phones is a short term fix to a long term reality
• How students are navigating network states instead of nation states
• Why human connection is still the ultimate differentiator
• What it means to be a pirate ship leader instead of the Navy
• How being genuine beats being optimized
EJ has built one of the largest phone based mentoring programs in the country. Students connect with real mentors online. Real conversations. Real relationships. Real impact.
The digital world is not fake. It is formative.
📺 Learn More
More leadership musings
🍪 Biscuits with the Boss:
If you are leading in a time of massive change, ask yourself:
Are you preparing students for the world you grew up in
or the world they are about to inherit?
Bonus reflection question for your team:
What would it look like to build the digital YMCA in your context?
🌎 This week in Here - There - Every F’ing where
The heart sweaters were out Valentine's week for a Lead it Like Lasso workshop! (We love hearing what folks love about the lessons from Lasso.)


Believe!
Nick & Marnie
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