DON’T BE A ROCK STAR…. BUILD A SYSTEM & LEAVE A LEGACY

It was a tradition in my fraternity that during the last chapter meeting for each graduating senior they had the opportunity to address the rest of the chapter with some final “words of wisdom”.  I could have spent hours talking about everything that I learned, however I decided to convey one simple message – have no regrets.  I wanted everyone to take full advantage of all our campus had to offer; strong academic programs, tons of student organizations, a great social experience, endless opportunities for leadership and so much more.  My message was for each of my fraternity brothers to get involved in as much as possible and give their absolute best to whatever they were doing at the moment. 

I felt comfortable sharing this message with my brothers because I could honestly say that I had no regrets.  I got involved in lots of organizations, took on multiple leadership positions, sat on a variety of councils, had a great social life and gave my best to each of them.  As I sit here five years after I gave that speech, I’ve realized that I do have one regret.  My one regret from those experiences is that I focused so much on doing everything and “leading by example” that I didn’t set up the next group of leaders to continue building on what I started.  I was so focused on being a “rock star” that I didn’t put any systems in place for my organizations to succeed after I left campus.

Student organizations are no different than a small business; to be successful, they must do things such as provide value, have great leadership, offer something that people want, effectively market themselves, have more money coming in than going out and implement a winning strategy.  The typical small business in this country fails 80% of the time, meaning that only 1 out of 5 actually succeeds.  Why do so many fail?  Because they have one or a few people running around haphazardly trying to do every function of the business.  Does this sound like most of the student organizations on your campus?

A much more successful business model is a systems-based franchise model that has a group of people working towards a common vision, each with a specific set of responsibilities.  These franchise models succeed 93% of the time, as opposed to a regular small business that succeeds 20% of the time.  Why is there such a huge difference?  Because a system can succeed without rock stars; a system simply needs average people executing specific responsibilities that contribute to the overall mission of the organization.

A great example of the franchise model is McDonalds.  When was the last time you saw the owner of a McDonalds running around the store frantically trying to do everything?  You have never seen it because the owner doesn’t do anything other than manage a system.  They find regular people and then give them specific responsibilities that collectively contribute to the mission of the company, which is providing fast, inexpensive and fresh food to its customers.  McDonalds owners love hearing “anyone could work at a McDonalds” because it proves that having a great system in place means that you don’t need to rely on one or two rock stars doing everything. 

If you aren’t sure whether you are on the right track with your student organization, ask yourself one question – if you took away the top three leaders of the organization, would it fall apart?  If the answer is yes, then your organization is not a system, but rather a failing small business that is not sustainable. 

The lesson that I learned is that the best student leaders aren’t rock stars who run around and do everything; the leaders who have the most impact are the ones who develop and manage a system that stays in place after they graduate and new leaders can step right into.  If you truly want to have an impact and leave a legacy in your organization, focus on building a system that empowers each member and gives each member specific responsibilities.  If I had to do it all over again, I would have made sure that each executive board member had a specific set of responsibilities and that all other members also knew how they were needed to help us accomplish our mission and felt empowered to do so.

Young Professional Success Tip – Shut Up and Listen

You learn more from listening than you do from talking.

One of the biggest mistakes young professionals make is that they think they know more than they actually do.  The truth is, you may know more now than you did 10 years ago…  but you know nothing now compared to what you will know in another 10 years.  It is important as a young professional to have a strong awareness of what you know and what you don’t know; then you can concentrate on learning the skills necessary to become successful in whatever you desire.  

Note that people love to talk; become a great listener and ask great questions.  By doing this, you will receive a ton of great information from people, rather than showing them how much you know or what you think about a particular subject.  The more you listen, the more you learn…  and the more you learn, the more knowledgeable you will be come.  Knowledge equals power, so learn as much as you can!

Remember that you aren’t learning anything new when you are talking, so shut up and become a great listener!

Young Professional Success Tip – Build Positive Relationships

A very quick and easy way to significantly shorten your road to success is by simply aligning yourself with successful people and building positive relationships with them.  Getting where you want to be is much easier if you are surrounded by successful people who know your vision of success and want to see you achieve it!  

Who are the people you want to align yourself with and build relationships with?

• Leaders in your company
• Leaders at other companies in your industry
• People that your respect
• People that you want to be like

How do you meet these people?  Simply ask them out to lunch or to grab a cup of coffee.  99% of the time successful people will gladly set aside 15 minutes or more to meet with you and provide guidance – all you need to do is ASK!  Most people are either too nervous or too lazy to simply ask someone they respect out to lunch.  Once you have access to this person, prepare a list of questions for him or her – find out what he would do differently if he was your age again.  Ask him what the most important characteristic is for success, share your vision with him, and find out information that you feel will be beneficial to your future success.

You will continue to build new and stronger relationships as your career grows – these relationships will collectively make your road to success much easier because you have now built a network of supporters who want to see you succeed and will help you in any way that they can.

Young Professional Success Tip – Keep a Brag Book

A brag book is a list of your professional accomplishments and not only is it crucial that you have one, you must constantly update it.  Think of your brag book as being a resume on steroids and containing a ton of details about how amazing you are.  The format can be a simple Word document that you update at least once per month with everything you have accomplished professionally since your last entry.  Some of the things you may want to include in your brag book:

• Sales numbers
• Awards you have won
• Any increases in your responsibility
• New systems that you built
• Materials that you created
• Success with the people that you manage
• Major projects young contributed to or did yourself
• Presentations that you gave
• Recommendations or praise you have received from others
• Increases in company revenue that you or your department were responsible for
• Any of your ideas that positively impacted the company

The reason you need to keep this updated on a regular basis is because it is impossible to remember all of this information when you need it most.  Reasons that you want to have this book updated at all times are:

• Building this quickly is difficult
• You can use it to get a promotion or pay raise in your organization
• You can show another company the value that you can bring as an employee
• You can showcase yourself with solid material, not a bunch of fluff

The brag book is a great way to separate yourself from the competition.  No one else will have one and you’ll look like a rock star.  You never know when you may need it and it could even save you during a company’s downsizing.  So get started today, build a great brag book and keep it updated!

Young Professional Success Tip – Be Ambitious and Work Exceptionally Hard.

Ambition is simply a strong drive to become successful.  Be ambitious every single day of your life and be willing to work exceptionally hard; this is what it will take to become successful as quickly and as easily as possible.  Very few people have a clue about what they want in their lives and even fewer are willing to work hard to become successful.  If you display an ambitious attitude and are willing to work your hardest, you’ll put yourself in a great position to succeed.  Below are 5 reasons why you must be ambitious as a young professional and work hard:

1. Ambition will get you to where you want to be much more quickly
2. Ambition will separate you from the majority of the people around you
3. You will make more money
4. You will be given more responsibilities, which will make you more valuable to the company and more difficult to replace
5. Ambition will lead you to more opportunities

The harder you work, the “luckier” you will get and the more quickly that amazing opportunities will come to you.  Most of you have to work somewhere, so you might as well be ambitious and work harder than everyone else and reach your vision of success quickly!

Young Professional Success Tip – Do What You Are Passionate About

Life is simply too short to waste on doing something that you aren’t passionate about for a living.  As a young professional, you have the amazing opportunity to do whatever you want, live wherever you want and make the absolute most out of life.  Wasting it in a career/industry that doesn’t excite you or make you want to jump out of bed every morning is a huge mistake.  The last thing you want to do is look back one day and realize you would have been a lot happier had you chosen to simply do what you are passionate about and let the rest fall into place.

The most common reason that young professionals do not do what they are passionate about is because they believe they have to make a choice between making money and following their passions.  If you fall into the category of feeling pressure to choose, and feel as though you can’t make money doing what you love, then don’t worry.  It’s not your fault that you weren’t taught how to make money while following your passion.

There was a study done in the 1970′s at Harvard where graduating seniors were asked to choose one of the following:

A. I want to try to make as much money as possible now, and one day I’ll be able to do what I am passionate about

B. I am going to do what I am passionate about and hope the money follows but will be fine if it doesn’t

A total of 1,500 students participated in this study.  A total of 1,245 chose option A and were focused on trying to make as much money as possible regardless of what they were doing.  The other 255 decided to follow their passions and see what happened.

20 years later, the students were asked one question: Are you a millionaire?  Of the 1,500 students, a total of 101 had become millionaires within 20 years of the study.  Of the 101 millionaires, a whopping total of 1 student came from the group of 1,245 that chose option A.  The idea of this study is simple.  Regardless of whether you want to attempt to get rich or do what you are passionate about… you need to do what you are passionate about!!

The bottom line is that you simply need to do what you are passionate about so that you can enjoy your life.  More than likely, you will end up making a lot more money in the long run and you’ll have additional time to spend on the things that are most important to you.  Follow your passion and you will create an amazing life for yourself!

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – Always Hope For The Best, Plan For The Worst

I have two sides of me that compete against each other. In one corner is the guy who believes everything he wants to accomplish is going to happen tomorrow. In the other corner is the guy who thinks it will take a hundred years to accomplish everything he has his sights set on. Which one of them will win? Well the truth is neither because success doesn’t happen overnight if you have huge ambitions, but if you work your hardest and you execute a winning plan it will certainly happen for you at some point. I have learned that you always need to plan for the absolute worst, but hope for the absolute best. If you do not have a plan if an idea fails, then what will you do? It is important to make sure that one bad idea or wrong move doesn’t cost you your entire business, just that it sets you back a little bit and then you learn from it by never replicating that error.

One of the biggest flaws I personally have as an entrepreneur is that I usually underestimate how long things will take to complete – everything from writing blog entries to publishing books. That is why for me it is critical that I hope for the best but plan for the worst – in other words, make sure that it won’t hurt me too much if it takes longer to complete a project than I originally anticipated. I believe that every business needs to always know what the worst thing is that could happen to them and then have a plan to deal with it and move on. It’s no different than a government going over all the possible scenarios that could negatively affect their country and then having a plan for every scenario they can think of to minimize the damage and garuntee the long term viability of the country.

Making the College Investment Worth It

I was doing consulting work on a college campus recently and I heard something from students that I had never heard before – many of them felt guilty for the significant amount of money their parents were paying for them to attend college.  They repeatedly mentioned that their parents were struggling financially but were still insisting on honoring their commitment to pay for college.  The students genuinely felt awful about this and felt they were a burden for their parents.  I’ve begun to hear this more and more often since then and continue to say the same thing I told the students I initially heard this from – your obligation is to make your tuition the best investment your parents will ever make.

So for those of you that truly feel guilty about the cost of your education, just focus on one thing each day – how can I maximize the investment my parents are making with this tuition?

How do you maximize this investment?  By putting yourself in a situation to learn as much as possible – work hard in your classes, join student organizations, take advantage of leadership opportunities, build friendships with a variety of personality types, have a great social life, get out of your comfort zone and ultimately challenge yourself each and every day.  If you consistently do that for four years, you will undoubtedly make your parents proud and ensure they have a significant and life-long return on your tuition dollars!

Encouragement vs Empowerment

Tom Healy & Tom Haupt after a recent event in Scottsdale

Are you encouraging people to succeed or empowering them to succeed?  First, lets take a look at the definition for each:

Encouragement – the act of encouraging, giving hope or support to someone

Empowerment - the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take action, and control work and decision making in autonomous ways

The easiest way to break it down is to simply ask yourself whether you are serving as a cheerleader for someone or you are providing them with the resources they need to be successful.  A personal example is a few years ago when I decided to write a book – tons of people said “you can do it”, “dream big” and “believe in yourself”, but that didn’t do anything to put words on pages.  I certainly appreciated the encouragement, and it was helpful, but at the end of the day it didn’t give me the tools, knowledge or resources to achieve my ambitious goal.  The best thing that ever happened to me was meeting my mentor, Tom Haupt, who empowered me to write the book.  He provided me with weekly coaching and accountability while giving me the resources I needed to get my book written and published.  ”Dream Big” doesn’t make things happen….  resources, knowledge, introductions to the right people and solid advice is what made things happen for me.

My advice is to look at the people you are mentoring, coaching, advising and managing….  are you encouraging them to succeed or empowering them to succeed?  Give them the resources they need to make big things happen as soon as possible, don’t just cheerlead for them.  They will thank you for it!

Don't Assume Degrees = Success

What are the two most “recession-proof” professional designations you can have?

I’m sure most of you immediately thought “Doctor & Lawyer” and with good cause; traditionally, they have been a pretty safe way to make a consistent living for an entire lifetime.  I recently saw an article in the USA Today discussing the frustrations that many young lawyers are having with the lack of quality job opportunities after they graduate.  You can read the full article here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-24-1Alawschool24_ST_N.htm?csp=usat.me

As I read through this article, I continually had the same thought – do whatever you are passionate about.  Following your passion is the absolute best professional advice I could ever give anyone.  If you have a passion for some aspect of the law, then going to law school is a great idea and investment in your future.  However, if you go to or are considering law school because “lawyers always have jobs” or “lawyers make a lot of money”, then you may want to rethink that strategy.  Going to law school, medical school or getting your MBA no longer guarantee you anything except a hefty student loan to pay back.  If you aren’t passionate about these fields, then don’t pursue them.  If you are passionate about these areas, work hard in school, secure internships, network with quality professionals and give your best effort, then you will succeed if whatever you decide to pursue.

Bottom Line – do whatever you are passionate about and give it everything you’ve got.  Do not focus on making the most money or going after the most “recession-proof” careers, just find something you love to do and everything else will work itself out over time.