Dedicated to helping people become their BEST selves, starting with all children, so they can win the biggest game -- LIFE!

How do you know if you're winning at life?

Most people would think they have won the biggest game if they are rich monetarily.  However, Joe Santoro's definition of winning at life is different, and has nothing to do with money:

You're winning at LIFE if you:  

  1. Live a healthy lifestyle
  2. Know who you are and are comfortable in your skin
  3. Do things you like
  4. Live within your means (don't spend more money than you have)
  5. Have friends and family who truly care about you and want to be with you.

Plenty of people are rich monetarily, yet poor in all the ways that matter most.

Everyone can learn to win the biggest game -- LIFE -- when they learn essential personal life skills. This website can help you understand what essential personal life skills are, why they are important for everyone to learn, and why we believe they should be taught routinely to all children beginning in a quality preschool setting and continuing for every student throughout K-12th grades as a stand-alone subject alongside academic subjects.

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A collage of people with different types of social and personal life.

What We Do

Our main goal is to help all people, starting with children, to become their best selves so they can win the biggest game -- LIFE!

We believe this can be accomplished by teaching essential personal life skills in all schools starting at birth as a part of quality early learning, which should be accessible to all preschool children, and continuing in school from K-12th grades.  

Many people don’t know what essential personal life skills are,
but they recognize the problems that can result when people lack them.
These problems can be prevented if everyone learns the skills they need to become their best selves!

We firmly believe that all children should have access to quality early learning, where they can begin to learn these vital skills, and that curricula to teach these skills should be included in schools as a subject, just like academic subjects, for every grade level from K-12th grades.  If this were true nationwide, all our children would be better prepared for life.  So, we continue to ask this question:

"Since all parents want their children to grow up and get good jobs,
and since employers want employees who have good essential personal  life skills,
why are we not including curricula to teach these skills in all our schools?
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Toward this end, here are the three primary things that SELF does:

1. We ADVOCATE for quality early learning for all children from birth to 5 years, which is when they begin to learn essential personal life skills. This is the foundation of a person's life, and every child must start to learn these skills to become their best selves.
In order to see this happen, we advocate for our government to cut the wasteful spending, especially on programs that do not help Americans, and instead use our tax dollars to create a better society by investing in families and children, providing funding for quality early learning for all children in the U.S., which is administered by each state, RUN BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR, and which is measured, monitored, and rated by a third party to assure excellence.

We also advocate for essential personal life skills curricula to be mandated as a stand-alone subject in all schools for K-12th grades so that students continue to learn these skills.

Like reading and writing, the more students learn about essential personal life skills and how to apply them, the more successful they will be in every area of their lives.

Read more about our advocacy work HERE.

2. We educate through the content of our website, which includes simple sayings and tips, and through our free Alive2Thrive curriculum, which teaches essential personal life skills and how to apply them to your life.

3. We INVEST in families in our community by offering our Hand-Up Tuition Assistance program to help hard-working parents of preschoolers if they are not receiving government assistance by offsetting a portion of their tuition at quality early learning centers we work with.

We also INVEST by helping school districts with a Hand Up to help pay for quality curricula that teach essential life skills to students from K-12th grades from a short list of approved vendors. Through this investment, we are helping thousands of students around the country learn the vital skills they all need to be their best selves.

This is a stop-gap measure we are taking until the government starts spending our money wisely.  The ULTIMATE solution is for the government to use our money to invest in ALL our people regardless of income level or skin color -- our tax dollars should be invested to help everyone become their best selves. 

Some education can have a poor return on investment — for example, some degrees cost so much that many degree holders have no hope of paying for the schooling needed to obtain them.   Additionally, schools can do a better job of preparing students to make informed decisions about future careers that fit them well.  If they did, students would make fewer career mistakes and potentially spend less money on education that does not serve them well.  

The chart below shows some problems people may experience in their lives as a result of not having essential personal life skills.

If using a mobile device, please turn the device horizontally for optimal viewing.

Domestic violence Broken families, emotional instability, physical trauma, fear, medical expenses x x x x
Bullying others Social and school problems X x x
Racism Stress & other health concerns, discrimination x x x
Depression/anxiety Poor relationships, job loss, family dysfunction x x x x
Suicide Family trauma, stress for loved ones x x x x
Drug or alcohol dependence/abuse Poor health, job loss, family trauma, legal troubles x x x
Eating disorder(s) (anorexia, bulimia, etc.) Poor health, emotional instability x x
Poor job performance Unable to advance, poor pay, job dissatisfaction x x
Marital/family issues Divorce, disharmony, dysfunctional family dynamics x x x x
Low self-esteem Risky behaviors, poor judgment, lack of motivation x x
Incarceration Family trauma, relationships suffer, future job potential decreases x x x x
Anger Arrest, incarceration, bad relationships x x
Fear Family & work relationships suffer, stress x x
Debt Bad credit, homelessness, stress x x x
Poverty/homelessness Stress, financial ruin x x x
Poor health/self-care Medical problems, relationships suffer x x
Obesity Health problems, hygiene issues, social anxiety x x
Guilt, shame, self-blame Lack of motivation, depression, anxiety x x
A person is riding in the car while driving.

Santoro Education Lifeskills Foundation (SELF)

If learning academic subjects is like the car that drives you, then essential personal life skills are like the steering wheel that guides you.   You can’t drive a car without a steering wheel, right?

SELF is dedicated to helping everyone learn important lessons about health, self-character, and relationships with others as early in life as possible. We believe that through learning essential personal life skills as early as preschool and continuing from grades K-12, people will have foundational life skills to help in ALL areas of life. 

We can use your help

A man and his son are drawing on paper.

How to Use This Site

This website is a free common-sense approach to help ALL people become their best selves and win the biggest game: LIFE.

We advocate for and provide a simple means of avoiding or treating some life issues that stem from the lack of essential personal life skills, and the journey starts with the first step.

Please click on the We Educate tab shown at the top of this and all other pages for a peek at all of the free resources this site offers, which range from a full curriculum program called Alive2Thrive to individual short “sayings.”

This site is not intended as a replacement for professional medical care for physical or mental health problems, which should be addressed by a licensed professional.