A Little Friendly Advice

I spoke to my aunt tonight. She's preparing for a commencement speech she is giving tomorrow and filled me in on what she was intending on saying.


Firstly, she and I both noted, we hate commencement speeches.  They're all the same and they're all really really boring.  Congratulations.  You've graduated.  You overcame obstacles and succeeded at things you didn't think you could do before; you're heading down new paths and taking old memories with you; may you go far in life...yada yada yada.  Blah blah blah.  Can I sleep yet?  Please.  We both agreed a new take on things was needed.


She decided, therefore, to take a different approach.  She is speaking in front of an audience of graduating performing arts students, having been asked to present at the ceremony due to her long time support for a friend and her own person performing accomplishments.  When deciding what to say, she decided to talk about tricks on how to succeed in life and the importance of a little thing called listening.


(all that follows is the summary of what she imparted on me)


Yes.  That's right.  Listening.  Pause, think, and reflect for a moment on that very single concept.  Listening.  How often do you actually listen?  No, not blindly go in and out of conversations and nod and say "mm hmm" at the appropriate points, but actually and genuinely listen?  Try it sometime.  Stop thinking about all the other laundry list of things you have going on and focus on who's speaking to you and listen.  It's amazing how much you can learn by doing that.  


That also, however, means listening to yourself.  What do you want and what does that mean?  Staying true to yourself and succeeding in an area about which you are passionate is only accomplished through working hard and listening to yourself.  You have a unique voice for a reason.  Don't drown it out because you think you're supposed to be doing something or supposed to be this or that person acting this or that way.  But, you can't know what you truly want if you don't stop to listen to yourself.  


Okay okay, enough theory.  What is the main point?  What's the "step by step" if you will she's trying to get at?  Well, here it is:


How to succeed according to Sharon Ohrenstein:
1) Listen
2) Be in the Moment
3) Find your Passion
4) Do the Work


You can't truly do no. 1 without no. 2, you can't do no. 3 without no.1, you won't accomplish or be any good at pursuing no.3 if you can't do no.4, and you won't do no. 4 properly if you can't do no. 2.  Ah, and hence, we've arrived at the full circle affect.  Lovely.


Case in point:  Liberace.  Famous Piano Player.  Amazing performer.  Completely and utterly successful.  Why?  All because one night, one really rainy night, he performed his absolute best for the small audience of 17 who came out to see him despite the terrible weather.  He could have looked into the audience and thought, "Why bother?" but he didn't.  He gave them the show he would have given an audience at Carnigie Hall, and you know what happened?  A TV producer happened to be one of the mere 17 people in the audience that night and he discovered Liberace and helped make him the amazingly famous face he was.  


So, when all that's said and done, what does that mean, exactly?  It means Pay Attention.  Be truly in the moment, and listen.  Listen to those around you and to yourself and what you want.  Find something you're passionate about and run with it.  Work as hard as you can and stay focused.  They say it takes 10,000 hours to be "excellent" at something.  Working 40 hours a week, that means you're looking at 3 years of work.  Three years of SOLID, TRUE, CONCENTRATED work just to be excellent at something.  If you spent any of those hours not "being fully present", then guess what?  You didn't really do 10,000 hours.  Keep trying.


So, dear all graduates and real-life inhabitants.  Take a moment and figure a few things out for yourselves.  Are you doing what you want to be doing?  Are you truly working at making your passions a reality or are you "working".  And lastly, are you really listening to those around you and to yourself?  If not...it may be time to get your internal volume switch checked.  Maybe then you can also actually listen to all the commencement speeches other people are giving.  :-)  Either way, thanks Aunt Sharon.  That was a really great chat.