10 Ways Old White Dudes Can Stay Relevant in the Workplace

I don’t consider myself an old white dude, but I’m sure most of the twentysomethings working for me probably think I’m the old white dude! Old white dudes are at a crossroads of the American workplace. They used to be on top. There was no better role to have in the American workplace than to be an old white dude!

But times they are a-changin (only old white dudes and hipsters will get that reference!).

In today’s workplace old white guys are as desired as foot fungus. Somewhere between WWII and last Tuesday old white dudes became irrelevant, well, I mean unless you’re a Fortune CEO or President, besides that stuff.

But, I’m here to help. I mean, eventually, I’m going to fall into the old white guy category on the diversity and inclusion surveys so I better find a way to pull us out of this funk and make us super cool again! Here what you need to be doing old white dudes:

1. Denounce all other old white dudes. That way you’re not ‘that’ old white dude, you’re the cool new old white dude who got ‘woke’ (look it up on Urban Dictionary old white dudes).

2. Stop wearing cargo shorts. Apparently, the kids decided cargo shorts are lame and only old white guys where them. Remember those shorty-shorts we wore in the 1970s and 80s? Yeah, those are super cool now. Wear shorty-shorts and show a ton of leg!

3. Hide the fact you like money, small government, and hate taxes. If you want to be cool you have to be willing to give up most of your money to a government who has continually shown to have no idea how to spend our tax dollars for people who claim they can’t find a job.

4. Buy comfortable marching shoes – but not those lame white Nikes or New Balance sneakers all the old white dudes have – go for Nike Air Max’s. Cool old white dudes march with our brothers and sisters who have been wronged. If you don’t march, or at least show up at their parties in downtown areas, you can’t join their click. Also, get ready to wear a ton of rainbow stuff. Calm down, no one looks good in rainbow, but the after parties are super fun!

5. Sell your $60, 000 pickup or sports car and buy a Prius or some kind of Subaru. Only old white dudes drive expensive pickups and sports cars. Cool old white dudes drive Prius’s and Subarus. A good second option is a bike and ride it to work.

6. Talk about Tacos like they’re your new religion. Cool folks in the workplace ‘love’ tacos. Not only are they great food but you’re also supporting a diversity group by eating them, I think. You can’t just ‘like’ tacos. You have to want to have sex with tacos. Tacos should be your primary conversation point each day until you die.

7. Get into a workout routine and then push what you do onto anyone within ten feet of you at all times. It’s cool to workout, but it’s more cool to workout and then make everyone else feel stupid who doesn’t do your workout. Old white guys golf and go boating. Stop all of that. If you want to get into the water buy a paddle board and a rack for the top of your Subaru.

8. Complain about your super long eight hour work day and how you could do all of this working at home in two hours. The goal of becoming a cool old white guy is to fit in. Sure work-life balance has never been better in the history of America, but that shouldn’t stop you from railing against the machine.

9. Be super chill about all dumb decisions people make. To be a super cool old white guy, you have to be super chill about how everyone else decides to live their life no matter how stupid it might seem. “Hey, Mikey, love the new face tattoo! I’m sure that will really help your career path! Super cool!”

10. Never say anything about diversity and inclusion. Old white dudes can’t have an opinion about diversity and inclusion because you don’t know the struggle. Even gay old white dudes should probably keep quiet. I mean Tim Cook is an old gay white dude and he runs Apple! Does he really know the struggle!?

There will come a time when old white dudes will become a minority in the world, but you pointing this out just makes you sound like a racist old white dude, so cut that stuff out. Just suck it up, buy some slim fitting jeans and throw away all y0ur Docker Khakis, no one wants your theories on changing demographics.

You might grow a crazy long beard. Many old white dudes have found that really awful long beards help them blend in a bit better. Like ‘hey, I’ve got a way too long beard, so maybe I’m not an old white dude, but a Viking!” People love Game of Thrones in the workplace, so it might help.

Hey, hit me in the comments about how ageist this is or what other great ideas you might have to keep old white dudes relevant in the workplace!

 

Email Heroes – Are you one?

For most of their careers, my parents could never check their work email at home.  It did mean that they probably stopped working when they got home, unlike most professional employees today.  My parents also rarely made it home at 5 pm and worked in the office many Saturdays and Sundays when the work needed to get done. The world changed, we can now get work done almost anywhere.

When did we start defining work as sitting in the bathroom at home and replying to emails in five minutes as work?

Let’s face it, most people aren’t really working when they are home if they don’t normally work at home.  They like to believe that what they’re doing is real work, but if can also wait to be done the next morning when you arrive at the office, you’re not doing real work, you’re just narcissistic.  Oh, I better immediately get back to John and tell him I can definitely do that interview at 8 am, next week Friday…

We act like checking work email at home is the same as donating a kidney or something.

Studies show that 59% of males and 42% of females respond to emails when out of the office.  Those numbers actually sound low to me. The survey also shows that younger workers are more likely to think about work when going to bed and when waking. Just wait! Pretty soon thinking about work will be the same as work!

Are we losing our f’ing minds!?

Seriously! I want to know.  Having the ability to check and respond to emails outside of the office increase your work-life flexibility, but we talk about it like it’s an anchor.  That iPhone is only an anchor if you make it an anchor!  I have a son who plays baseball and I watch as many of his games as I can.  In between innings I always check my email and respond to work if necessary. I do not consider that work. I consider that watching my son play baseball!

Making the decision to take a half a day to watch my son play baseball is easy, because I know I can balance both jobs I have, running a company and being a Dad.  Does my son care that I’m checking email while he’s warming up in between innings?  No. He doesn’t even notice.  It’s not like I’m behind the backstop giving a performance review over the phone while he’s up to bat! I’m just checking and following up on some emails.

If you decide you want to stay connected to your job and organization while you are out of the office, that is a personal decision. Don’t act like you’re a hero going above and beyond by keeping up on your emails. You’re not, everyone does that.

If keeping up with your emails is the real work you’re doing, you’re highly overpaid and easily replaceable. If telling your coworkers you checked emails while out of the office on some personal time to show how dedicated and better you are than them, you need to get a life, email hero.

HR and Recruiting are not Rocket Science!

I hear one thing over and over from people who read my stuff or see my presentations:

“It’s not rocket science.”

It happened just last week. Some HR guy sent me a message and said, “I don’t get it?” Meaning, he didn’t get what I was trying to say like there was some deeper meaning to my straightforward point. Nope, I was just pointing out some common sense, which seems rather in short supply these days.

I take that as a compliment.  I’m not trying to ‘wow’ anyone with a couple of college credits and my top-notch brain.  I’ve never been known for being the big brain type.  I’m the common sense, straight forward type.  HR and Recruiting, to me, shouldn’t be hard and complex.  It should be simple and easy to understand.

That’s the problem.

Too many HR and Talent Pros want to make it seem like ‘our’ jobs are very complex and difficult.  This is very natural, every profession does this.  If HR is easy, you won’t be valued highly by leadership.  So, let’s make it hard.  The last thing anyone wants to do is come out and say, “Hey! A monkey can do my job, but keep paying me $80K!”   It’s very difficult culturally to come clean and say, “You know what?  This stuff isn’t hard.  It’s work.  We have a lot to do.  But, if we do what we know we have to do, we’ll solve this!”

But that’s HR and Talent Acquisition. It’s work.  Many times it’s a lot of work!  But we aren’t trying to solve the human genome!  We are trying to administer some processes, get our employees better, find ways to keep them engaged and happy and find more folks who want to become a part of what we are doing.  Not overly hard.  It’s not rocket science.

I think the complexity in HR and Recruiting comes into play with ‘us’ not being aligned with what our leadership truly wants.  Many times we flat out guess what we think they want out of HR. Sometimes we assume what they want, and try and do that. Very rarely do we actually find out exactly what they expect, and just deliver that.

There are a number of reasons for this.  First, we might not agree with what our leadership wants or expects from HR.  So, we give them what we want and expect from HR.  This never works well, but is tried often!  Second, our leadership changes what they want and expect, as they see better ways to do HR and Recruiting.  Change is a bitch.  It’s more of a bitch when it’s happening to you.  Third, we might not have the experience to deliver what is wanted or needed.  So, you get what we can give you.

This seems to be why delivering great HR and Talent Acquisition becomes rocket science.  Simply, we can’t have basic communication with our leadership and some self-insight on our capabilities of what we can actually deliver.   Couple this with most people’s unwillingness to ask for help, because they fear others will look down on them for not knowing, and you’ve hit the HR rocket science grand slam!

HR isn’t hard. Recruiting isn’t hard.  Dealing with expectations, and our own insecurities, that’s hard!

Every First Internship Should be a Sales Internship!

So, it’s that time of year. Bring in the interns and show them what they’ll never do or see again in the real world when they get their first job! I’m only half joking. Most internships I hear about today (and I hear about a lot – I’ve got two sons in college!) aren’t coming close to teaching young adults what it’s like to really work a job in your company.

If I was Chief of HR for the country, like I got to make all the HR decisions and make rules and stuff (wouldn’t that be a fun job!) – Chief Justice of HR! I would force every kid who ever did an internship to first do a sales internship with whichever company they decided to do an internship with. Great, you want to be in HR, or an Accountant, or an Engineer, or a Developer, etc., first, you need to go out on the road or sit on the phone with Jerry, he works in sales for our company.

Why sales?

Too often I see entry level grads come into organizations with this strange sense of how the world works based on what it is they do in their chosen profession. Do you want to know how to really impact your chosen profession? Go find out how the sausage is made! The ‘sausage’ in most organizations is sales.

Want to find out how to save the organization money as an Engineer or Accountant, you better understand your customer and what and how they’re buying? Want to be a great designer or developer? Sales will teach you what your priorities should be. Want to find out how to impact employee development and career growth? Go find out how hard it is to sell $1 of your product your company sells every day.

This isn’t some plan to get everyone in the world to think sales is hard and you should pity them. Sales is hard. Great sales pros also make a ton of money. No one usually feels bad for sales. This is truly about getting the new grads coming into your organization to have a better perspective about what’s really important.

If we don’t sell our stuff, you can’t ride the down the slide into the lobby on your way to hot yoga.

So, no matter what you do in the organization. You should know how to sell. Well, Tim, I’m going to be a nurse. Hospitals don’t sell, we save lives. Congratulations on becoming a nurse, it’s such a great profession, you’re a moron. Every organization sells. Hospitals compete against other hospitals for high-margin health care business. Nonprofits compete for donations and grant dollars. Churches compete for your souls.

Every organization is selling something, and you should know what it is you’re selling and how it’s sold.

We do a disservice to kids when we make them think that their profession is only about the skills they’re learning for some title they’ll one day have after graduation. Your profession, every profession, is about ensuring crap gets sold.

5 Great Excuses to Miss a Coworkers Wedding!

I had one of my Recruiters ask for some advice this week. It wasn’t work advice, it was a little more personal.  She had told a person she would attend a wedding of a family member with them but was having second thoughts. It was one of those Holy Crap moments! I don’t really like this person that much, and I don’t want to go to a family wedding with him and send the wrong message.

So, what was my advice?  It started out pretty straight. Tell them the truth!  “Look, dude, I’m just not that into you, and the last place on earth I want to be on Saturday evening is sitting at a table with your parents and Aunt Betty with them thinking “ours” is next!”

As you can imagine, that wasn’t going to do.  Not that she didn’t want to tell him the truth, but she also didn’t want to hurt him. She was looking for a softer way to cut him loose.  You know! A how-do-I-get-him-to-not-want-me-to-go excuse like he can’t stand my breathe or I have hammer toes, or something!?

Now, she was truly diving into my end of the pool!  You want a “Fake Reason” why you can’t go!  YES! I’m in HR. I’m in Recruiting. I’m the king of fake excuses of why people don’t get the job!  I’m on it!

So, here’s the first 3 I gave her:

  1. You haveVD! (Ok, I know this is strong right out of the gate – but let’s face the facts – most dudes will run from this!  Funny Fact: She is a millennial and had no idea what “VD” was! I’m old! Using WWII references like it was cool 2017 slang!)
  2. Your Dog/Cat has Cancer!(Sketchy I know, but girls and their pets…this one might work.  Funny Fact: Her dog actually did have Eye Cancer but was cured, so not technically lying…)
  3. You have to Babysit for a Co-worker!(Now this one is fraught with problems guys have gotten this one before and they might pull a. “Oh, I’ll come and help!” then you’re stuck and have to find some brat to babysit for the night. Funny Fact: She was like “Oh, hell No! I have a Real Job, why would I babysit!”)

All of this brainstorming got me thinking of how I’ve personally gotten out of going to Co-workers Weddings that I didn’t want to go to.  Here are my Top 5 Excuses to  Miss a Co-worker’s Wedding:

  1. I’ll be on Vacation! This is good because you usually find out about the wedding of a co-worker way ahead of time. All you have to do is actually plan for this and take your vacation during the weekend of the wedding. Far, far away from the actual wedding.
  2. My kid has a sports tournament out of town that weekend.  A little sketchy, but it is really hard for them to verify you really didn’t have a sports tournament, and let’s face it, I’m going to my kid’s sports game (the 127th of this year) vs. your once in a lifetime moment.
  3. I came down with the “Flu”!This one nobody believes, but it’s the go-to excuse because everyone uses it and it has been internationally certified as an acceptable lie to get out of anything. A case of diarrhea always works as well and no one digs deeper on this excuse!
  4. My Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa/Great Aunt Betty/etc. fell and are at the hospital. I needed to go see them. They needed my help. It was serious.  Let’s face old people fall. In fact, it might be the only thing they have left to do. You hear about old people falling every day. Very usable excuse in a pinch because it’s somewhat believable and old people don’t remember later on when someone asks “How are you doing after your fall?”, and they’ll go “better” and then complain about their aches and pains.
  5. I’ve got another Wedding that same day! Again, believable, but what you’re really saying to the person is “I’ve ranked you lower than someone else in my life. I hope you understand, but I didn’t buy you a place setting off your registry!”

What is your top excuse for not going to a co-worker’s wedding?

The Key Trait of Every Great Employee #SHRM17

For twenty years I’ve been hiring and firing people.  I’ve been lucky enough to have some really great performers, a bunch of good performers and also a few really crappy performers.  It seems like every time I turn, someone has an answer for me on how to hire better.  For years I have given the advice, if all else fails, hire smart people.  It’s not a bad strategy. For the most part, if you hire the smartest ones of the bunch, you’ll have more good performers, than bad performers.  I’m talking pure intelligence, not necessarily book smarts.

But, just hiring smart people still isn’t perfect.  I want to hire good, or great, people every single time.  How do you do that?  That’s the million dollar question.

To me, there is one trait we don’t focus enough on, across all industries.  Optimism.

Your ability to look at a situation and come up with positive ways to handle it.  Think about your best employees, almost always there is a level of optimism they have that your lower performers don’t.

I can’t think of one great employee I’ve ever worked with that didn’t have a level of optimism that was at least greater than the norm. They might be optimistic about their future, about the companies future, about life in general.  The key was they had optimism.

Optimistic people find ways to succeed because they truly believe they will succeed. Pessimistic people find ways to fail since they believe they are bound to fail.  This hiring thing can be really difficult.  Don’t make it more difficult by hiring people who are not optimistic about your company and the opportunity you have for them.

Ask questions in the interview that get to their core belief around optimism:

– Tell me about something in life you’re are truly optimistic about? (Pessimistic people have a hard time answering this. Optimistic people will answer quickly and with passion.)

– Tell me about a time something you were responsible for went really bad. How did you deal with it?

– The company has you working on a very important project and then decides to cancel it. How would you respond?

Surrounding yourself with optimistic people drives a better culture, better teams, it’s uplifting to your own leadership style.  I want smart people, but I truly want smart people who are optimistic about life.  Those people change the world for the better, and I think they’ll do the same for my business.

How Big Is Your Hotel Room? Measuring your HR Influence! #SHRM17

Just got off the spring HR conference season, although it seems like the HR/TA conference season is now never ending. It used to be the conference season for HR and TA conferences were spring and fall, with the one outlier being SHRM National at the end of June. Now, you can go to a conference in any month of the year!

As one of the many people in our industry that writes, speaks, etc. Some folks would consider me a person who has some influence in the space. I certainly don’t have the most influence, but I do okay. My wife likes to call me a ‘micro-celebrity’, meaning I have about 23-ish HR pros around the world who know who I am, and might want a hug when they see me!

When you go on the HR/TA conference circuit, as an influencer, you get humbled very quickly, as you run into conferences where your influence is minimal, and come conferences where you’re the rock star. I just came back from a conference where I was humbled, so I wanted to share how you can tell your value at a conference as an influencer!

It’s the size of the hotel room they give you!

Let me break down the ratings of Influence “5” being the highest influence, “1” being the lowest influence in the HR space:

Level 5 HR/TA Influencer:  You’re in the suite life! Gerry Crispin is a level 5 influencer! I was at a conference with him recently and his “room” was actually 4 rooms with a breakfast nook, two fireplaces, and a hot tub! That’s influence! We won’t talk about my room as compared to his! Level 5 Influencers also are picked up at the airport by someone holding a sign with their name on it. Probably have a gift basket in their room that includes something cool like a pair of Beats by Dre or Oakley sunglasses or something. Most level 5 influencers do not attend conferences for free, many of these gigs are paid gigs. (I’m not saying Gerry was paid, just that those at level 5 can get paid if they desire)

Gerry is a level 5 influencer because TA buyers listen to what he has to say. If Gerry says buy “X” software/product, people will buy. If he says “Y” software/product is crap, people won’t buy. Don’t tell me you’re a level 5 influencer without being able to move the market!

Level 5 HR/TA Influencer upgrade moment – Kyle Lagunas had a giant suite on top of the Bellagio in Vegas this year. I got invited. It was HR nerds acting like rappers, and it was awesome!

Level 4 HR/TA Influencer: You get to stay at the same hotel as a Level 5 influencer but you don’t get the same room! You probably don’t get the private ride to your hotel from the airport, but they’ll send you a note on what shuttle to take, you might even get the gift basket, but you will never get the breakfast nook! Level 4 and 5 influencers also are personally invited to these conferences, they never have to ask to attend. You’ve reached a certain level when you’re no longer begging to come to an event and work for free!

Once you reach level 4 you start getting invited to private dinners with vendors. Really nice meals at restaurants you would never go to unless someone else was paying and ordering drinks you wouldn’t if you were paying the tab.

Level 3 HR/TA Influencer: Welcome to the Hampton Inn, are you a Hilton Honors member? If so, we can get you a free bottle of water and move you to the top floor! Level 3 Influencers have made it to the land of not having to pay their own way to a conference, congratulations, that’s actually a huge step! The expectations though for this honor will be you’ll be writing, tweeting, IG’ing, Facebook live’ing, Snapping your life away for two straight days. It’s a big step to reach level 3, but that step comes with a lot of work conference organizers expect from you. At level 3 you’re probably booking your own hotel, flight and sharing an Uber to the event. But, you can turn those expenses in and get reimbursed.

Most likely at level 3 you probably had to ‘apply’ to attend the conference. Someone took a look at your name and others who applied and determined you carried enough influence to make the ‘list’. No one was contacting you asking you to come, but to be in the game, you must play the game! Level 3 influence comes with VIP access to the big HR parties, which usually means you don’t have to stand in line!

Level 2 HR/TA Influencer: You’re paying your own travel, but enough level 3-5’s didn’t want to come to our event, so we’ll give you a free pass to get in! With this free pass, we’ll make you dance like a monkey and do anything else we ask. Where a t-shirt with your logo? Sure! Many level two’s will bunk up in a two queen room. I once asked Kris Dunn if he wanted to share a room and he wouldn’t talk to me for a month! He was definitely not at level 2!

Level 1 HR/TA Influencer: At level 1 you’re paying your own way for everything. Travel, conference admission, etc. You’re probably sharing an Airbnb with other level 1’s and 2’s to help offset the cost, but you’ve got a dream, the Gerry Crispin 4-room suite dream! Plus, you can probably make at least a meal or two from snacks and candy given out at expo booths, and some giant HR vendor will have a huge party you can attend with the rest of the heard!

Some vendors completely screw themselves when they don’t understand the levels! If you’re a level 5 and a vendor treats you like a level 3, you can best believe you’ll never go back to that event! But, if you treat a level three, like a level 4 or 5, you just created an influencer friend for life! It works both ways!

The key for vendors is to try and get the most value for the level. It’s Moneyball! I want an up and coming level 3, who will probably be a 4 or 5 soon, to be at my event! I can get level 4 or 5 influence, on a level three budget. The hard part for all vendors is understanding who actually has real influence and who’s just pretending. Since I wrote the HR/TA Influence levels, I’m putting myself down as having some influence! 😉

The American Dream Tax

Hasan Minhaj is an American comedian who just released his new comedy special on Netflix, Homecoming King, and it might be one of the best comedy specials I’ve seen in years! He’s funny, yes. But, he also introduces a new kind of comedy on stage that is very ‘millennial’ in nature in that it’s multi-media. It’s part TEDx, part standup, part one-man show-ish, and it’s all brilliant!

You might remember Hasan from the Daily Show or as the comedian who roasted President Trump at the White House Correspondents dinner:

He introduces a concept in the special he calls the “American Dream Tax” that his father, who was originally from India, basically was his inspiration for.  Hasan’s father believes immigrants to the U.S. need to put up with a certain level of discrimination as a ‘tax’ of living the American Dream.

He makes jokes about this, as any comedian with brown skin would, it’s a great segment if you have a chance to check it out. Hasan’s father’s point is this, we came from a country where we had a super low quality of living. We came to America and have the possibility of a much better life, for that you should be willing to put up with some crap. (I wonder how many immigrants in U.S. feel a little this way?)

We talk constantly about diversity and inclusion in our organizations. Yet, most of us truly have no idea what most immigrants go through and are willing to go through, without ever complaining. We talk about a broken H1B policy and the need for reform, but most of those on an H1B would probably even accept lower wages for the opportunity. Is this right? Of course not, but we tend to forget ourselves how great we all have it in the U.S.

You see, we don’t pay the American Dream Tax because we hold a birth certificate that says we were born here. We got lucky enough to be on American soil when we were born, and for that, we get off ‘tax’ free. Well, many of us. That’s Hasan’s issue, he’s fully American, and yet, his father still believes he should be fine with paying the ‘tax’.

If you get the chance check out Hasan’s Netflix special it’s really incredible and gives you some great insight to your American born – immigrant workers and a little of bias they go through every day, and it’s pretty freaking funny!

Do you really want to get better?

I’ve been writing about HR, Talent, and Leadership every day going on seven years. If you go around telling people you know something about something, guess what? They’re going to ask you to tell them about something, specifically as it relates to their circumstance.  So, I get asked my advice quite a bit about talent and HR issues people are facing.

There is a bucket of questions I get asked that fall into the same type of category.  These questions all have to do with how do we ‘fix’ something that isn’t working well in their HR and/or Talent shops.  How do we get more applicants? How do we get managers to develop their people? How do we fix our crazy CEO? Etc.

I used to go right into how I would solve that problem if I was in their shoes.  Five minute solutions! I don’t know anything about you, or your situation, but let me drop five minutes of genius on you for asking! It’s consulting at its worst! But it’s fun and engaging for someone who came to see me talk about hugging and my dog for an hour.

I’ve began to change my approach, though, because I knew, like they knew, they weren’t going back to their shops and doing what I said.  The problem with my five minutes of genius, was it was ‘my’ five minutes, not theirs.  It was something I could do, but probably not something they could do.

Now, I ask this one question: Do you really want to get better? or Do you really want to change?

Right away people will quickly say, “Yes!”  Then, there is a pause, and an explanation, and sometimes from this we get to a place where they aren’t really sure they really want to get better or change.

That’s powerful!

We all believe that ‘getting better’ is the only answer, but it’s not.  Sometimes, the ROI isn’t enough to want to get better. Staying the same is actually alright.

We believe we have to fix something and we focus on it, when in reality if it stays the same we’ll be just fine.  We’ll go on living and doing great HR work.  It just seemed like the next thing to fix, but maybe it actually is fine for now, and let’s focus on something else.

Many times HR and Talent pros will find that those around them really don’t want to get better, thus they were about to launch into a failing proposition, and a rather huge frustrating experience. Better to probably wait, until everyone really wants to get better.

So, before you go out to fix the world, your world, ask yourself one very important question: Do you, they, we really want to get better?  I hope you can get a ‘yes’ answer! But if not, the world will still go on, and so will you.

The Sackett Commencement Speech!

(I’m on vacation today at my nephew’s graduation! So, I thought to re-run this post made sense! Enjoy!) 

It’s that time of year when universities and high schools go through graduation ceremonies and we celebrate educational achievements.  It’s also that time of year when you get bombarded with every great commencement speech ever given.  There is clearly a recipe for giving a great commencement speech.  Here are the ingredients:

1. Make the graduates feel like they are about to accomplish something really great, and not just become part of the machine.

2. Make graduates believe like somehow they will be difference makers.

3. Make graduates think they have endless possibilities and opportunities.

4. Make graduates think the world really wants and need them and can’t wait to work with them.

5. Wear sunscreen.

I think that about sums up every great commencement speech ever given.  Let’s face it, the key to any great speech is not telling people what they need to hear, but telling them what they want to hear!

I would like to give a commencement speech.  I think it would be fun.  I like to inspire people.  Here are the main topics I would hit if I were to give a commencement speech:

1.  Work sucks, but being poor sucks more. Don’t ever think work should make you happy.  Find happiness in yourself, not what you do.

2.  You owe a lot of people, a lot of stuff.  Shut your mouth and give back to them. Stop looking for the world to keep giving you stuff.

3.  No one cares about you. Well, maybe your Mom, if you had a good Mom.  They care about what you can do for them.  Basically, you can’t do much, you’re a new grad.

4.  Don’t think you’re going to be special. 99.9% of people are just normal people, so will you.  The sooner you come to grips with this, the sooner you’ll be happy.

5.  Don’t listen to your bitter parents.  Almost always, the person who works the hardest has better outcomes in anything in life.  Once in a while, a person who doesn’t work hard, but has supremely better talent or connections than you, will kick your ass.  That’s life. Buy a helmet.

6.  Don’t listen to advice from famous people.  Their view of the world is warped through their grandiose belief somehow they made it through hard work and effort. It’s usually just good timing.

7. Find out who you care about in life, and make them a priority.  In this world, you have very few people you truly care about, and who care about you in return.  Don’t fuck that up.

8.  Make your mistakes when you’re young.  Failure is difficult, it’s profoundly more difficult when you have a mortgage and 2 kids to take care of.

9.  It’s alright that sometimes you have to kiss ass.  It doesn’t make you less of a person.

10.  Wear sunscreen.  Cancer sucks.

So, do you feel inspired now!?  Any high schools or colleges feel free to email me, I’m completely wide open on my commencement speech calendar and willing to give this speech in a moments notice!