Silence is Golden

Silence is a very interesting concept to me, because when used well it can be a very powerful weapon in your college success arsenal. Silence can be awkward – and therein lies the power. People will do almost anything to avoid feeling awkward! If you can control silence by not being afraid to use it and not getting uncomfortable, then you can exert some control over a conversation, a presentation, an interview, or even a date!

The following are a few applications of intentional silence that I have found are easy to implement and can result in the user gaining some form of power in the conversation.

• Negotiations – When you are in a negotiation, there is always a (real or perceived) power struggle between the two parties. I have found that the negotiator who has better control over the use of silence will generally hold more power in the negotiation. What do I mean by “control over the use of silence“? In a negotiation, information is power; so, if you can get the other party to tell you something they did not originally plan to reveal, you can use that to your advantage. How can you do that? In the information gathering phase before you suggest your solution, you need to ask a lot of questions. After you pose a question, you’ll know the other person has finished answering when they stop talking. Typically, you’d interpret this as the time for you to ask another question, or fill the silence something else.
  
  But what happens if you say nothing? Most often, if you allow a period of silence after the other person has finished answering your question, they will keep talking and add further detail. This additional information was not a part of their original answer and may contain important details you can use in your argument against them.
• Interviews – The bad news for us is that, usually, interviewers already know this little trick. When they are interviewing you, if they are a good interviewer, they will leave an almost uncomfortable silence between questions to prompt you to share more information. When the pause occurs, you begin to feel like your original answer was not good enough. You start to panic a little and try to answer the question again, but your second answer is given under much more stress and is usually not your best work. Interviews are already pretty stressful for most of us, but remember that knowledge is power. Use this knowledge to your own advantage in the interview!
  
  You can either a) stand by your original answer confidently and sit smiling in uncomfortable silence until the interviewer breaks it with a new question, or b) elaborate upon your answer, but without the additional stress that your fellow candidates will undergo, because you were ready for this. The interviewer’s job is to make you feel a little discomfort and stress to see how you perform under these conditions. Now you can impress them when you stay cool because you knew this was coming!
• Class Presentations – A third application for silence that I have found to be useful for college students is in giving presentations, where you need to either keep an audience’s attention or, even more challenging, get your audience to participate. Class presentations, especially ones over 20 minutes, are a challenge and are becoming more and more common as a part of college curriculums. As you prepare your presentation, think of how you can use silence to your advantage in your delivery. A pause for emphasis is a pretty easy technique. Asking rhetorical questions is always a good way to go – ask a question and pause long enough for them to think of an answer (and feel a little pressure that they may have to answer it themselves), then answer it yourself. This keeps your audience paying attention and following along without actually engaging them. This technique is good if you have a very strict timeline and cannot afford to have someone answer your question with a lengthy or controversial response.
  
  Lastly, if you do need to fill up some time and facilitate a discussion, or even a debate, you will need to ask questions. Confidently pause and wait for an answer. If you wait long enough and don’t lose your cool, someone will always come up with an answer. Additionally, after you set the tone that you are willing to wait an uncomfortable amount of time for an answer, others in the class will more willingly participate for the remainder of your presentation.

These are just a few tips I’ve learned along the way, so try them out next time you’re having a conversation and see what happens. I think you’ll find that when you have mastered the art of silence, you will feel much more in control of any situation. My last piece of advice on the issue is this: Look out for others who have mastered this concept – you may end up in an exceedingly awkward staring contest!

Emotions are contagious!

As you go through college, you constantly encounter opportunities to influence others. Almost every interaction you have is one of these opportunities, and you can influence others positively, negatively, or indifferently. Each time you interact with a teacher, a classmate, a roommate, a friend, a recruiter, a co-worker, a boss, your parents, or anyone else, you have the chance to influence their opinion of you, and that influence can often result in favorable treatment for you in the future.

If you want to gain favorable treatment from the important or influential people in your life, my advice is to spread the passion for what you love contagiously, and they will be inspired by your enthusiasm!

Emotions are contagious. How many times have you met up with a friend and the first thing they do is complain about their day? Conversely, how many times have you seen someone and they’re on top of the world? What happens to you when you’re around them?

Generally, you’ll find that when you spend time with a “Debbie Downer,” your mood deflates; and when you spend time with a “Peppy Pam,” your mood elevates. If you have experienced this phenomenon, as I believe most of us have, then you’ll agree that you can wield significant power over the emotions of others by managing your own.

Think back to how you feel around these people – when you are around happy people, you feel happy; sad people bring you down. After such an interaction, when you think of that person, or their name comes up in conversation, what kind of feelings do you associate with them? Well, positive feelings with people that made you feel good, and negative with people that make you feel bad. Pretty simple psychology, right? Now that you’ve mastered the concepts, you can start using that power to your advantage!

Knowing that you can affect not only others’ immediate moods, but also their lasting impression of you, you can have complete control over that impression!

Wouldn’t you like to be remembered, thought of, and talked about as someone happy, upbeat, and passionate? Think of the adjectives with which you’d like to be associated. Maybe they’re reliable, charismatic, friendly, nice, intelligent, or considerate. How do you want others to describe you?

Now it’s simple – just start acting out those words. It takes discipline to always “be on.” But just as I referenced in “How are you?” and “Fake it ’til you Make it,” you are in complete control of your personal brand. If you are lazy about building your brand, you create a sloppy, inconsistent image. Whereas if you show the discipline to behave in the manner you want to be perceived, you will eventually own those characteristics.

So, be mindful that how you behave affects others, and take that responsibility seriously. There are only three outcomes that can result from any given interaction:

1) You leave them feeling worse than when they met you
2) You leave them feeling better than when they met you
3) You make no impression on them

Which would you prefer?

Don’t keep Michael Jordan on the bench

Group assignments can be a challenge for college students. Your grade for the class is now in someone else’s hands, and most people do not react well when they feel that they have lost their sense of control over a situation. When your success is directly related to the actions of others, it can bring out the worst in you.

However, once you learn how to bring out the best in others, you will all succeed as a group!

One of my teachers once told me, “If you had Michael Jordan on your team, you would let him play! You wouldn’t keep him on the bench all game.” And she was, of course, correct. When you have talented teammates, as a leader, you should empower them to do what they do best. For your group work projects, bringing out the best in others requires three simple steps:

1) Identify the skills and passions of others in your team

2) Assign roles that match the person’s talents or interests

3) Don’t tell them how to do their job / Don’t micromanage

The first step is identifying the skills of your teammates. Everyone has something that they are good at or that they like doing. When you discover, for instance, who on your team is the creative thinker and who is the analytical thinker, you can then place those people in roles where they can flourish.

The second step is as follows: Once you have identified each person’s strengths and what they bring to the team, give them tasks that they can perform to the best of their ability. For example, the creative person might be great at brainstorming ideas, but lack the discipline to choose one single idea and iron out all the details. A more detail-oriented teammate might be a pro at developing an outline and filling in the missing spaces, but a nervous wreck when it comes to presenting. A third teammate, who is very outgoing and enthusiastic but seems to lose focus easily, might be a captivating presenter. If you assign these people to the right roles, you can see how the entire group will succeed with far less of a headache. Likewise, if you arbitrarily assign people to tasks such that their talents are not being used effectively, you waste time and energy and create unnecessary stress.

The third step is just stepping back and watching your well-oiled machine work. When you have identified people’s strengths and placed them in the right positions, you need to make them feel empowered to do their job their way. Sometimes, this can be the most difficult step, especially for the leader. It is difficult to trust people when you have a stake in the collective results! You need to first trust yourself and know that you have performed the first two steps well.

All right, what do you do when you get a dud on your team who seems to have no skills? I know that not every team is going to have prodigal members with useful core competencies. When this happens, I suggest you ask that person what they think they are good at. Everyone thinks that they have strengths in some area (whether you agree or not is a different story). Let them tell you how they feel they can best contribute, and see where it goes from there.

Much of this goes back to the idea of SYNERGY which I reference in an earlier post: 2 + 2 = 5. Look for the Michael Jordans on your team and let them shine! It is difficult to trust others and relinquish control, but you must find a way if you want to succeed as a team.

Have you ever felt like you were the Michael Jordan on your team and that your talents were wasted? How can you avoid letting that happen to others in the future?

Lunch, Nap, Vodka

Lunch, Nap, Vodka. These three words can be the answer to many questions posed to college students: What are your plans for the weekend? What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time? What activities are included in your perfect (sometimes typical) day? What are three words you would use to describe yourself? How would your friends describe you?

Quite possibly the three most important words to a college student. When all three occur in the same day, that is the day against all other days are measured for perfection in collegiate life. Lunch, Nap, Vodka is without a doubt the perfect combination of activities for a great day. A problem, however, occurs when “Lunch, Nap, Vodka” is your plan for everyday.

I have known far too many students who have had a Lunch, Nap, Vodka day and become addicted. While it is important to be able to relax and unwind every once in a while, you need to keep yourself busy enough to have a reason to de-stress.

The days of Lunch, Nap, Vodka are infinitely more rewarding when you know you have done something to deserve it!

The message I want to leave you with here is something like the old adage of “work before play.” Collegiate life can leave you with much more time than you know what to do with. My advice is to finish your work before you hit the bars or hit the snooze button. I know, that sounds like something your parents told you when you were younger: “You have to clean your room and do your homework before you can go to the movies with friends.”   The difference now is that you are not living under your parents’ roof, and you no longer need to follow their rules. You have an entirely new set of rules for how you live your life. Who makes the rules now? You do!

I suggest you take that responsibility seriously and make some rules for yourself, or at the very least some guidelines. I can remember my first Lunch, Nap, Vodka day – it was glorious! Wake up too late for breakfast or even brunch, eat something delicious, take a nap so you can rest up for the evening ahead, then go out and have a good time (any memory of those “good times” is optional). You wake up the next day and all you want to do is repeat the cycle.

College students who repeat the Lunch, Nap, Vodka cycle regularly, or even every day (and you all know someone who does), will not be as successful in the “Real World” as students who learn to abide by discipline and moderation early on. 

It’s a pretty simple and proven philosophy; now, all you need to do is decide whether you subscribe to it or not. What is your ruling on Lunch, Nap, Vodka days?

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?

Live your life as if you were running for President

Some people dream about growing up to become the President of the United States. Personally, I have no desire (at this time in my life) to pursue politics, but I wouldn’t mind having the choice one day. Because I believe in the American Dream to my very core, I think that anyone can run for and win a presidential election, should they so choose. Along that vein, I believe that everyone can accomplish their goals if they commit and make the proper choices leading up to that goal. You are the only one who can take that option away from yourself!

We are each the product of our choices. If you commit to a goal, then you will be presented with an infinite series of choices, each potentially leading you to success or failure, along the path to your goal. I believe that you can control your destiny through the choices you make.

In the example of running for president, or just general success in the public and social world in which we’re living, in my view, there are basically two components to choice:

1) The choices you make

2) Evidence of the choices you make

For example, how much evidence is there that you skipped class this morning? An attendance roster, maybe. If the class is very large and the professor doesn’t take attendance, perhaps not. What about the people who usually sit next to you in class? Do you think they noticed that you were missing? What about the professor? What about the people who saw you playing Frisbee on the green during class time? What about your roommate, who saw your keys on the table with your backpack and knew that you had slept through class?

Even if there is no documented record of your absence, there are still “witnesses” who noted your absence in class, or your presence elsewhere. Your choices, and the evidence of your choices, are always recorded in some way.

So, now the question is: who cares if you skip a class? For this particular example, perhaps no one cares and there will be no immediate or notable consequences. But there are always consequences to our actions – no matter what!

What does it mean to skip a class? Can your actions be linked to a character trait? Years from now, what would someone think about you if they knew you had skipped a class? Would it change anyone’s opinion of you? I would urge you to consider these questions as you make more major decisions. Remember: people will judge you based on the evidence they observe – whether it is fair to you or not!

Some people, like your professor or classmates, could interpret your absence as a sign that you do not care about the class.  Or, further, that you are not committed to your education – or even further, that you are unreliable. This could affect you when it comes time to do a group project and your classmates are less eager to work with you. If there is a subjective grading component to the class, or peer evaluations, you may not fare as well. Even in a social/career context, that person who sits next to you in class could be the roommate of someone you want to date, or the child of someone who works for your dream company. Chances of you getting that date, or that job, just went down a little.

In most cases, choices are not right or wrong – they just lead you down a different path. (Maybe, while playing Frisbee on the quad, you saved a stray cat or won a raffle.  Or while you were sleeping in, you dreamed up an idea for the next great American novel.) Just be sure to ask yourself whether that is the path you want to be on.

We are the choices we make. There is freedom in knowing that we can create our own public image through our choices!

I try to live my life as though every choice I make is recorded and stored somewhere; and as though, at any given point, a stranger could judge my entire character based on a single choice I made. Certainly, no one is perfect – but with this philosophy in mind, I think twice about being photographed with a red Solo cup in my hand at a party, or submitting a paper I haven’t proof-read.

Just imagine if, one day, you were to run for president – what could voters or competitors find out about you? What would that mean for your campaign and your public image?

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!

Wake Up, Show Up, Follow Up

In my experience, I can attribute pretty much 90% of my success to three very simple ideas:

1) Wake Up

2) Show Up

3) Follow Up

Wake Up

The most difficult part of your day by far as a college student is waking up. No question about it, sleep is a college student’s favorite pastime. But in order to make your day meaningful, you need to get it started. What does early mean to you? I have friends who don’t schedule classes before noon – for them, 11:00 a.m. is early.

I wake up every day at 6:30/6:45 a.m. For the most part, he world starts at 8:00 a.m., and my goal each day is to be dressed, at school or work, and responsive to email and phone calls by 8:00 a.m. EVERY DAY. “Wake up” seems like a simple piece of advice (one might even say it’s common sense), but we all know how hard it can be to do and how easy it is to skip that class, show up late to a meeting, or blow off the whole day sleeping and watching TV. So my question for you is, how badly do you want to achieve your goals? Do you want to do what’s easy or what’s difficult? Which do you think will lead to more success?

So, I challenge you to challenge yourself and Wake Up each day ready to make a difference!

Show Up

Part Two of my three simple tips for success is Show Up. If you are on a college campus, I can GUARANTEE you that there is ALWAYS something going on. Get involved, Show Up to some clubs and meetings. It’s a no-risk game: you can stay or leave, you don’t have to ever go back if you hate it, and you can even use a fake name and email if they ask you to sign up for something you don’t want to do. The worst thing that can happen to you by showing up to a club meeting is you get free food and make a new friend – not too scary, right?

Showing up to class is the second component of this tip. Remember that you are paying for your education (or maybe someone else is), and it’s VERY EXPENSIVE for you to not be in class. With my school’s tuition, I am losing roughly $25 each time I miss a class. We discuss the concept of Opportunity Cost in business classes, which is the idea that when given the choice between two alternatives, you should not only consider the cost of each activity, but also the cost of not doing the activity, and choose the more efficient option. What are you doing for that hour and 15 minutes that’s worth more than $25?

Follow Up

The last element of what makes up roughly 90% of success in my mind is Follow Up. If you do everything right by Waking Up and Showing Up, but you don’t Follow Up, it is likely that nothing will come of your efforts. Follow Up is arguably the most important step of the three, but will not do you any good unless you have completed the first two. What does it mean to Follow Up? Let’s say you wake up and show up to class.  You’re off to a great day – but now you need to follow up.

So, with the example of attending class, that could mean typing up or re-writing your notes to study from, calling up a study buddy to arrange a study session, or even going to the professor’s office hours to ask a question about the material.

Wake Up, Show Up, and Follow Up are the three things that I have identified as behaviors of successful people that I admire. I have adopted these behaviors myself, and I personally attribute 90% of my success to these three simple principles.

What’s the other 10%, you ask? Well, that’s what the rest of these blog posts will detail for you – all of the other supplemental activities that go with these three principles to help you achieve your goals!