Advise to myself

+ Care about the people you work with. Ask them how they are doing. Find what troubles them, what theyve been through, what they believe. Listen and relate to them. They will in turn care about you and work 10,000 times harder for you and with you.

+ Plan things explicitly. Have a goal, schedule, and responsibilities. People need direction, and something to be measured in. Dont define how to do things, but if any of those three are unclear, dont expect them to read your mind. Plus, when you get discourages or lose focus or run into opposition (NB WHEN), you can refocus on why you started and not make decisions based on what your stomach is saying.

+ Write ideas down. Write down your ideas and others ideas. It shows that you care and when you have all things down in writing, prioritizing becomes natural, instead of working on whatever is in front of you.

3 things I wish I was told before graduating

With graduation season around the corner, Ive been reflecting a bit recently. Hard to believe, but its been two years since I graduated and entered into the next stage in life. I recieved a lot of good advice, and some not so good advice. Just wanted to pass on my experiance…

1) Dont “wing it”
I recently stumbled across an amazing post by @MichealHyatt with a guide to planing your life. Take a couple days to explicity define whats important to you, define short term and long term goals. This gives purpose to your days as well as a yard stick for success. Without a plan, youll probably end up commiting yourself to things you really dont care about, spending extra time at work, or just killing time.

2) Watch what you eat
While this is good advice for physical food, it applies just as much to intelectual and spiritual food. If you eat too many twinkies, your body isnt going to respond as well as if you ate healthy. In the same way, dont fill your mind and spirit with the latest fads, movies, tv shows, books, or whatever. Just cause you like Jersey Shore, or Scary Movie 18, doesnt mean its what best for your body. Filter what goes into your mind – Garbage in, Garbage out. You create your reality. That doesnt mean ignore whats going on in the world, but it means cutting out the trash.

3) Be open to try anything, but be dedicated to a few things
After filtering out the things that hurt or dont help you, try things you normally wouldnt. Check out the local highschool drama, try out for the choir, go the the civil war reenactment with your crazy coworker. Youd be suprized how much fun some of them are. But dont take the highschool mentality of I can be a part of every club just to fill up my college resume. Find a few things that you have a passion for, and do them well. Dont try to do 10 things, do 2 or 3 well. If you focus your time, you can create a few things that are beneficial to you and others. If not, you will create many things with little or no benefit.