Choose your friends, and make them think they chose you

Building a strong support system of friends who will push you to do your best is one of the most important things you can do while in college. This is likely the only time in your life when you will get to regularly interact with such a large and diversified group of people. Take advantage of that opportunity!

Making friends is both an art and a science. The art of making friends I will leave to you, as it depends upon your unique personality; but the “science” is pretty simple to explain. It is possible to take a strategic approach when building a friendship and a network of supporters.

It probably sounds a little crazy, and you might think that I’m a bit of a stalker after you read this. But first, let me explain the benefits of a strategically planned friendship. If you are interested in self-improvement, you can always learn from other people. Identifying other people who are better than you in an area you want to work on is the first step in making a change in yourself.

The benefits of surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you are numerous, but most importantly, by just being around these people, you will be reminded of the change you want to make in yourself!

When I was in 5th grade, my family moved to Florida from North Carolina, and I had to make a whole new set of friends. I realized that I had the chance to reinvent myself. After attending an awards ceremony at my school and seeing the other students being recognized for academic excellence and creativity, I decided that I wanted to be on stage with them one day. So, I made friends with those people – and eight years later, when we graduated together, my friends and I were recognized on stage together with some of the most prestigious awards our school and community had to offer. Today, we remain friends and are making an impact in our respective fields.

How did I get myself into their elite circle as the “new kid”? Once I identified the kind of people I wanted to surround myself with, I began to think about why I wanted to be their friend. For each person, I came up with things that I liked about them or admired them for. Without becoming a fanboy, it is important to build a genuine interest in and admiration for your prospective friends.

I found out what they were interested in and asked to join them at their lunch table one day. As our friendship grew, they began to notice things I was especially good at that they admired in me. A mutual sense of pride for one another’s accomplishments grew along with a healthy sense of competition to push each other forward.

When you start college, you have to learn how to make friends all over again, and it is not always as easy as sitting at their lunch table. Then, when you graduate and enter the “real world” for your first job, you may find yourself friendless again. You can choose your friends, and you can make them think that they chose you!

The friendships that I have built are not any less genuine because I strategically chose who I wanted to be around. I have built a team of worldwide supporters with varied interests and talents.

I don’t mean to suck the wonderment and romanticism out of the art of forming friendships, but in many ways, if you think of it as forming a strategic alliance, the friends you make will help you achieve your goals and are more likely to push you forward than hold you back!

When your best isn’t good enough

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That’s life. When your best just isn’t good enough, you can either learn from your experience or make excuses. You will never grow if you choose the latter.

I have become fairly accustomed to winning. When I enter academic competitions, I usually fare quite well. But last night, I entered an oratorical speech contest and completely underestimated my competition. I didn’t win; actually, in my opinion, I was one of the worst presenters.

Despite all that, I don’t believe I would change very much about my presentation! I had written a compelling speech on the topic; rehearsed my diction, clarity, and emphasis; and even choreographed my presentation a bit, with specific movements and hand gestures to accompany various points. I did my best, and I’m proud of my work.

But my best simply wasn’t good enough.

I approached this competition like a game that I could win with a formula, and as a result my speech lacked passion. It was my first time entering this kind of contest, and I was overly confident for a newbie. I was so impressed by all of the other speakers that I was proud to lose to my competition. I learned a lot from the experience.

That’s life. You can’t win them all! I walked away with no regrets, because I learned from the experience and have made some new well-spoken and passionate friends. I know that I’m still good at a lot of other things, and I believe that I can become a better orator if I practice more and take some tips from my new friends.

When your best isn’t good enough, it is difficult to accept, especially if you have failed in an area of great pride and importance to you. Don’t be discouraged, and don’t be a sore loser.

There will always be someone out there better than you at something. Think of it as your lucky day when you meet those people, because you can make them your friends in life and partners in business one day.

Don’t be afraid to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. In fact, you should be scared if you are the smartest person in the room!

Wear a necklace made of broccoli for one day

Okay, I know this sounds strange, but stay with me as I try to explain this piece of advice.

When I was in elementary school, I found a book called Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days, written by Stephen Manes. As a pretty ambitious 3rd grader, I was intrigued.

The story is about a young boy named Milo who finds this book in a library and follows the directions to become a perfect person after a difficult day, made worse by criticisms from his family and classmates. I won’t give away all the book’s secrets – you can check it out in the juvenile fiction section of a library and hang out with some nine-year-olds for an afternoon. But one of the tips I will share is the author’s suggestion that in order to become a perfect person, you need to tie a piece of broccoli around your neck and wear it all day.

I was a little confused at first, too. In the story, Milo wears the broccoli to school and is relentlessly mocked by his peers. He endures it all day, then moves on to the next step in becoming a perfect person. The point behind wearing the broccoli necklace is that Milo wasn’t afraid to do something out of the ordinary. Even though it was risky, and he faced ridicule, he survived. Now, Milo knows that whatever he does in the future can’t be as embarrassing as wearing broccoli to school all day, and he feels empowered to explore his individuality and take more risks.

The moral of the story here, from my point of view, is not to go out wearing vegetables as accessories, or dye your hair blue, or drag race with your parents’ car. I think the message we should take away from this book is to feel comfortable being ourselves. Wear that broccoli necklace proudly and be confident in your decisions.

How is this story relevant to us as college students?

College is the time in our lives when we decide what kind of people we will become. It is a time to explore different experiences and to develop our core values and a personal mission statement. In order to really become your own person, you need to be brave enough to occasionally stray from what is expected and from what your friends are doing.

This can mean dressing up for class, asking more questions, going to a professor’s office hours, or staying after a club meeting to introduce yourself to the executive board. If you are willing to do what others are not, and go beyond what is expected of you, you will be treated exceptionally in return!

What will be your broccoli necklace, and will you be brave enough to wear it?

What gets you charged?

We’ve all heard of the differences between Introverts and Extraverts. Introverts are quiet, bookish librarian-types, while extraverts are loud, outgoing risk-takers. Each of us falls somewhere along that spectrum. You could argue that we are born one way or another, or that our childhood experiences impact our current personality. (I think that you have complete control over your personality, and that you can change it if you so desire, but that will be a topic for another day.)

Regardless of how you believe your personality came about, most people agree that there exist both introverts and extraverts. A friend of mine is studying psychology, and she recently explained the differences between these two personality types to me in a new way, which changed the way I see my own personality and how I react to different situations.

She explained that Extreme Introverts are perpetually over-stimulated.  They feel overwhelmed by large social situations, to the point where if they know that a wedding or party is coming up, they take time to mentally prepare themselves for the event and time afterward to recuperate. Extreme Extraverts, on the other hand, are perpetually under-stimulated.  They thrive in large social situations and feed off the energy of other people. When extreme extraverts are alone, they begin to feel drained.

This explanation led me to my current theory: people are like batteries. Extreme introverts feel “unplugged” when they find themselves in demanding social situations, but those same situations make extreme extraverts feel “plugged in.” Introverts need time to “recharge” before and after socially draining events, while extraverts feel “unplugged” when they are alone and without much social interaction.

For the record, my friend who explained this to me identifies herself as an extreme introvert, and me as an extreme extravert. We all fall somewhere along this scale, and it helps to identify where you are. When you know what part of the spectrum you belong to, you begin to know yourself better! You can better determine why certain activities leave you feeling charged or drained, and why you get along better or worse with certain others.

Where do you fall on the spectrum?

What happens when you run out of fuel?

A friend of mine once shared a story with me that really changed the way I think about managing stress, and I would like to share that story with you today.

She told me that she grew up in Haiti and her family was very poor, but when she got a job and needed to go to work, her uncle let her use his old car. The car had a lot of problems and among them, the gas gauge was broken. The first time she drove the car, her uncle told her to drive until the car runs out of gas. Because the gauge was broken, she would never know when she was close to empty unless she drove the car until it ran out of gas once and observed the symptoms.

She did this and noticed that when the gas level was low, the car would make more noise, she felt that she had less control over the steering, and the car was unable to go at high speeds. Now she knew how the car functioned when it was low on gas and in the future, when she noticed these symptoms beginning to emerge, she would fill up the tank before the situation got worse and she ended up stranded somewhere on the island.

Everyone needs to run out of gas once so they know what happens to them as they get closer and closer to empty.

Her story made me think about what happens to me when I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed. I make more noise – usually, I start to complain more about my work load or vent to friends about relationship drama. I feel as if I have less control over what is happening around me, and it becomes increasingly difficult to steer through my problems and to a solution. I cannot go full speed when I start to feel stressed, and sometimes I have to cancel commitments in order to prioritize other things.

I believe it is extremely important for everyone to run out of gas once, so that they can identify the symptoms in themselves as they get closer and closer to empty. When you know yourself and your capacity for stress, you can make much more informed decisions about what projects you are able to take on and when. Even more importantly, when unexpected issues arise, you know how much you can handle and when you may need to ask for help or take a step back.

If you discover your personal fuel tank capacity and know what starts to happen to your body as you run low, you will be able to fill up again before you end up stranded!