• Business: Family Involvement
• Business: Home Economics and Personal Finances
• College: Preparation
• Family: Teens
• Homeschooling: Activity Days and Field Trips
• Homeschooling: Motivation / Inspiration
• Personal Development: Character
• Personal Development: Leadership
• Personal Development: Life Purpose / Achievement
• Personal Development: Time Management
• Special: Academically Gifted
• Special: Learning Styles

Career Coaching for Students - the leading career exploration and planning program that takes a proven approach to:

• Recognizing your talent, greater self-awareness
• Understanding your strengths
• Identifying high-potential career options that leverage your talents
• Leveraging a network of people you already know that will help you achieve your goals
• Investigating careers of interest beyond the typical surface analysis
• Obtaining summer internships that aligns with a career interest
• Choosing an educational strategy that positions you for the best job opportunities
• Differentiating yourself from the crowd
• Building a foundation for future success and satisfaction
• Envisioning a future that is economically self-sufficient?
• Articulating a plan that will help them achieve their goals and dreams?
• Understanding the consequences to the many aspects of their life if they don’t follow through with their plan

Speaking Topics for Students and Homeschool Parents

Dynamic Teaching Style – The Key to Reaching Every Student – Students have personalities just like adults in the work world. A significant portion of Carl’s work with teams in organizations centers around understanding, appreciating and adapting to different behavioral styles. Carl introduces a behavioral model and the strategies to help teachers (and parents) adapt to the student’s behavioral style.

The Only Way to Engage Students Today - There are many initiatives at play across the country to reduce high school drop-out rates, increase the percent of students going to college and raise test scores. Carl shares stories of his work with students and key elements to student engagement that the experts are missing.

Choosing the Best Major, Choosing the Best School, Choosing the Best Career – Giving Students Decision-Making Skills When They Need Them Most - Most students look at high school graduation as the moment in time when they become adults and start making decisions for themselves. Carl shares the key elements to a critical skill for student success after high school and how to address choosing the best major, post-secondary education and career.

Financial Aid and How to Get It - There are unlimited resources on the Internet that provide financial aid advice for post-secondary education. Most are simply teasers to buy what the site is selling. Carl shares his “best financial aid resources on the web” for parents and students and some not-so-known facts about the cost of college.

It’s All About Me – Any parent of a teen will agree that teens are self-absorbed. Teachers have learned to deal with it. Parents have to live with it. Carl shares a 5-step conversation model that empowers parents and the teen to converse with less conflict.

The Top 5 Skills for Success – The secret to success, regardless of a person’s personal definition of success requires 5 specific soft skills. Carl shares the magic five skills and how they can be developed in students.

Founder: Success Discoveries

Founder: The Nielson Group

Creator of the nationally recognized program for high school students: Career Coaching for Students

Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst

Certified Professional Motivators Analyst

Certified Professional TriMetrix

Certified Coaching Clinic for Managers Facilitator

IAC Certified Relationship Coach

Carl Nielson is founder and Principal of The Nielson Group™, formed in 1998, and Success Discoveries™, founded in 2003. The Nielson Group specializes in helping organizations create breakthrough performance.

As part of Success Discoveries, Carl developed a program called Career Coaching for Students™ for high school students. Today the program is offered in over 10 states and includes a college version appropriate for both current college students and recent graduates. "My passion to help teens find their purpose wasn't revealed to me until my own kids were approaching high school. It coincided with my own development as a career coach helping adults work through mid-career change and as a consultant helping companies select the best candidates from a pool of applicants. Looking back, I have to believe this was part of a master plan that I could not see for myself. Today, considering my corporate experience, my lifelong study of what defines talent and a desire to help our youth find their place in the world - it just seems like perfection."

For the past 12 years, Carl’s corporate consulting practice has focused on executive coaching, developing senior management teams and nonprofit boards, cross-functional employee engagement, team effectiveness, goals-and-role alignment and job-talent matching. Carl has been recognized for his work in predictive selection, executive coaching, team development and high-potential identification.

Prior to starting his own company, Nielson served for 18+ years in management rolls

• CEO, IHRIM, Inc. (non-profit association management)
• Director, Human Resources, Haynes and Boone (large regional law firm)
• Group Manager, Pepsico/Frito-Lay (large food manufacturing, marketing and sales operations)
• Group Manager, Allied-Signal/Union Texas Petroleum (oil and gas exploration and production sector)

He holds a BS degree in Organization and Industrial Psychology and is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst, Certified Professional Values Analyst and Certified Professional TriMetrix^® Analyst. He is also a certified facilitator of The Coaching Clinic^™for managers and supervisors.