You Graduated! So Now What?

You graduated! Now what? It’s time to think about you, your passion and listening to some wise people before you. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone but you can still do what you love and love what you do.

Across the country, students are putting on their caps and gowns to recognize the last four or five years of their young lives at university. College graduation is a benchmark in a person’s timeline. It is also time to start thinking about work and possibly entrepreneurship.

If you look up the definition of an entrepreneur you will read from googling its' definition, i.e.  a  "person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so."

So what are some of the risks:

Market Risk -  for data-focused companies, changes like GDPR play a factor into how a market in the EU can change the way you operate.

Credit Risk - late payers; ensuring you receive payments on time.

Liquidity Risk - turning assets into capital/cash. Should things go wrong, what can you turn to cash?

Operational Risk - lawsuits, fraud risk, personnel problems and business/marketing plans that have gone wrong.

Last year, I wrote an end of year blog about graduates and President Obama's commencement speech at Howard University, in Washington, D.C.  This year I decided to do a review on just a few of the speakers addressing 2018 graduates, so let's start with Oprah- she said to aim high and then gave some practical advice including: 

Eat a good breakfast. It really pays off. Pay your bills on time. Recycle. Make your bed. Aim high. Say thank you to people and actually really mean it. Ask for help when you need it, and put your phone away at the dinner table. Just sit on it, really. And know that what you tweet and post and Instagram today might be asked about in a job interview tomorrow or 20 years from tomorrow.

Another one of my favorites is Jim Kramer from MSNBC's Mad Money who is like your next door neighbor.  He addressed the audience at Bucknell University’s ceremony through his own post-grad experiences, telling the crowd about his homelessness, a false arrest and struggle to find a job. He urged graduates to be better than he was at navigating challenges, telling them that “it’s OK to fail, but it is not OK to quit.”   He also mentioned the importance of relying on the friendships forged in college.

And since I included President Obama in my post last year how could I not include President Trump.  His address to the Naval Academy was focused on not giving up, I think.  

We have talent and a lot of other people don’t, and a lot of other countries don’t. We have great talent and I have seen it. In other words, we are showing what is possible when America starts acting like its sailors and Marines. Our nation cannot be strong without the heroes whose hearts stir the words: Don’t give up the ship. Famous phrase. We even use it in business. Things are going bad, you say, “Don’t give up the ship.” Keep fighting. Don’t give up the ship. But it’s really — you guys started it.

Our country cannot prevail without those who rally to the famous cry, to Admiral Farragut’s cry, you know it well, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”

By far, the best of all the addresses that I read, is Ronan Farrow. You may know him as Mia Farrow's son and the journalist exposing the biggest Hollywood female abuser. Ronan said:

"No matter what you choose to do, no matter what direction you go, whether you are a doctor treating refugees or a financier making money off foreclosures — and I genuinely hope you don’t do that — you will face a moment in your career where you have absolutely no idea what to do. Where it will be totally unclear to you what the right thing is for you, for your family, for your community.

And I hope in that moment that you’ll be generous with yourself, but trust that inner voice. Because more than ever, we need people to be guided by their own senses of principle, and not the whims of a culture that prizes ambition, and sensationalism, and celebrity, and vulgarity, and doing whatever it takes to win.

Because if enough of you listen to that voice — if enough of you prove that this generation isn’t going to make the same old mistakes as the one before — then doing the right thing won’t seem as rare, or as hard, or as special."

Because I think President Obama's speech from 2017 still relates to many of us, I have recapped it below:

  • Be confident in who you are and people will love you for being you

  • All people are struggling- blacks, whites, transgenders, middle-aged workers

  • Have not only a passion but also a strategy

  • Listen to those with whom you disagree and be prepared to compromise

  • Better is good- you are improving and gaining so keep getting better

Good luck to all who attempted to and those who graduated.  Do what you have a passion for and you will always be successful at living your life!  If you think you might like a life in business development, social media, lead generation, marketing, database development and graphic arts, reach out to us by going to www.sales-link.net.