Graduation is always a great milestone in a person’s life. Regardless of your age, graduating from high school, trade school, college, or grad school is worth celebrating. But when the celebration ends, and you wake up the next morning to start a new chapter in your life, let me encourage you to take to heart a few simple words of wisdom.
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1. Graduate School but Don’t Graduate Learning – Learning should be a lifelong goal. In fact, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner call learning the Master Skill. It’s the skill that opens the door to future opportunities, future growth, and ultimately the person you want to become. Today might be the day you graduate school, but the day you graduate learning should be the day you draw your last breath.
2. Pursue the Boredom of Success – I know that sounds like a strange statement, but I believe it is one of the most important things you can do. Behind the glitz and glamour of success is usually a very routine, even at times boring, set of disciplines. What allows a person to reach their goals and experience success is what is done behind the scenes day after day, week after week, and year after year. It’s the everyday disciplines that make a person successful, not the 15 minutes of fame you see on YouTube. Pursue the Boredom of Success by establishing daily disciplines that will produce longterm health in key areas of your life.
3. Avoid the Attitude of Entitlement – Graduating school is a great accomplishment, but keep this simple truth in mind: nobody owes you anything. I know that’s not what you want to hear on graduation day, but people aren’t handing out jobs like lollypops. You have to prove yourself. You have to bust your butt. If you have a vision for the next chapter of your life, it has a price tag…and nobody but you can pay it.
4. Develop a Healthy Perspective of Success and Failure – Don’t let success go to your head and don’t let failure define you. As you move into a new season of life, you will experience both. That’s part of the journey. The difference-maker is how you respond when success and failure come. Celebration and humility is a great response to success. Reflection and learning is a great response to failure.
5. Match Your Books Smarts with People Smarts – It’s quite amazing how many people are extremely smart in school but extremely dumb with people. They’ve got the book smarts, but they haven’t learned how to work with people. They lack emotional intelligence, the ability to build trust, and the skills to make people feel valued. Your book smarts might get you hired, but your inability to connect with people will get you fired. In fact, attitude issues and poor people skills are among the top reasons people lose their jobs.
If you’ve recently graduated, or your graduation date is just over the horizon, I encourage you to take these lessons to heart. If you’re a young leader, I’d also encourage you to check out 10 Words of Wisdom to Young Leaders.
