. - you like to quote a saying by ucla coach john wooden that failure to prepare is preparing to fail. - well, i think when you look at successful people the first thing that i would try to figure out is how did they prepare in order to become successful? really most of the work is really in the preparation. - speaking of preparation, at what age should kids start preparing for college? - i had a conversation with the dean of uc san diego, admission dean, mae brown. she said, "start preparing for college in sixth grade." now, where she's really coming from is to build strong study habits, build good reading habits is really shaping your skills in ways that is going to be easier for you in high school. it's not necessarily preparing you for college per se, but it's really building a stronger foundation. - that's pretty young. besides building that foundation, what else can a sixth grader do to prepare? - when i coach my own students, i emphasize quite a bit on shaping their skills, their mindset and teaching them about some tricks of the trade on how to become successful academically a