Keep Asking: The Graduation Edition
Five Questions Every Graduate Should Ask As They Kick Off Their Defining Decade..
I once had a leader who said, “you need to go dig your own treasure—only then will you treasure your treasure.”
I love graduation speeches but the one tiny flaw in them, like so much unsolicited advice, is that the recipient doesn’t take full advantage of it because it’s not yet their treasure.
So, instead of a traditional grad speech, I did something shorter and a little different. Instead of advice, I’ve dropped in five questions to help you dig your own treasure for years to come. You can read it below or check out the video here
Take it or leave it :)
Who do you want to become?
No - we’re not talking about your future profession (designer, politician, tycoon - that’s still a profession, right?) and we’re not talking about titles like (home-owner, millionaire, influencer).
No, this is about something different.
In 2015, New York Times columnist, David Brooks captured this idea using this framework.
He said, there are two types of virtues. There are resume virtues and there are eulogy virtues.
“The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral”
David Brooks
There’s not a right or wrong answer here - it really depends on what you want.
Maybe you do want someone at your funeral to reference how beautiful your pivot tables were or how your negotiation skills always got your client more money.
The key is asking the question—making sure you are becoming who you want to become instead of letting circumstances and others decide for you.
Another way you could look at this is through the word identity. Identity comes from two Latin root words: essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Author James Clear says, “Your identity is literally your ‘repeated beingness.’”
What does this mean on your road to becoming?
Once again James Clear has a great approach. He says, once you know who you want to become you need to prove it to yourself with small consistent wins.
You want to be a writer? Write for 15 minutes each day for the next few years and you will become a writer.
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. If you finish a book, then perhaps you are the type of person who likes reading. If you go to the gym, then perhaps you are the type of person who likes exercise. If you practice playing the guitar, perhaps you are the type of person who likes music. Each habit is like a suggestion: “Hey, maybe this is who I am.”
James Clear
It’s up to you to decide who you want to become and then spend the next 10 years proving it to yourself with small wins along the way.
So, who do you want to become?
What do you want to get As in?
So, I stole this one from Matthew McConaughey. Kind of.
One day his phone rang. The call was from someone he liked (and paid a salary to) who worked for the company he owned, engaged in work he enjoyed. But on that day he paused - he didn’t want to answer. He let it finish ringing then he immediately called his lawyer and shut down the production company and record label.
Why?
“I was making in Bs in five things and I wanted to make As in three things.”
Matthew McConaughey
Some of you made it through high school with all As.
Unfortunately life isn’t like that. Life is about choices. You can’t pull an all nighter in order to suddenly become healthy. Don’t believe me? Try working out for six hours one night and see how you feel the next morning. suddenly have great relationships the way you could with a chemistry test. You’re going to have to make some trade-offs along the way and that’s ok.
Maybe you want As in your relationships and in your health and you’re great with a few Bs in hobbies and career. And these may change over time. Right now you might want As in your next academic life or in an internship and so you move health to the backburner temporarily. This is all ok as long as you are intentional about where you want your As.
Now remember this is your report card. You get to choose what you want to make As in. The moment you start comparing report cards - you always lose.
Consider this story Kurt Vonnegut tells of an experience he had with another famous author, Joseph Heller.
“Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
So what do you want to get As in?
Who’s on your team?
Kobe Bryant.
On the court he had four teammates playing alongside him at any given time. These would consist of some combination of starters and substitutes. But these aren’t the only people who contributed to the outcome of the game. By the time Kobe stepped onto the hardwood the coaches, trainers, nutritionists, equipment managers, security, and other staff each played a role in determining whether Kobe could perform to the best of his ability.
What would happen if a trainer hadn’t stretched him out properly before the game?
What if the nutritionist or cook had undercooked something?
What if the weight coach hadn’t pushed him in the weeks leading up to the game?
What if the head coach hadn’t shown him the right game film?
Kobe was a phenomenal athlete.
But he was not a champion on his own.
He didn’t win five rings without teammates.
Ok, so we also need teammates in our own lives. Have you thought about who you are inviting to be part of your team? Sure, we’re not trying to win some grand championship, but we want to live our best life, right? Well, the people you invite along for the ride will have a significant impact on that journey.
A study by Harvard social psychologist Dr. David McClelland found that “the people you habitually associate with determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life.”
The goal here isn’t an echo chamber of people who tell you what you want to hear and let you live comfortably - the goal is to create a team of diverse strengths and perspectives so that you are pushed to become the best version of yourself.
So who’s on your team?
How can you experiment with this?
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
Richard Feynman
If you hopped on Google right now, you could find hundreds and thousands of different suggestions for self improvement. And many of these folks are coming at you with scientific studies. 1,000 people all lost weight by switching to a vegetarian diet while 1,000 other people went carnivore and had the same results. Who’s right?
Maybe they both are. And for those 2,000 people in the study, that’s great.
But what’s the most important sample size?
Do you know what the most important sample size is?
1.
You.
It doesn’t matter if getting up early worked for this group and staying up late worked for this group. You need to figure yourself out through experimentation. You need your own data.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
So choose any aspect of your life you want to improve and ask, how can you experiment with this?
What are you doing with what you have been given?
“Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day... The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
Marcus Aurelius
I love the idea of balancing life’s books each day. You were given today. An entire day. 24 full hours. What did you do with it?
“For as God bestows any ability or gift upon any of us, he binds us to such as have need of us and as we are able to help”
John Calvin
I love this - to me it sounds like he’s saying the gifts you have are the perfect complement to someone God will place in your path at some point. You then have a moment of decision—how will you use what you have been given?
Consider this story about John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was in a closely contested presidential race with Richard Nixon. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had been sentenced to four months of hard labor for a minor traffic issue had just been moved in the middle of the night from a county jail to a high security prison.
Nixon was advised to not speak out on the matter in order to ensure he would retain votes from white southerners. Kennedy was advised to make a call directly to King’s wife to extend his support.
“I know this must be very hard for you. I understand you are expecting a baby and I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you and Dr. King. If there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to call on me.”
The words from presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy to Coretta King took less than two minutes to express but took courage to deliver.
This feels like nothing by today's standards. But when you consider the racial tension during this time in the US, it was a bold move that could have cost him the election. It would have been easy to hide and just say nothing at all. Worse, it would have been easy to fan the flame of racism by condoning the events.
A simple phone call offering help in a moment of need had an immediate and positive impact on the King family and others in their community.
Ultimately, the act that some thought would be costly, helped Kennedy win the election
You may have power, talents, money, time, skills, or any other variety of resources at your disposal. Each day, you will face situations where those resources might be used to lift another.
So what are you doing with what you have been given?