Lesson 32: Never stop playing.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Anyone without a sense of humor is at the mercy of everyone else.

—William Rotsler

It hardly needs to be said that human beings would rather have fun than suffer through endless hours of drudgery and sorrow. The way you go through life—enjoying it, detesting it, or anything in between—is mostly a matter of attitude. And we’ve clearly established that you have the capacity to choose your attitude.

Still don’t believe that? Consider the story of the Pike Place Fish Market in downtown Seattle, Washington. You may have had a job or two that you considered to be unglamorous—flipping burgers, mowing lawns, waiting tables, bagging groceries—but try being a fishmonger.

At Pike Place Fish Market, the workers get up at four in the morning and make their way down to the fish dock to meet the commercial fishing boats as they arrive with their catch. They prepare the cold, smelly fish and arrange them for display in the market—which, although covered, is open to the air. They open at 6:00 am and sell raw fish to various customers.

The work is hard and the conditions are often tough because of the cold, damp weather in the Pacific Northwest. When the long day is over, the workers are tired, cold, and sore, and they stink to high heaven. You’d expect that most of them hate their jobs, and you wouldn’t blame them if they did.

But the employees of Pike Place Fish love their jobs—and far from spending their workdays in drudgery, they literally have a blast from beginning to end. They joke with customers, throw fish at each other as if they were footballs, and laugh at themselves and each other from morning to night. The market is a beehive of activity and laughter; people come from all over the world to visit Pike Place Fish Market.

This little company has gained fame because its employees enjoy working at jobs that most people would hate. Their secret? In 1986, owner John Yokoyama and his team made a decision to have fun and to be great with people—and they’ve been doing it ever since. That fun is infectious: it rubs off on customers, who return it back to the workers. It becomes a self-sustaining cycle.

 You’re never too old to have fun—and whatever job you have, it can be fun if you choose to make it so.

Lesson 31: Set goals.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

 

Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.

—Fitzhugh Dodson

You’re lucky to be reading this, actually. You’re about to learn about one of the great secrets to success: goals. Although goals are vital to success, most people never give them a thought. So let’s take a moment to think about them.

You set goals every day, whether you realize it or not. In its simplest form, a goal is just a decision to do something. “I’m going to get out of bed, take a shower, have breakfast, and go to work.”

There—you’ve just set four goals. In no more than a couple of hours, you will have accomplished them all. And while you’re carrying them out, you’re setting new goals. “I think I’ll stop and get gas. And when I get to work, I need to finish that thing I didn’t get to yesterday.” And so it goes, every hour of every day.

Now let’s just carry that same concept a little farther—maybe a lot farther. The kind of goals we’re talking about now are conscious, measurable, long-term goals.

When you were a full-time student, you probably saw little need for those long-term goals. As a kid, your goals were pretty much set for you by your parents, teachers, and school routine: get through the school year with good grades, have a fun summer, and go back to school the next year with the same goals. The process was so universal, simple, and repetitive that you likely gave it no thought at all.

The days of having your goals set by others are gone for good. From now on, you must set your own goals—and you need to start thinking much, much bigger than you have up to now.

Think of it as if you were taking a road trip. First, you decide where you want to go—your destination. Then you look at the various routes available and decide which one to take.

The destination is the goal. The route is your strategy for achieving the goal. It doesn’t matter what the destination is or how far away it is; once you have settled on the destination—the goal—you know you’ll eventually arrive. The actions you take between now and then will determine your success in getting there.

Decide now to be a goal setter. Your future depends on it.

Lesson 30: Enthusiasm is infectious.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Nothing is easy to the unwilling.

—Thomas Fuller

It’s true: nothing is easy to the unwilling. In fact, one might say that nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Life ain’t for sissies, as they say.

But why would you want to make it any harder than it has to be? Why not do everything possible to make it easier and more enjoyable? Life is a great, fun adventure—and if you treat it that way, you’ll lighten the burden for yourself and those around you.

Take the late Steve Irwin, Australia’s famed “Crocodile Hunter,” as an example. He was so enthusiastic about his work that you couldn’t help becoming interested yourself. Irwin knew the secret value of enthusiasm.

There’s no denying that people are drawn to enthusiasm. It’s true that some people are enthusiastic to the point of being annoying, but that’s not the person I’m talking about. I’m talking about the person who gets excited about doing worthwhile tasks, who throws herself into every assignment with energy and a smile on her face.

We’ve all known enthusiastic people, and we often wonder how they do it. Each of us has things that excite our own enthusiasm, but those are usually subjects or areas that hold a special interest for us. How can some people seem to be interested in almost everything?

The answer is simple: they decide to be interested, and in doing so, they decide to be enthusiastic. Enthusiastic people not only do a better job, but they inspire those around them to do better as well. Enthusiasm is a self-chosen trait that makes work easier and makes you more valuable to others.

Obviously, you’ll find it easier to be enthusiastic about some jobs and subjects than others. And some days it will be hard to work up enthusiasm for anything. Do it anyway—it’s worth the effort.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that enthusiasm is for suck-ups. That’s a juvenile attitude that only hurts you. You’re not a juvenile anymore, and you can’t afford to think like one. Enthusiasm can make your life easier, more fun, and more rewarding—both financially and otherwise. And as a bonus, your enthusiasm will also benefit everyone around you. Try it—you’ll like it!

Lesson 28: Loyalty, properly placed, will take you far.

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Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

I’ll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty.

—Samuel Goldwyn

Milton Hershey’s rags-to-riches saga is more than the story of just one man. Throughout his difficult journey to success, the milk chocolate mogul had the undying support of three people: his mother, his Aunt Mattie, and his friend William Lebkicher. They provided Milton encouragement and financial support. Had it not been for them, Hershey would not have been able to succeed. And when Milton succeeded, his supporters shared in the success.

That’s loyalty. Loyalty has been defined as devotion to a cause; we can also view it as devotion to a person. Sometimes, the cause and the person are one and the same.

Loyalty is an important trait to possess, but you must place it properly. Be sure that the person or cause to whom you are loyal deserves your loyalty.

The Jonestown tragedy is a classic case of misplaced loyalty. Jim Jones was the charismatic leader of a religious sect. In 1978, he led his followers in a mass suicide ritual where they drank Kool-Aid laced with poison. Over 900 people died, including 276 children. Jones certainly was unworthy of loyalty, and yet hundreds were willing to go to their deaths for him—and take their innocent children with them.

By contrast, Milton Hershey used his wealth to build an entire town, complete with schools, housing for employees, public transit, and 150 acres of parklands. He also established a residential school for orphaned boys, to which he gave the vast majority of his wealth. The school is still in operation today, serving nearly 1,400 underprivileged boys and girls from across the nation. Clearly, Hershey was a man deserving of loyalty.

Employers prize loyalty in their employees. Loyal workers are partners in success: everyone is pulling for the enterprise to succeed. It’s as if everyone were in the same boat, rowing together to get to the destination. A few people pulling in the wrong direction can wreak havoc.

When you find someone who truly deserves your loyalty, give it to them. If they’re really worthy, they’ll be loyal to you as well, and you’ll both benefit.

Lesson 27: Make your own luck.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.

—Roberston Davies

Luck is real. But hoping for good luck to come to you is a poor strategy. And using bad luck as an excuse to underachieve is just as weak.

Yes, you could win the lottery. People do all the time. Somebody has to win, as they say, so it might as well be you, right? All true—you certainly could win—but you won’t. It’s been said that the government-sponsored lottery is a tax on fools, and that’s not far wrong.

Bad luck exists as well, but it doesn’t have to rule your life. In 1876, a candy maker with a fourth-grade education opened a business in Philadelphia; it failed miserably. He moved to Denver, where he failed again. This was followed by more failed ventures in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York. Talk about bad luck.

Finally, after ten years and repeated failures, he returned to his family home in rural Pennsylvania, disgraced and broke. With one more loan, he started yet another candy company. Using everything he had learned from his string of bad luck, he was at last able to pull off a success—a big success.

The candy maker’s name was Milton Hershey, and the successful company he started was the Hershey Chocolate Corporation. As of this writing, the Hershey Company has annual sales of almost $5 billion and the company itself is valued at nearly $12 billion.

It’s been said that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. That was certainly the case with Milton Hershey. At each of his “bad-luck” stops, he learned something that that would become useful one day. All of his experience and hard-earned knowledge contributed to his development of the formula for Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.

If there is a secret to having good luck, it can probably be summed up in this famous quote from Samuel Goldwyn: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

You can make your own luck as well. Step one is to take responsibility for your own success or failure. Do what you love, and stick with it. When you suffer a setback, take away useful knowledge from the experience. Have faith, and keep at it. You’ll get lucky soon enough. 

Lesson 26: Live a life of integrity.

 

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

 

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.

—Thomas Paine

As we have said, personal happiness involves a decision, but along with the decision must come action—action that aligns your behavior with your values and beliefs. That’s integrity.

In constructing a building, all the structural components must fit together perfectly for the structure to hold up against the forces of nature. When the pieces are all properly connected to one another, from the bottom of the foundation to the top of the roof, the building is said to have structural integrity.

The same holds true for people. Earlier, we talked about your values as well as your priorities. Your values and your priorities must be in agreement with each other, and your actions must be consistent with both. If you value honesty, you must tell the truth—all the time. If your family is important to you, you must spend time with them. If you prize friendship, you must be a good friend to others.

Every time your actions conflict with your beliefs, your own structural integrity is weakened. You’ll have a problem any time that happens, and if the disconnect is major, you’ll have a major problem.

A good example would be a public figure, such as a government official or prominent minister who rails against child abuse or pornography. If the official or minister gets caught doing the very thing he condemns, the result is justifiable public outrage. But even if the person doesn’t get caught, he still has a huge problem. Imagine the self-inflicted torture of such a person. It would literally be a personal hell.

Obviously, this would be an extreme case and—one would hope—extremely rare. But none of us is perfect. To expect perfection from yourself is unrealistic, although it is a worthy goal. Everyone falls short of being their ideal person at some point and to some extent. The point is to make an honest effort to be your best self by consciously aligning your actions with your values and priorities. When you get off track, get back on.

Integrity is a crucial ingredient of a happy existence. As you strive to live each day with integrity, you’ll view yourself as someone deserving of your own respect. You’ll almost certainly like yourself.

Lesson 25: Commit to excellence.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

 Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.

—George Halas

My first job out of college was with a consumer finance company. This company loaned small sums to people so they could buy things like appliances, TVs, and stereo systems. Most of our customers didn’t have much money—that was why they needed a loan to buy a television set—and many of them frequently fell behind in their payments.

My job was to phone customers who fell behind and badger them to send in a check. If they fell too far behind, I would have to go to their home—often with a U-Haul truck and police officer in tow—and repossess their furniture.

Not surprisingly, I hated that job. The hours were long and the work disagreeable. I spent my days phoning people who didn’t want to talk to me—I had to use an assumed name just to prevent them from hanging up on me. When I finally did get someone on the phone, the resulting conversation was usually depressing. My success rate in collecting back payments was abysmal. Most of my coworkers were grouchy because none of them wanted to be there either.

Fed up, one day I called my father to share my misery and tell him that I was planning to quit. His response surprised me. He discouraged me from quitting. In fact, he suggested that the problem was not with the job but with me. “If you leave now, you will have been defeated by the job,” Dad said. “Stick with it a while longer. Learn to like it—get good at it. Then, if you want to quit, you’ll walk out with your head high.”

Properly chastened, I went in to the office the next day with a whole new approach. I said to myself, “I have to be here all day, so I might as well do the very best I can.” I worked harder and came up with new ways to reach my customers. And it worked. Before long, my success rate was up, people took my calls, and many of my customers started paying their bills on time. I found myself actually enjoying my job. When I finally quit a few months later, I left feeling good about myself and confident about the challenges ahead.

Whatever you find yourself doing, resolve to give it your very best. You’ll find that you’re more effective, the work will seem easier, and people will recognize you as a cut above the ordinary. Before you know it, you’ll be leaving the complainers and slackers behind—and you’ll be on your way to bigger and better things.

Lesson 24: Make a decision.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

 

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.

—Anthony Robbins

Want to know a secret? The very act of deciding is often more important than the decision you make. Here’s what I mean:

In your life, you’ll be faced with many decisions. Some will be important, weighty choices; some will be small and relatively inconsequential. In some cases, the right answer will present itself, so the decision will be easy. At other times, there will be no clear-cut “right” answer. You’ll struggle. Which should you choose: door number one or door number two?

Here’s my advice: decide. Pick one—either one. Make a decision—and then make the decision work.

Remember, this is a case where there’s no clear-cut answer. Unless you’re expecting additional information that will help you make a more informed choice, you’ll just have to choose. So choose. Then, make a commitment to the decision you have just made, and make it work.

If there’s no obviously right way to go, then there’s probably no wrong answer either. In that case, either decision can work for you if you make up your mind to make it work. What you do after the decision is very important—probably more important than the decision itself.

Decision-making is an important skill for everybody, but those who are especially good at it are likely to go far in life. Here’s another secret: the real skill here is decisiveness, which is the ability to make a decision—any decision—and follow through with it. Nobody can read the future. Just make that decision and start moving. Others will follow.

Now, of course once you start going down the road, if you find that you’re clearly headed for disaster, then you may need to change direction. But even in that case, you have to start down the road before you can learn that it’s the wrong road.

In Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, the poet finds himself in the woods, facing a choice of two divergent roads. He must choose. Which road should he take? He writes, “[I] looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth.” At crunch time, you can only see so far. The important thing is to choose a path and start walking.

Lesson 23: Helping others is the only true wealth.

 

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

 

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

—Pericles

The world should be a better place for your having been here. That’s the real point of life. And where better to serve others than in your chosen profession?

The pursuit of money is all well and good. But if it only served to enrich you personally, what good would it be? More to the point, what good would you be?

I once met a very wealthy elderly lady who gave me a tour of her palatial home. It was filled with many exquisite objects, including original pieces by famous artists. As I complimented her on all the beautiful things, she replied sincerely, “They are lovely, aren’t they? After all, I think the only real point of life is to collect as many beautiful things as possible.”

What a tragedy. Here was a woman with the means to do a great deal of good with her wealth, yet she didn’t even realize it. Ebenezer Scrooge had nothing on her.

Contrast that conversation with the story of Mother Teresa. Born in Macedonia, a small country in southeastern Europe, she became a nun at the age of eighteen. For over 61 years, she worked in the slums of Calcutta, India, caring for some of the poorest, most neglected people on the planet. In 1950 she started the Missionaries of Charity, an order that serves the poorest of the poor throughout the world. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Today, her order and its supporting groups—over one million coworkers worldwide— serve poor and outcast people across the globe.

When she died, penniless, in 1997 at the age of eighty-seven, Mother Teresa was in many ways the richest person on Earth.

Sure, it’s great to have money. As Sophie Tucker said, “I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better.” Just remember that there is more than one kind of wealth. If you ever have to choose—and you might—I highly recommend the non-money kind.

Lesson 21: Never underestimate the value of experience.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Life is half spent before we know what it is.

—George Herbert

  

Young adults usually don’t fully appreciate the value of age and experience. This frequently comes up during your first job search. The thought often goes something like this:

“They say they want someone with experience, but how can I get experience unless they hire me? And besides, my youth and energy more than make up for my lack of experience.”

Well, the truth is that experience is the best teacher you will ever have. And while youth and energy are wonderful (as you get older, you’ll envy those traits in younger people), experience is just as wonderful—and over time becomes even better. While youth and energy fade with time, your bank of experience continues to increase until the day you die.

We place a high value on those things that cost us a lot, right? Youth and energy are free; they are naturally present in young adults. But experience—ah, now that is earned. Experience is what Harry Truman referred to as “the school of hard knocks.” Its cost is measured in time, sweat, and pain—the pain of your own mistakes. Abigail Van Buren once said, “If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires.”

In his autobiography, Up Till Now, William Shatner describes how he learned to act, not by attending acting school, but by performing in plays. As a young member of a Canadian theater troupe, he played a variety of roles in a variety of shows in front of a variety of audiences. “I had no formal acting training,” he writes. “I had my own method: I said my lines as if I were the character…. The audience taught me how to act. If I did something and the audience responded, I did it again. So this experience of working every night…was my acting class.”

Think of the very best teacher or professor you ever had. Think of all the wondrous and important things you learned from her or him. All those lessons will pale in comparison to what you will learn from that greatest of all teachers: experience. You may not believe that right now, but I guarantee that you will one day. Class has just started.

Reread this in twenty years, and see if you agree with me then.

Lesson 20: Knowledge has its limitations.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

   Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

—Malcolm Forbes

Studies have shown that there is almost no correlation between how smart a person is and how successful they become. Superior intelligence—even combined with education and knowledge—just isn’t enough to make you successful. You need wisdom to go along with it.

I recently read about a young boy in India, Akrit Jaswal, who had an IQ greater than that of Einstein. In 2001, when he was seven years old, he performed a real-life surgical operation—I kid you not.

His eight-year-old patient had been so severely burned that her fingers had fused together. Living in a poor village, her family couldn't afford a real doctor, so Akrit was called in. The operation was a success, and before long Akrit became India’s youngest university student. He showed a great gift for medicine. At age fourteen, he became convinced that if someone would fund a laboratory for him, he would be able to cure cancer within a year.

He traveled to London’s Imperial College, where he met with some of the world’s leading cancer researchers. He amazed everyone with the depth and breadth of his medical knowledge. But the researchers soon realized that, despite his obvious gifts, his theories were unworkable. He came away understanding that—as smart as he was and as much as he had learned—he had a very long way to go.

The end of this story has yet to be written. Akrit Jaswal may yet cure cancer, but I suspect it will take many years—and he certainly won’t do it on his brainpower and knowledge alone.

Believe it or not, you’re sorely lacking in the knowledge department. Do you have any idea how rudimentary a high school education, and even a degree from a very fine college, is? As necessary as such an education is, it’s still just a start. Even scholars with doctorates often say that the biggest thing they have learned from their years of in-depth study is how little they actually know about their specialty.

Understanding the limitations of your present knowledge is one of the first steps down the long road to wisdom. The good news is that you already possess everything you need to succeed. Keep learning. The more you learn, the faster you’ll advance in your life and career.

Lesson 19: Use your God-given talents.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

—Hunter S. Thompson

Broadcaster Earl Nightingale told the story of a clergyman who was traveling through a rural countryside when he came upon an extraordinarily productive and scenic farm. There were bounteous crops in neat rows, and all around the freshly painted farmhouse and outbuildings were flower beds and neatly trimmed shrubs.

The clergyman noticed the farmer taking a break from his work, so he took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. “The Lord certainly has blessed you with a beautiful farm,” the minister commented.

“Yessir, he has,” replied the farmer, wiping the sweat from his brow. “And I’m grateful. But you should have seen the place when he had it all to himself.”

Many people just show up to work and do the bare minimum. They complete the tasks that are given to them—and that’s about it. They never take the initiative to improve their workplace or to really serve the people around them.

Others see unexplored possibilities in even the lowliest of duties. They envision a well-tended farm where others see just a job. They throw themselves enthusiastically into every task, and as a result, they make everyone around them better.

You’ve been given a lot. You have a fine mind and at least a basic education. You have judgment and maturity, both of which will increase with time. And you live in a country filled with good people and limitless opportunities. So what do you plan to do with all these blessings?

If you believe in God, you may agree with me that he gives us the tools with which to make our own way and to make the world a better place. I don’t pretend to know the mind of God, but I suspect he has given us all these tools so that we can use them to make reasoned decisions, to take decisive actions, and to work toward the advancement of those worthwhile values and priorities we set for ourselves.

Use those God-given talents. Apply them to your work, and it will sing.