When Trish Jacobson, founder of the Pathways to Success for Youth Project was first introduced to Jack Canfield's Success Principles work at a live event in August 2010, she was at a crossroads and considering a career change. But after the first day of the event, instead of focusing on her own future, she found herself so inspired by the training and excited about the impact it would have on her
students that she went back to her hotel room and began enthusiastically incorporating the success principles into the health curriculum and peer education program she was already teaching through the White Mountain Community Health Center in Conway, NH. As she learned about subconscious limiting beliefs and how powerful they are in blocking us from what we want to accomplish in life, she began to see how the young people she worked with could benefit from clearing limiting beliefs, thus clearing a path to create a vision for their future. She learned simple yet powerful heart-centered tools that resulted in a deepened connection to self and others and support a culture of personal responsibility, collaboration, respect and support. Added to some basic success principles and learning how to intentionally create a blueprint and action plan to live the life of their dreams,
Trisha's inspired enthusiasm continued for the entire seven days of the event as she witnessed amazing transformation in herself and the other participants that came from all over the world to train with Jack ... and she knew deep down in her heart and soul that she was onto something. Jack Canfield has been teaching the principles outlined in his book, Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, to adults interested in personal development, leadership development and business success. Jack began his career in the high school classroom in inner city Chicago where he used the power of story to connect with his students and engage them in learning. This experience was the inspiration for Jack to create the world famous Chicken Soup for the Soul series and write the teacher guide Building Self Esteem in the Classroom. Jack's success principles work is a compilation of over 30 years of research, experience and powerful content including activities, strategies, exercises, tools and techniques designed to build self esteem, manage stress, overcome limiting beliefs, expand creativity and harness the power of the brain and the heart to create a life of passion, purpose and success, however we choose to define it. In addition, this powerful work provides participants with the foundation necessary to successfully pursue entrepreneurial businesses and collaborations and increase joy and happiness. "Why aren't we teaching these principles to our young people?", Trish wondered as she went through the training. Her head spun with possibilities of developing a full course curriculum, freshman orientation and student leadership retreats, heart centered and empowering workshops to teach and promote connection and postiive school culture to replace "anti-bullying" assemblies and professional development workshops for teachers. By the end of the week Trisha had a vision to work to bring this work to schools across the country. And when she returned to the classroom after the training, she began! In September of 2010 she incorporated a few activities into her health classes and peer education training. In the summer of 2012 Trisha trained a group of Teen Clinic peer educators using the Pathways to Success for Youth model and incorporated the principles into the clinic. In the October 2012, Trish completed a year long Success Principles Train the Trainer course and was personally coached and mentored by Jack Canfield. She obtained Jack's permission to use his entire success principles body of work and adapt it for use with young people. In the Spring of 2013, she piloted a full two week curriculum in middle school health classes. The response from students was positive and feedback about several activities were described as "life-changing". In the August of 2014, Trish brought a team of young people ages 15-24 to do an intense success principles training with Jack so she could begin to train teachers, youth service providers, parents and youth leaders in the model ... the Pathways to Success for Youth program was born. In the Fall of 2014, Trish, along with her youth team, piloted a full two week curriculum in high school health classes. The feedback from her students was overwhelming and totally convinced Trish to pursue her vision for expansion. In the Summer of 2015, Trisha became one of Jack's first Certified Success Principles Trainers. In the August, 2015 Trisha began building her team's capacity and brought a team of 14 teens, young adults and youth serving professionals to prepare for the next steps in bringing the Success principles to young people. Trish is currently working with key stakeholders to develop a funding plan to fully develop the curriculum and develop a teacher training program to prepare for further expansion. The goal is to create both live and online curriculum materials that will be readily available and easy to replicate in schools and communities across the country. In the meantime, Trish continues to incorporate the success principles in her classes, trainings and workshops as well as her mentoring work with individuals and groups. She loves to talk with groups, decision makers and youth service professionals about her experience with this work and her vision to expand this curriculum on a national level as she continues to explore funding venues and collaborative partnerships to do just that. Trish also consults with educators, trainers and administrators to help them implement this work in their schools and communities.
