You Are Not All That Special....

Having highlighted one college commencement address in an earlier post and since it is that time of year, I found a high school commencement address that I believe should be broadcast to everyone!


Sometimes, we just need to be reminded that we just are not all that special! 

"David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at the school, delivered his rather unusual speech (see full text below) Friday, telling graduating seniors that they had been “pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.” It was all said in the context of telling students that there is a big wide world out there and that they should not succumb to a culture in which everyone gets a trophy. McCullough, son of the award-winning historian David McCullough Sr., advised the students to seize the future by doing what they love, rather than taking a job for money. “Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you,” he said near the end of the speech. But he wasn’t exactly kind in getting to his message. “Contrary to what your soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special,” he said."

You can read the address here in its entirety.

Life is not about what you have done but rather what you are doing.  Like the earlier commencement address, its about the world rather than about you.  Maybe what we need to do is focus less on self help books, or books that will improve you or make you successful but rather we need to focus on educating ourselves of others; other countries, other cultures, other people....

Maybe, just maybe, you are not all that special, maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong....

But if so, you have a lifetime to explore, to test, to challenge, and to move forward.....

Patience And Passion

I have never been a big fan of motivational speakers; but Gary Vaynerchuk is different!

I just do not understand why people do not take the concept of patience and passion to everything in their lives!  Lets be honest, all of us spend most of our waking hours at work and if you do not enjoy what you do at work then you might need to think about what is wrong with your perspective of life rather than seeking a career change!

Life without risks or challenges is a passionless life.  Sometimes you have to establish your own challenges and risk; sometimes you have to be your own competition.

A well lived life is a culmination of a journey of numerous peaks and valleys; patience and passion makes it possible to appreciate the peaks and press on through the valleys.  Sometimes the valleys seem to never end, trust me I know!

Nothing worthwhile comes easy….

I remember at 21 finding myself in Saudi Arabia being introduced to my staff:  A 150 men from a variety of different countries and I was the only westerner.  I spent the first three months being frustrated by the fact that they all waited on me to tell them what to do and at the same time they paid absolutely no attention to my instructions!  With patience you learn to observe, to learn, and to grow.  With passion you will always seek success and you are willing to adapt to a situation so to be successful.

Challenges are just opportunities to observe, to learn, and to grow.  With patience and passion challenges become nothing more than opportunities and opportunities are just the front door to success.

I have never sought an opportunity or a job where I was an ideal fit; that's too easy!  If its easy then its not worthwhile!

Challenges vs. Opportunities

I belong to a human resources group at Linkedin and every morning I get a group update and one question seems to dominate the group discussion:  "What are the biggest HR concerns you face in your organization?"

I can't help but think to myself, "Concerns are only opportunities that you have not capitalized on yet!"  I wish just one time someone would ask, "What opportunities are you going to capitalize on in your role as a human resources executive today?"  I bet if I posted this question there would be no responses but everyday I will continue to see that people continue to respond to the question in regards to "...their biggest HR concerns...."

Back in 1999 while traveling I met some young people who were discussing a business concept which involved tee shirts, art, and screen printing; which are exactly the core components of the industry that I was employed in.  There idea was to create a community of artists who would create art, vote on it, and then the company would screen print the winning vote getter's on tee shirts and then sell the final product to the community.  At the time that was a revolutionary idea that really wasn't all that much of a revolution if you sat down and studied the concept.

I tried to pitch the idea to the two owners of the company that I worked for at the time.  The trouble was that they were busy looking for the next opportunity to recreate business as they remembered it.  At one time, if you were a screen printer, you could have one design that you would print 10,000 units of a week and sell it to every retailer out there; of course, at one time all screen printed shirts were on white tee shirts.  Slowly but surely, year after year, retailers and consumers demanded something new, something different and before you knew it you were screen printing 144 shirts of a design and that design could be on as many as 12 different colored shirts; on top of that if you sold designs to one retailer you had to guarantee that the same designs would not be sold to another competitor of theirs.

At one time consumers had to have what everyone else had; now consumers want to be individuals.  So, it was obvious that the market was heading to a consumer centric business model long before any of us had a name for the trend.  Now, the trend in our industry was to move off shore and benefit from lower labor costs to increase ones scale. 

Its like if you sell a million dollars a year of four designs and or shirt colors, then if you go to eight designs or colors you will enjoy two million dollars of sales and on and on it went until you had so many choices and or options that retailers became overwhelmed or you drowned in so many sku's that you could not produce the goods or you over produced and the carrying costs of inventory ended up bankrupting you.

The real revolution wasn't in the idea that these young people presented but rather in the fact that those of us in the industry could not accept the reality of what we already were aware of; the "good ol' days" are over!  I have kept track of those young guys over the years and they "won!"  The founder is now on the top 10 list of internet millionaires who is under 30 and he gives lectures to MBA students at The Harvard Business School.  

The apparel industry, both retailers and manufacturers, continue to consolidate, and in turn find themselves with nothing but their sheer girth and pricing on which to compete on; kind of like dinosaurs.

Opportunities are nothing but evolution while the perception of challenges are the basis for extinction:  The only difference is ones point of view.