College Graduation ? Exciting and Terrifying All at the Same Time

(This one’s dedicated to my Monica and her friends who I pray will followtheir dreams taking on their post-college challenges with gusto.) Last week Iwrote “MyDaughter’s Graduation Reminds Me to Keep on Dreaming.” College graduationis such an exciting time! In its own way, it’s also terrifying. A few monthsback I remember a fellow speaker at a high school career day dish out thesewords of wisdom. He said that from the beginning, our lives are neatly cut upinto segments. We start in preschool and look forward to elementary school withthe big kids. In middle school, we look forward to high school. Four yearslater, we finish and start another four years in college. Well here’s mydaughter at the end of segmented living. Real life in all its glory isunfolding before her. There’s no turning back. That same speaker likenedcollege graduation to being born. In the womb, infants get all the warmth,comfort and nourishment they need. Their environment’s controlled with a lot ofpredictability. Then one day they get kicked out of their protected cocoon todeal with this noisy and painfully confusing world. Sure babies are physicallyprepared for all this with Mom and Dad nearby to take good care of them, butit’s a terribly terrifying transformation. Graduating from college’s the same.Schooling is predictable. Every semester starts with a new set of classes andinstructors. You get feedback on your performance, you get a chance to improveor fail. Then it repeats itself again and again. But here you are perched at acrossroad with nothing but unpredictability ahead of you. It’s like visitingthe Grand Canyon for the first time. The hugeness of it all is awe inspiring,but it comes with a fear and it can really mess with your sense of security.“What happens if I slip and fall in?” But there’s one thing that’s soexhilarating.

In life beyond college you make your own rules and, better yet, yourown grading scale.

Let’s say I find some successful people and ask them the followingquestions.

What college did you attend? What was your major? What grades did youget?

I would bet the correlation between the best college students and the bestlife performers has very little correlation. Your ability to learn in aclassroom environment, no matter how advanced the school’s teaching methods, isnot a predictor of success in business, life and relationships. My poster childfor this message is a millionaire acquaintance of mine. He skipped college andmowed lawns for his father-in-law’s residential lawn care business. I rememberhim telling me years ago, “I got the Mobil gas station account.” Then he toldme, “I got Pizza Hut.” I lost touch with him, but heard through a friend thatthings were already going well for him when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in 1992.Because of his business, he had access to a lot of equipment that came in handywhen needing to help people clean up after a mess like that. This guy’s beenchasing floods, storms and natural disasters ever since. He’s worth billionstoday. I’m sure if you ask around you’ll find dozens and dozens of examples ofpeople who were less than qualified for the success they have today. Theyweren’t the MD or Juris Doctor super stars. They were people who foundsomething they were good at and took the risks to take on the opportunity.(Check out my Arnold Terminator 3article for a word about taking on the challenges that unexpectedly fall inyour lap.) As I spoke to my daughter and her friends at graduation, I could seetheir excitement. But in the middle of all the excitement and sense ofaccomplishment they were also experiencing a loss. They’ve developed some greatfriends who have become their family. Life and the routine that’s beencomfortable for them will be left behind. But once they establish a new normal(and I hope their normal isn’t just some oh hum uninspired normal) and setafter their real life goals, they will realize this new thing is so muchbetter. Like I said before, the segments are whatever they want them to be andyou can make up your own grading scale. Scary? Sure. Unpredictable? Absolutely!I wouldn’t have it any other way. Hope this helps.