What makes a person successful in the real world? Is it their technical knowledge, their accounting abilities, or anything else they might learn in school? While these qualifications  are important, there are other skills which are just as essential to personal and professional success: things like teamwork, negotiating, and planning! Without these abilities, your teen could be the greatest math whiz of all time…but find themselves unable to communicate or collaborate enough to bring their innovations into the world.If kids aren’t learning skills like this in school, how can we teach them to be strategic and savvy adults? Turns out, we as parents can set examples about compromise and negotiation that kids take with them into adult life!  With the right conversations, we can encourage them to become leaders, developing the confidence and collaborative abilities they’ll need to cultivate the career of their dreams.To understand how we can set up our kids for success, we’re talking to Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Originally an engineer and chief technology officer, Mark has spent much of his career launching and developing new ventures at startups, fortune 500s and academia! His MIT Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program is often referred to as MIT’s “career success accelerator”. Mark is the perfect person to tell us exactly how teens can  thrive in the professional world!In our interview, Mark and I are discussing some of the most important qualities teens need to find success, and how they can cultivate these abilities. We’re also talking about how teens can take notes on their failures or success to inform their future endeavors, and how parents can become better negotiators to reach compromises with teens–without either side sacrificing their interests.