Why

It’s two days in to my spring break and I’ve been bedridden with a sinus infection all weekend. Seriously sucks. The one consolation is that I’ve been able to catch up on all my favorite television series: Top Chef, The Mentalist, Celebrity Apprentice, Gundam 00. Anyone watch any of those? Yea? Super! No? Missin’ out, buddy..

Anyway, to the crux of this post, and this is gonna be super cheesy. Setsuna F. Seiei is one of the main characters in Gundam 00. He’s a soldier, and he exterminates targets with ruthless efficiency. But little by little, he begins to change, heeding the words of his late friend, “you must change, to make up for me who never did..” It’s because of this internal locus that motivates him, that he really does change. In the series, this change is literal; he becomes an “Innovator”, shown by the yellow eyes in this picture.

It’s an interesting concept, because before, he more or less blindly carried out his mission; he did what people told him to do, and he was great at it. How many people today are like that? They’re so focused, so immersed in their work, that they forget why they’re doing it in the first place. We all do. Doesn’t matter if you’re the scientist who helped create the first atomic bomb, or the banker who gambled on subprime mortgages. There are always situations where we do things because others tell us to, because we’re good at it.

Is that a bad thing? Not always. But possibly. I believe it’s good from time to time to think about what motivates you. What are your goals? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Sure it’s great to follow the pack sometimes. Safety in numbers right? Just hope you haven’t unwittingly become a lemming. Or if you have, make sure you have a flotation device.

Personally, I always liked to march to the beat of a different drummer. Why be like everyone else? (My band director had a different take on that though..). You discover much more interesting places on your own, when you take risks and go off into uncharted territory. On the other hand, if you break apart from the rest of the school, you run the risk of being eaten by a shark. But I say, what’s life without a few risks?

Be Not Boring

It’s too often that we forget these words. It’s too often that we get so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget we have an audience. Dale Carnegie in his groundbreaking book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, tells us that the secret to being a great conversationalist is to listen to your audience (whether it’s one person or one hundred people) and then talk about what they want to hear, what they’re interested in.

Listen. Interact. Engage.

Motivation

I love being a college student. You get to see people really learn, try things out, make mistakes. And it’s no big deal, because everyone understand you’re still a student, still learning. I think that’s why college football is so much more interesting than NFL football.

A major problem I’ve seen with a lot of student groups is motivation–they put on these great events, but they’re worried people don’t come out, so they make it mandatory for all the officers, to show solidarity, promote cohesion, etc. Unfortunately, this usually has the opposite effect. Back to football, in college you play because you love the sport, but when you go pro, you play because you have to, you play for the money. And it’s not the same anymore. By making something mandatory you’re changing the motivation from “I’m going because it’s going to be a great event and I want to go!” to “I’m going because I’m an officer and I have to go..” See the difference?

As a leader, think about it from the point of view of your team. Why am I doing this? Is it because I’m assigned to do it? Paid to do so? Or is it because I want to do it? Because I see the value and importance of what I’m doing. Because I’ve bought into the vision of my leader and I want to help achieve it.

Power Networking

I hope you’re not reading this expecting to find some juicy tip on how to schmooze at your next conference and land that dream gig. That’s not what this is about. That’s not what networking is about. If you believe that, well I’m sorry. You’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled, swindled, deceived, whatever you want to call it (the beauty of the English language is that we have a dozen words that all mean the same thing–great for those with an indecisive streak).

Even Barbara Gibson, Chair of IABC, wrote a blog list of power networking tips. I’m not going to disparage her suggestions, because it really is sound advice. But I’ll let you in on a little secret to what networking really is. You ready? Networking is simply making friends.

Pretty neat huh? Think about it. If you’re truly friends with someone, you’re concerned about their success–you help them out, do them a favor, knowing that one day they’ll do the same for you. You care about what’s going on in their life. That’s not so revolutionary, is it? At least I hope not.

Try it out. Next time you’re at a conference, a career fair, forget the business card. Forget writing down an interesting aspect of the conversation to recite back to them in your follow-up. Think of it as making a new friend. Ask what’s going on in their life. Find out what they’re passionate about. Make sure to grab their e-mail address, because that’s what friends do–they stay in touch. Oh and, friends always remember each other’s names. That’s important.

On Commitment

On Friday, I participated in a one-day case competition hosted by Accenture. I’ve done case competitions before, but they usually spanned several weeks. Not this time. The amount of time from the moment the case touched our hands to when we submitted the final Powerpoint totalled just 4 hours. Because it was such a short time period, the case gave us four possible solutions to choose from–we had to pick one and defend our choice. Unfortunately, our team of 5 spent too much time pouring over minute details and discussing possible solutions that we didn’t have a chance to fully finish the presentation. Our resulting presentation was fragmented–each person discussing the portion (s)he was responsible for. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder–would it have worked out better if we had committed to one early then started building our case around that? If we had made that commitment early, we would have been more organized and persuasive for sure. But that begs the question:  In a situation where time is limited, how long can you spend trying to figure out the “best” answer before you should commit to what you’ve got?

Here’s to 2009

Seth Godin hit the nail on the head in his new year’s post. With the new year comes the opportunity to pause and reflect, and reset the standard, the expectations for the coming year. Seth talks about the opportunities for leadership, lead change and take bold strides in a new direction. But change begins on a personal level – why not start with resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions are incredibly powerful – if you set specific, realistic ones. Not “I’m going to change the world” – how are you doing that? Nor “lose 50 lbs”  if you never hit the gym in 2008. Another tip comes from Guy Kawasaki in his book Reality Check: make those commitments public, and you will be more likely to stick to them. I’ll start by making my resolutions public:

1. Get a 4.0 GPA for the semester. Definitely feasible, as long as I stay focused.

2. Finish 10 pages of my senior thesis by 2009.  Decide on a thesis topic in spring, start tackling the beast in fall semester. Check.

3. Stay committed to regular workout schedule.  For this one, I think I’ll print out a weekly calendar and stick in the living room of my apartment and check off each day I go so it’ll be public knowledge when I slack off.

4. Stay healthy.  This means eating healthy, sleeping better, not being so reckless. No more ER trips and reconstructive dental surgery..

5.  Plan a kick-ass event for the IABC world conference in June. Focusing on diversity, and getting students involved, flesh out the details by February.

6. Summer internship. Task for the remainder of break is to narrow down the companies and send out resumes/cover letters.

7. Spend more time with friends and family. I’ve been sick for the past month, and spending a lot of time at home with family. Which is really great, but I definitely want to see some of my friends more, hopefully this weekend before they leave for school again. For the rest of the year, this means setting aside time outside of work and classes. I was terribly MIA last semester.

8. Update this blog once a week. There, I’ve said it. Please hold me to it.

9. Be happy. Most important one.

T’was the night before Christmas…

You know what I hate? How politically correct we all have to be in this day and age. I want to tweet a simple “Happy Christmas” to my followers on Twitter, but I have reservations. What if they’re not Christian? What if I accidentally offend someone?

Hell, I’m not Christian. Call me agnostic if anything. But Christmas is something I’ve grown up with. To me, I don’t think of any its religious origins, and I laugh at those scrambling to buy gifts for everyone.

Christmas for me is a time of the year, possibly the only time of the year, to reflect and to hope. Release yourself from the stress of work, school, life, play some cheerful Christmas carols (traditional – none of that pop garbage), and take the time to appreciate those around you, those you care for. A time to be generous. A feeling that would be phenomenol to hold and cherish throughout the year, but (with pardons to Mr. Dickens), just isn’t feasible. But this time, this time of the year, for a few weeks, days even, let the magic sink in.

Generation Why

Coming home after a semester at college always puts things in a new perspective. This time, it has to do with engagement, motivation. My dad, whether it’s because he’s acting like a parent, or because of his Chinese heritage, or because of the generation differences, often will ask my sisters and I do something and when we ask why, his response is “just do it” or “because I say so” (think how many times you’ve done that btw). I don’t know if it’s just me and my sisters personally or if it’s our generation, but we don’t want to be told what to do without a reason behind it. Anything, as long it’s reasonable.

I experienced this same issue at Berkeley this semester. As an officer in student business organization, any e-mails from recruiters, other organizations, were funnelled through me before reaching the rest of the club members. Many of those e-mails didn’t make it through. Why? Because they didn’t give me a good reason. Many of these e-mails would talk about upcoming events – speaker panels, recruiting info sessions, networking events, etc. The problem was, there were so many of them – if I sent them all through, members would stop reading my e-mails. I’m sure many of you suffer from this “information overload” as well. The point is, if you’re going to publicize your event, or your product, or yourself even, you need what my college writing professor called “you-attitude”. You need to answer the reader’s implicit question “What’s in it for me? Why should I care?”. They don’t care about how great your organization is, how prestigious your speakers are; the average attention span nowadays is something like what, 7 seconds? That’s very little time for convincing. Don’t squander it.