Advice for Graduating Students

Here is my advice for graduating students ... (and for everyone else)

Listen
Learn
Love

These three simple things is the roadmap for a happier more satisfying life.

1) Listen-
Listen to others , especially those you may not agree with. The art of listening is not to always try to get the other person to agree with you but to truly try to understand where they are coming from and why they think the way they do. You may not agree with them in the end but you may walk away with a better understanding of either them or the subject and you may actually think about your side a little different.
Either way if they have a different opinion just pushing them away or hating them will solve absolutely nothing.

2) Learn-
Always want to learn - by listening more you will learn more, no matter what the subject we can can always learn more and grow. When they day comes that you think you are the expert and know everything that is day that you begin alienate yourself and that will begin a very dark road for your future.
You learn best when you lower your shoulders and open your ears and your heart.
Try to keep that little child innocent curiousness in your heart and your mind.

3) Love-
When you truly listen and learn you will understand life more and where people come from and why they may think the way they do and you when you realize we all have struggles you will begin to love more.
To love others you first have to love yourself, forgive yourself for any of past thoughts or actions, learn from them and move on. Use your mistakes to grow and then let them go.
After you forgive yourself - forgive others- that weight of holding a grudge will only stunt your true growth and feeling of joy, and in the end that thing you were hurt or mad about really doesn’t matter.

Listen- Learn- Love

Rah Rah

It is very nice to hear kudos from your boss and thank you from Leadership in your place of work.

That said in business and especially in today’s environment we workers in the pit all know that we can be here today and gone tomorrow, if our boss’s boss tells him to make cuts or to let you go - you are gone.
 So as much as kudos are nice you can not bank them or pay your bills with them.

Here’s an idea- rather them coming down from the mountain or out from your closed door office to rain praise on the workers actually give them tools so they can do their job better, listen and observe to what the workers do so when the time comes to evaluate the staff you know first hand how they go about their day.
 This is where climbing the ranks is essential because to be a true leader you must have at least sat in the chair of a worker or walked a mile in their shoes in order to truly assist them and evaluate them.
Part of being a successful boss or leader is mentoring the people that work for you and keeping them excited and learning and you can only do that if you care and if you listen and observe and “ know the job”.
To many leaders now jump the line , employers think that sheepskin or college degrees are the be all , education is certainly important but so is sweat equity and work experience .

In order to lead you need the respect of the people you are leading and they can smell BS so if you do not know what they do and even worse do not take the time to understand what they do they will never truly respect you as a leader or boss and as a boss you will never be able to improve your business or grow yourself.

So don’t just throw around thank you and atta boys - get involved- listen- mentor- lead.

What side he views the matter ...

A philosopher’s 350-year-old trick to get people to change their minds is now backed up by psychologists.

The 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for Pascal’s Wager which, in the first formal use of decision theory, argued that believing in God is the most pragmatic decision. But it seems the French thinker also had a knack for psychology. Pascal set out the most effective way to get someone to change their mind, centuries before experimental psychologists began to formally study persuasion:
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.Pascal added:
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.Put simply, Pascal suggests that before disagreeing with someone, first point out the ways in which they’re right. And to effectively persuade someone to change their mind, lead them to discover a counter-point of their own accord. Arthur Markman, psychology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, says both these points hold true.“One of the first things you have to do to give someone permission to change their mind is to lower their defenses and prevent them from digging their heels in to the position they already staked out,” he says. “If I immediately start to tell you all the ways in which you’re wrong, there’s no incentive for you to co-operate. But if I start by saying, ‘Ah yeah, you made a couple of really good points here, I think these are important issues,’ now you’re giving the other party a reason to want to co-operate as part of the exchange. And that gives you a chance to give voice your own concerns about their position in a way that allows co-operation.”Markman also supports Pascal’s second persuasive suggestion. “If I have an idea myself, I feel I can claim ownership over that idea, as opposed to having to take your idea, which means I have to explicitly say, ‘I’m going to defer to you as the authority on this.’ Not everybody wants to do that,” he adds.In other words, if it wasn’t enough that Pascal is recognized as a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher, it seems he was also an early psychologist.