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.

Appreciation

You don’t know what you got till it’s gone...

That was never more true then it is in today’s new normal - the year 2020- will change how we think about everything, and hopefully help us appreciate life as it was and hopefully will be again one day.
Things we took for granted , simple things like being able to go wherever you wanted ,whenever you wanted, gathering together as a family or for social events like live concerts or sporting events.
This Pandemic of the COVID -19 virus has tipped the world on its axis and changed our lives overnight, it revealed how fragile our lives are and how much we are not in total control of everything.

It also hopefully is reminding people to appreciate what they did have and what they do have, appreciate people and all those things they complained about every day.
As we gradually return to life as we knew it life will still will be different for a while until a vaccine is developed and distributed so people will have to wear mask and not gather in big numbers and again our “normal” will look and be different.

Americans , especially many in this generation, are not use to sacrificing , we are now the microwave society- we want everything in 60 seconds and we want it when we want it !
We don’t want to wait for the internet to boot up, we don’t want to wait for water to boil or to drive to far off the highway exit, we don’t want to wait in line.

We want fast food, we want warped speed on out computers and cell phones, can you ever imagine even 20 years ago and having to try to find a phone booth to make a call ? Actually driving somewhere and having to get out of the car and put change in a phone to call someone? OMG

Or how about 40 years ago and buying a used car, I thought I hit the lottery when I bought a car that was in the same decade as the year of the car, imagine rolling up a window by hand and intermittent windshield wipers ? The only thing intermittent in those cars was if the car would start.

Americans got lazy and complain about everything, maybe , just maybe this reset on our “normal” will help people to appreciate everything around them and everything we do have ?

Nah
Unfortunately most will snap right back into their life as they knew it , complain and rush around and take the simple things and people for granted.

Survivor

The work place can look a lot like the show- Survivor-
People create their own alliances and do whatever they think necessarily to survive.
How can businesses avoid the “Survivor “ philosophy ?
Leaders need to be vigilant and they need to be amongst the people, walking around the bull pen, listening and assisting,
Leaders need to set goals and be out there constantly talking about them all rowing the same direction to achieve those goals. People need to know they are all part of the team, when people feel isolated it creates these alliances so they do not feel alone or secluded.
Here’s the thing once isolation creeps in it is like a cancer and will continue to grow, if a boss or leader can sense these silos beginning they need to address them head on , confront those that have these feelings and ask what they can do to help and then for goodness sake ACT- follow up !
Lead by example!
Leaders do not talk to one group or certain individuals and ask to not tell others about their discussions, people are smart enough to understand that they can also be on the other side of that fence too.
Include- do not exclude!
Exclusions and whispers are the building blocks of people being paranoid and people that are paranoid are unproductive and unhappy.
Your workplace can be whatever you want it to be and most everyone wants to feel like they are making a difference and everyone wants to be respected.
It is not hard people - just be honest - create a team atmosphere and be a part of the team- you will accomplish a great deal more and at the end of the day feel better about yourself and your job!

I Hope

Sunday morning, heard the preacher say
? Thou shall not kill?
I don't wanna hear nothing else about killing
And that it's God's will

'Cause our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us

So let's learn from our history
And do it differently

I Hope

For more love, more joy and laughter

We'll have more than we'll ever need

We'll have more happy ever afters

We can all live more fearlessly

And we can lose all the pain and misery

Oh Rosie, her man he gets too rough
All she can say is, ? He's a good man
He don't mean no harm
He was brought up that way?

Our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us

It's okay for us to disagree
We can work it out lovingly

There must be a way to change what's going on
No I don't have all the answers

But I hope
For more love, more joy and laughter

You'll have more than you'll ever need

You'll have more happy ever afters

And you can all live more fearlessly

And you can lose all your pain and misery

I hope

Change

Be prepared to change the message if needed:  

Another component of communications strategy that is rarely discussed is how to prevent a message from going bad, and what to do when does. It’s called being prepared and developing a contingency plan. 

Again, you must keep in mind that for successful interactions to occur, your objective must be in alignment with those you are communicating with. If your expertise, empathy, clarity, etc. don’t have the desired effect, which by the way is very rare, you need to be able to make an impact by changing things up on the fly. 

Use great questions, humor, stories, analogies, relevant data, and where needed, bold statements to help connect and engender the confidence and trust that it takes for people to want to engage. 

While it is sometimes necessary to “Shock and Awe” this tactic should be reserved as a last resort.