The world can never be assumed to exist.  It comes into being only in the act of moving towards it.  Ese est percipii.  Nothing can be taken for granted:  we do not find  ourselves in the midst of an already established world, we do not, as if by preordained birthright, automatically take possession of our surroundings.  Each moment,each thing, must be earned, wrested away from the confusion of inert matter, by a steadiness of gaze, a purity of perception so intense that the effort, in itself, takes on the value of a religious act.  The slate has  been wiped clean. It is up to the poet to write his own book. Paul Auster, The Decisive Moment from The Art of Hunger

I quote poet, novelist, critic and screenwriter, Paul Auster, because there is magic in this excerpt from his essay on the poetry of Charles Reznikoff.  

"The world . . . comes into being only in the act of moving towards it."  For whatever reason I had at the time, when I was a senior in High School, I wrote these words on my PeeGee folder -- "whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genuis, power and magic in it."  (Goethe)

Everything else is detail; putting one foot after the other; accomplishing one small task a day. 

That said, I begin with the educational resources that form the heart and soul of my practice and my business.  

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

I enrolled in the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution in May of 2004, with the goal of earning my LL.M in a year's time.  The pro's and con's:

1. it is true, as I was warned by Institute co-director, Peter Robinson, that the mere possession of the LL.M degree would not aid my career.  
2. what I did gain from my LL.M studies was:
   1. access to the best mediators in the country.
   2. a first class liberal arts education in conflict resolution, including cross-cultural studies; religion and conflict; the social psychology of conflict; arbitration practice; settlement and negotiation theory and practice; international diplomatic theory and practice; introduction to fields entirely new to me such as restorative justice (the mediation of crimes, including mass crimes such as genocide in Rwanda and the wounds of aparthied in South Africa through Truth and Reconciliation Commissions); the ideological foundations of ADR practice; and, communication skills, in addition to the standard mediation training.
   3. the opportunity to create externships in my target market, gaining access to people and places I would never have been able to obtain on my own.
   4. the opportunity to collaborate with some of the best ADR practicioners and academics in the country -- opening doors to collaborative seminars and co-authored articles with some of the most prominent mediators and conflict resolution scholars and educators in the world.

CONCRETE BENEFITS OF BEING A STRAUS INSTITUTE STUDENT:  CREDENTIALIZING 

1. Co-authored articles with world-reknowned peacemaker Kenneth Cloke; and, the father of transformative mediation practice, Joe Folger, in my first year of mediation practice.
2. Commenced work on a cross-over text book on Social Psychology with visiting Straus Professor  Richard Reuben, who is a full-time member of the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Law. 
3. Published my first academic article in the field of dispute resolution in the Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Journal, Shame by Any Other Name:  Lessons for Restorative Justice (2005) 5 Pepp. Disp. Resol. L.J. 299

CONCRETE BENEFITS OF BEING A STRAUS STUDENT:  EXTERNSHIPS/MEETING MY MARKET AND LEARNING MY TRADE

1. During my first week at Straus, I met Judge Alexander Williams, III, now full-time settlement judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court with whom I took an externship.  Not only did I meet a wide group of lawyers in my market (commercial litigation mediation) but I learned invaluable lessons co-mediating settlement conferences with a brilliant Judge who'd been trained at and was now teaching at the Straus Institute.
2. As a result of my membership with the Los Angeles Association of Business Trial Lawyers (the "ABTL") and my work on its Bench-Bar committee to establish guidelines for case management and discovery in Complex Commercial Cases, I met Los Angeles Complex Court Judges Carl West and Victoria Chaney, for whom I commenced an externship in my second year of mediation practice.  This introduced me as a mediator to attorneys who I'd practiced with as a litigator, enabling me to transition more quickly in the eyes of my market.

CONCRETE BENEFITS OF BEING A STRAUS STUDENT:  TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES

1. During my second year at Straus, I was approached by several local law and business schools to teach negotiation and mediation -- opportunities that I do not think would have come to me but for my studies at Straus.
2. As a result, I taught negotiation skills at the prestigious UCLA Anderson School of Management Summer Entrpreneurship Institute in 2006, just after receiving my LL.M from Straus.
3. I have also been a guest lecturer on mediation confidentiality at the U.S.C. School of Law and the Straus Institute.
4. Finally, I am now a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Straus, teaching Selected Issues in ADR:  Employment, with long-time employment mediator, Stefan Mason. 

CONCRETE BENEFITS OF BEING A STRAUS STUDENT:  SUPPORT

 Because I began my mediation career at Straus, I can't imagine how I could have commenced my practice in any other way.  At Straus, I met friends and colleagues who continue to guide and mentor me; learned all my early mediation lessons in theory and practice; had most of my "hand's on" training and met most of the prominent mediators world-wide who inevitably come to Straus to teach at least one course or lecture on at least one topic.

Better than that, at Straus I was given the template or code of dispute resolution theory and practice upon which I rely every day in my business affairs, my ADR practice and my greatly enhanced personal abilities to deal with conflict on both a one-to-one and an institutional level. 

Not everyone can scrape together the tuition for a Straus (or similar) education.  But I concur with Tammy Lenski's comment that locating the very best educational opportunities early in your mediation career will form the backbone of your mediation practice for years to come.