Graduation (2)
Speaking of graduation, the events of this week have me thinking about the events of life in general. In a sense, we’re graduating all the time from something. We go to school all the time – not necessarily in a purely academic environment with lectures and listening – but definitely in taking on new challenges in life, watching others, learning from others, acting based on what we learned, and hopefully applying what we learned in a way that achieves some measure of success and provides our own individual contributions to some greater progress. Some of us learn much quicker and graduate much earlier in any learning environment. Others of us need to watch over and over again before we’re comfortable with taking what we learned and applying it. And still others watch and learn but never feel comfortable applying what we learned in any challenging situation. Yet, we are all still graduating from something most of the time.
As I think back on my life and dual careers (military and business), I can clearly see the points in my life where aggressive learning and constant graduation occurred. In most of those situations, before I entered that phase of my life, someone counseled me against it, offering their wisdom that “if you chose that job, it’s the end of your career” or “if you go there, you can never come back”. I smile when I think back on those comments because I always went where folks counseled me not to (that rebellious side of me) and I always learned so much more in the environments that others cautioned me to avoid. I think back on 5 years I spent in Los Angeles, working 4 of those years for the most challenging boss I’ve ever had in my life, and I remember clearly several senior military officers telling me “don’t do it” and “it’s bad for your career”. Those 5 years were a tipping point. I am who I am today because of the somewhat defiant choice I made to go where others said don’t go. I learned and then graduated constantly in those 5 years, taking on challenges that were deemed impossible, using the knowledge and resources of all our team and all of our organization, and contributing as much as I could and as often as I could to the mission of our organization. The pace of learning was extreme. The need to graduate constantly and apply the learning real time to tough situations was extreme. The expectations were high. The demands were enormous. The support was endless, and the trust was beyond belief. I owe a lot to that boss who created that environment and took a bunch of us with attitude and aptitude and turned us loose with enough learning to achieve success but not enough experience to achieve without challenge. That’s really what graduation is all about I think…having just enough learning to achieve, but not enough learning to achieve without challenge.
The challenge is what makes life meaningful. The graduation is just one of those special steps that says you’ve learned enough to take on the challenge.
I hope to keep graduating the rest of my life. In honor of my daughter who graduated this week and will now jump into her own challenges, I’ll close with a quote from Florence Nightingale – “Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.” Let’s all keep graduating.