6 Lessons from business school, life, Youtube, and the movies

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My roommate shared this video with me on the morning of our graduation, so I thought it would make an appropriate add on to my final thoughts on b-school and life post. I think the advice in this video is spot-on and really makes some great points. To add here are few of my own final thoughts:

1. Limitations: Get rid of this word from your vocabulary. It’s never going to serve any valuable purpose in your life other than to discuss the lack of limitations. Believing that we have limitations is what has held us all back from achieving our true potential. What we are all capable of as human beings is extraordinary and just realizing that seems to me the thing that can allow you to overcome any limitations you have.

2. Choose your friends wisely: According to a study done at Harvard University, your reference groups have the biggest impact on your success and happiness in life. So, surround yourself with winners. Make sure they are people who are better than you in some way and can make you better in some way. It seems these people have all gotten that way by committing themselves to having a positive impact on the people around them. Mark Burnett said it best in our graduation speech when he described the people to avoid as “energy suckers.” When you realize the power in this, somehow your energy completely changes.

3. Risks: Take risks. If there’s anything I could leave as parting words whether it is at a graduation, my deathbed, or some other life-changing event, it’s that you should take risks. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward is something that seems to be a cornerstone of the thinking of some of our greatest minds. Sure, it comes with failure, sometimes more than success. But history has taught us that some of the most successful people are the ones that failed the most.

4. Who you are being: This is stolen from a few other people including the second video I’ve included here from the Movie School of Life. Don’t worry about what you’re doing, worry about who you are being. There are moments I look at over the last 2 years and I realize, that I let my ego make decisions and didn’t really concern myself with who I was being. ALWAYS KEEP THIS IN MIND

5. Do something that increases the quality of the lives of people around you. This doesn’t necessarily mean spend time doing charity work, or working for peanuts. Something as simple as letting people know you appreciate their effort, or recognizing them for the most menial things. Somehow it seems that when you recognize people for small achievements they tend be capable of much bigger achievements. The professors and teachers who believe in you do this every day by seeing a future for your that even might seem out of reach to your right now.

6. Live in the moment: If there’s’ anything I’ve finally realized, after graduating, being jobless, and wondering what comes next, is that NONE OF THIS REALLY MATTERS. While my friends have surpassed me by earning professional degrees like JD’s, MD’s, and taken on the jobs that I’ve thought were the answer, I always go back to the words of my best friend from college. “What are you going to do? Race to the death?”

Tags: inspiration, motivation, goal setting, life lessons

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