Why this entrepreneur is dedicated to creating a new model of education based on valuing creativity and life and leadership skills
It’s Sunday morning, about 8:00 – Matt Marks heads to the pitch. It’s game day and the boys are huddled around their coach. To hear Matt tell it, this is his church. This is where he gets to watch the boys of Real Jaco Academy of Leadership and Soccer shine as they work together, overcome challenges, and laugh and play.
Matt is a recovering workaholic, a passionate entrepreneur, and… runs a soccer camp in Costa Rica where he now lives. Matt’s entrepreneurial spirit combined with a steadfast sense of purpose to give back and add value to others each and every day means he’s never lacking for energy. And those around him are never lacking for inspiration. But it took hard work to become the man, in life and in business, that he is today. Get to know Matt Marks in this series of interviews – the man who turned a failed tech venture into a thriving camp that lifts boys out of poverty, all while creating the life of his dreams. Today, Matt shares his thoughts on the future of education:
Your organization, Real Jaco, teaches young men the leadership and life skills they need to rise above often dire circumstances. What was the genesis of this organization?
I have an amazing son, JC, who loves soccer – like so many boys in Costa Rica. “Futbol” is such a big part of the culture here, but in our small town of Jaco there was no organized soccer club for youth.
Starting an organization to help kids learn and grow and achieve their dreams had been a vision of mine for most of my adult life, but it was necessity and frustration with the current circumstances that inspired me to finally take action.
In November 2015, the week before school let out for summer vacation, I thought to myself, “Do I really want to make the commitment to start a soccer club? Do I want to take on the responsibility? NO.” But I knew the only way the boys were going to get an organized soccer club in Jaco that year was if I did something.
Now, typically when starting a new venture I’d take the time to write out our purpose and vision, make a plan, set goals, raise money, etc. This time I consciously made the decision to just start – knowing I’d figure at the rest later.
And in 24 hours, I’d written out a set of values for the program inspired by Bill Walsh, former Hall of Fame NFL coach. I’d recruited my son’s PE teacher Sherman Vasquez – a former professional soccer player who’s incredible with the kids. The following Monday we started Real Jaco with the first 30 kids. This was the birth of Real Jaco!
Today, we have a year-round futbol club and educational curriculum, we’ve traveled with a group to this U.S., and this year we will host our 5th annual soccer camp.
What’s Real Jaco’s mission?
To educate, empower and help our youth become the leaders of tomorrow – “the world needs more leaders.”
Real Jaco is like the Boys & Girls Club with a focus on leadership, cultivating a growth and abundant mindset and of course soccer.
Our goal is to help these kids become leaders and ultimately live richer, happier, more fulfilling lives - and help break the poverty cycle.
Expand upon that: How does Real Jaco help students cultivate their mindset?
I’d split our focus of cultivating mindset into two categories:
To cultivate a growth mindset, we provide challenges and interesting problems to solve. As the kids solve increasingly difficult problems, their belief in themselves grows. You can see their confidence grow as they become aware that they are capable of solving problems – and through repetition, overcoming obstacles becomes a habit and a skill.
And to cultivate an abundant mindset? First and foremost, we experience the joy of giving! The moment you experience having more than enough, you have abundance. You have more than you need for yourself and your family, enough to give to others, and you experience the joy of giving to others and of seeing another person light up because of your generosity. Many of our youth come from impoverished families and have felt the very real fear of not knowing if they will have food on the table or clean clothes on their backs. But the moment they feel what it means to be abundant and give to someone else, they become transformed.
In addition to giving, we travel abroad. Travelling shatters fallacies and limiting stories the kids might have for their lives. Spending one week in the U.S. or another culture has the potential to transform their mindset, giving them a new set of beliefs about what’s possible overnight. Seeing a new world gives us a whole new perspective and if you change your thoughts, you change your life.
You talk about re-envisioning schools and our education system – and with Real Jaco you’re living that mission. What do you see as the future of education?
If we’re going to talk about fixing and improving our schools and education system, I think we have to start with the question, “What is school for?” And we must re-envision schools from the ground up.
Schools should prepare our youth for success in life (and prepare them for what the world might look like when they enter the workforce in 5 - 10 years). Education is one of the keys to success, happiness and a fulfilling life. But schools and academics often leave out some of the most important life lessons: learning about yourself and others, emotional mastery, overcoming adversity, how we view failure and developing our youth’s #1 resource, their mindset. The vision of Real Jaco is to develop critical thinkers – to help these kids become leaders, creative problem solvers, to be curious and to become lifelong learners and allow them to be themselves. You can see an example Real Jaco’s vision for school and education at Realjaco.com.
It’s important to note that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution for schools. Thus, Real Jaco is not designed for everyone – it’s for people who want what we’re offering. Real Jaco will be the first school that focuses on leadership, technology and soccer. At Real Jaco, we’re tossing aside outdated learning models (including the overemphasis on obedience and rote memorization testing) in favor of a curriculum that’s based on developing each student’s unique strengths, solving real-world problems, and encouraging collaboration, creativity and imagination. We’re creating an environment where kids can learn, laugh, play and are encouraged and empowered to express themselves while pursuing projects and work that interests them.
I am excited to see what our youth can do, what problems they’ll solve in the future such as improving our food supply, clean water, clean energy, advances in science and medicine, AI and reinventing the news and media.
What do you see as one of the major failures of traditional education, especially in the United States?
One of the major problems with schools and our culture in the U.S. to me is we stifle creativity and uniqueness. The greatest value someone can offer the world comes through their unique gifts, but so often in school, kids are encouraged to become a uniform product of the system.
What is more important than being allowed to express yourself as you are? The traditional school system tries to fit everyone into the same mold, and if you don’t fit, you’re told you must conform or that your not good enough – a failure. By the time a child (a human being) has gone through 12 years of being processed over and over, they have a habit of compliance at the expense of creativity, innovation and unique qualities. It’s a tragedy, and a failure of the system.
Parents and teachers should certainly help guide, share ideas and wisdom, but do so while allowing people, kids included, to be who they are. I believe we should plant seeds of belief, creativity and self-confidence, asking great questions to help guide our children, helping them develop critical-thinking and decision making skills and then get out of the way and allow them to become their full selves without (so much) interference.
Since you opened the doors of Real Jaco, what types of successes have you seen in the kids coming through your program?
I can give you an example. We have a young boy named Jeshoua, he’s 14 now. He's an incredible soccer player and an incredible young man who I met about two years ago. Jeshoua has faced challenges at home that many of us could not even fathom. He’s from a very tough neighborhood in the city of San Jose where his father was shot right in front of the house when he was about six years old. With this background, you can imagine that he has had difficulties in and out of school, but when he became a part of the Real Jaco family, that began to change. We’ve been able to surround him with caring, compassionate coaches, teachers and parents and give him a stable, trusting and trustworthy community where he’s truly valued – Real Jaco is his family. He’s now back in school and earning positive grades, but more than that, we’ve been able to change his whole outlook toward his future. He’s reading great books (outside of school), and he traveled to the U.S. last summer and to Spain to play with an elite soccer team. We believed in him and saw him learn to believe in himself.
One of our greatest achievements at Real Jaco is that the support of a child like Jeshoua happens organically. Situations like his do not require my involvement – people step up and that’s a testament to our culture.
These are the types of successes we focus on. We don’t set many benchmark metrics or growth goals with Real Jaco specifically because we are dedicated to the intangible achievements like what we saw with Jeshoua – the growth in confidence, resilience and ability to overcome and rise above circumstance, the relationships and connections that the boys form. Many things we typically would measure in business don’t apply here – so we don’t spend time, energy and resources to measure -- and don’t have the stress of trying to achieve arbitrary goals. Instead, we devote our time, energy and resources simply to improving our unique bottom line – helping each boy that comes through our program in the most whole and attentive way we can. We are constantly asking “What can we do – what program can we implement – that truly adds value to the boys’ lives, that creates lasting change?”
What’s one of your favorite quotes?
Jim Rohn said, “You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.” I would add to that you’re the sum of the what goes into your mind — the books you read and videos you watch, plus the five people, so choose them wisely.
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