All It Takes Is A Goal

ATG 18: 10 Things No One Tells You When You Graduate From College

May 10, 2021 Jon Acuff Season 1 Episode 18
All It Takes Is A Goal
ATG 18: 10 Things No One Tells You When You Graduate From College
Show Notes Transcript

There are a limited number of universal truths in the world, but I think we can all agree on this: Nobody likes a boring graduation speech. That's why this week's podcast episode is my version of what I think all commencement speeches should be: practical, fun, and in list format.

Whether you're a grad, know a grad, or even if you can't remember your college graduation because it was so long ago, tune in for the 10 things that no one ever tells you when you graduate college that will help you succeed in the real world.

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Jon Acuff:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the All it takes is a goal podcast the best place in the entire world, including all of Canada to learn how to build new thoughts, new actions and new results. I'm your host, Jon Acuff, and today, I'm going to tell you 10 things no one tells you when you graduate from college. Whether you're a recent graduate, never attended, or attended 20 years ago. I guarantee you're going to love this episode. But first, today's episode is brought to you by Medi-Share. Have you guys ever had buyer's remorse? You know that feeling of intense regret because the thing you thought you just had to have was only something used once or twice? For me it was the time I bought a really expensive road bike because I thought I was going to get into cycling. I proceeded to hang it on the wall in my garage and feel ashamed for six months. Well, I know some of you are experiencing buyer's remorse right now for something much more frustrating. You know what I'm talking about. It's the healthcare you rushed to get during open enrollment last December. Well, I have some good news for you. You've probably heard me talking about our main sponsor for this podcast, Medi-Share. And these guys have the answer to healthcare buyer's remorse. Check this out, members of Medi-Share save up to 50% or more per month on their health care costs. They say the typical family saves up to $500 per month. And here's the best part, you can become a member at any time. So that means it isn't too late to ditch your buyer's remorse and switch to a more affordable health care that will save you money and help you sleep better at night. If this is your first time you're hearing about Medi-Share, it is the best alternative to health insurance that allows you to share the burden of medical bills, offers access to 900,000 plus health care providers, and has a proven 25 year track record. Plus in addition to saving hundreds per month, as a member of Medi-Share, you will also have access to free telehealth and free telecounseling. You won't find that with any traditional health insurance provider. Guys, it only takes two minutes to see how much you could save. Go investigate that for yourself and your family at Medi-Share.com/Jon. That's Medi-Share.com/Jon. Remember Jon doesn't have an H in it. So it's a M-E-D-I, that's Medi, share, S-H-A-R-E dot com slash J-O-N. Okay. Okay, back to the episode. I have never been invited to give a commencement address at a college. This is disappointing because for the first time in my life, I own a sports coat that fits and, this is critical, a belt that is not two-sided. I used to constantly just buy belts that one side was brown and the other side was black because that's it's like two belts in one, I don't, it's just so convenient. Now I might be considered too young to give a commencement address as I'm only 45, despite the gray hair that I've acquired, that has prompted many a TSA agent to go "Uh, is this, is this you?" as they stare at my dark haired driver's license from a few years ago. But I have spent 23 years in the workforce. I think I did the math on that right. I graduated from college, from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998. It is now 2021 that's no that's 24 years Oh my I'm so old. Oh my gosh, I've been around. I'm almost a quarter century working. I've worked at big companies, small ones. I've been promoted and fired. I've started my own business, I found and left my dream job. I've learned a lot, mostly the wrong way. If I was ever given a chance to speak at a graduation, I would try to give tips that would apply to your life whether you're 24 or 44. I've been to too many boring graduation ceremonies. And so I try to send all the graduates and all the parents home with something they could use immediately. And I would title it "10 Things No One Tells You When You Graduate From College." It would be a list and it would go something like this. Number one, the real world is more fun than grumpy adults have ever told you. Don't listen to people in their 40s who act like the best part of your life ends the minute you get your diploma."Wah wah. Welcome to the real world." Is the real world all cotton candy and unicorn rides? No, of course not. But sometimes misery loves company, and it recruits it too. When you start a new job, there will definitely be a group of people there who don't like their job and don't like being an adult. Avoid these people like the plague. They've bought into the cultural lie that a job is just the job and that you should only work for the weekend. Nonsense. Your job can be meaningful. Your weekdays can matter. Whenever I see someone post something like"Don't grow up. It's a trap!" on Instagram, I think there's someone who doesn't know how fun it can be to be an adult. And don't let people who don't like their lives, color how you see yours. And right now if you're thinking "Jon's wrong. Jon's wrong. Being an adult is terrible." Well, let's do something about that. I think you might just have some broken soundtracks or repetitive thoughts that haven't been telling you the truth. Read chapter three of my new book Soundtracks, it might be time to turn down your stress a little bit. Being an adult can be awesome. The second thing that no one tells you when you graduate from college is one of your friends will be instantly successful. They will move to New York City or San Francisco or Austin or Nashville. Everyone is moving to Nashville right now. And they will make finding a great job seems so easy. They will earn the kind of money that allows you to pay for your own Netflix instead of stealing your parents. Can you imagine that wealth? Like they'll be so rich, they can buy a whole bag of Whole Foods. Like you go in, full bag, walk out, full bag, pay for it all at once. Amazing! You will hate them at least a little bit. Because watching their meteoric rise through the filtered window of social media will make you feel like it'll never happen for you. Don't get caught in the trap of comparison. And by the way, this never ends either. There will always be someone ahead of you. Whenever I find myself stressed out, sprinting frantically to get ahead, I ask, "What am I trying to get ahead of?" And the answer is usually one of three things I'm trying to get ahead of number one, people I'm not really in competition with, number two, the world's definition of success, or number three, a mythical perfect version of myself. And then I slow down. That's all you have to do. If you're worried about getting ahead, go "Wait, wait wait. What am I trying to get ahead of?" and I guarantee you're in a race you really don't want to even run in. Number three. The third thing that nobody tells you when you graduate from college is your 20s are lonelier than you think they'll be. They're glamorized in culture, presented as the time of your life. And as you binge watch an entire season of Married at First Sight on Netflix, I love that show, you will wonder "Is every other person my age at an amazing party right now that I I just don't know about?" Well, let me, let me tell you. They're not. The truth is when you leave college, you leave the tightest, largest concentration of people who are your age. Suddenly you're scattered around the country and community won't involve just walking out onto the quad. You'll have to fight for it. That's not failure. That's just reality. Seek it out. It's not easy to make friends as an adult. But it's definitely possible if you'll be brave. And hey, if you're in your 30s or 40s, reach out to someone in their 20s and tell them this point. They think we've all got it figured out and they're the only ones who feel lonely. They're not. Send them the link to this podcast and tell them the truth. Encourage them. Number four. The fourth thing that no one tells you when you graduate from college is being an adult comes with an obscene amount of paperwork. Stay on top of it. Taxes, 401k enrollment, healthcare, apartment contracts, prepare to be awash in forms that make the Apple Terms of Service Agreement seem pleasant. Don't ignore the paperwork. I once did that. And I assumed the company I worked for would handle a healthcare issue I had. I thought I had kidney stones. Turns out it was just an ultimate frisbee injury. What an adult I was, right? Who gets an ultimate frisbee injury? I threw the paperwork for the bill from the doctor into the trash, because I just thought that my company like would magically pay it. I didn't think anything of it until years later, right before I got married. My then fiancee, Jenny said, "Hey, how come you keep getting such terrible credit card offers from like the Bank of Hawaii, or like the United Credit Union of Kona? This one's for 25% APR," she said. And I said, "I don't know what a lot of those words mean." That's how I replied. But I did end up getting a credit check and discovered, much to my dismay, that my $81 doctor's bill had never been paid, and was now at a collection agency. My credit score was like an eight. I don't mean any 100 I mean, a literal eight. Stay on top of the paperwork. Number five thing that nobody tells you, when you graduate from college is most of work is just paying attention in meetings. Roughly 93% of your job, depending on what you d, depends on your ability to p y attention in meetings. You mig t have been able to tune out in a class of 400 people for an hou. But if you try that in a meeti g at work, people are going o notice. Even on Zoom. Like e en on Zoom, people can tell w en you've checked out. Show u on time. Take notes, add value ask questions, except, and thi is a huge distinction, this is a big point of about the drop on you, don't ask questions when he meeting is over. The world f els really divided right now, do sn't it? I mean, don't yo feel like there's a lot of d vision? But one thing that is universally agreed on by e ery gender, ethnicity, politic l party and religion, the one hing we all agree on, is that th person who extends a meeting by asking a bunch of unnecessar questions, sucks. Follow up wit the person leading the meet ng later on your own. Don't e a meeting extender. Everyo e hates the meeting extender Number six. The sixth thing that no one tells you when you graduate from college is if you move home, make sure you bring an exit strategy with you. Pay rent to your parents, do your own laundry, buy your own food, have a deadline for how long Okay, back to our list. Number seven thing they don't tell you you're going to stay there. Home is comfortable. But the distance between comfortable and complacent is surprisingly short. Just because you're sleeping in the same room you had in middle school, doesn't mean you have to act like an adolescent. And if anyone tries to make you feel ashamed to be living at home with your parents, regardless of what age you are, don't listen to them. We just had, I don't know if you guys had this too, we just had a global pandemic and that shuffled a lot of people's living situations. And we need more grace for each other. I lived with my parents about a year after college. Then when they moved to another state, which I really don't feel like I got to vote on, I lived in a trailer park retirement community. "Wait a, wait a secon. Don't rush past that on, Jon Acuff. Did you, did you sa what I thought you said?" Y ah, you heard me correctly. I on e lived in a trailer p rk in a retirement community. et that sentence settle because here's, there's a lot going on n it. I was 24 years old l ving in Massachusetts. When my parents, who were really my oommates, moved to North C rolina, I didn't have anywher to go. A friend of my fath r who was amazingly kind s id that his parents go to F orida every winter and that I ould winter over in their tr iler if the community would a low someone under 55 years old o be there. Now before you ge any ideas, this wasn't some ancy double wide. This was a si gle trailer. That's not t e weird part though. A lot of p ople live in trailers. The w ird part was that the longer lived there, the more I start d acting like an old per on. I started watching TV in a rocking chair because that's wh t they had in this little li ing room. The trailer was co d because the winters in Mas achusetts are brutal. So I would throw a homemade afgha over my legs like I was in a Ge rgia O'Keeffe painting of the idwest. And I wasn't just watching TV, I started find ng CBS sitcoms hilarious. I'd wa ch episodes of Everybody Lo es Raymond and think "That Ramond is such a stitch. He's real stitch!" For Christmas that year, this is 100% a true tory, for Christmas that year I asked my parents to give me foot massager. They were co fused, but they don't understa d how tired your feet get w en you get old. It's a circ hen you graduate from college s this. Don't spend all your lation thing. You young people ith your hip to the hop and lit le babies and Snapchats. You wo ldn't understand. Now can you icture that please? Can we, c n we paint a picture in our minds? Me in a rocking chair, afghan over my legs, feet on vibrating massager, CBS on the television, that's what you cal it when you reach the later ears "the television." I'd only et up to make sure the door was locked. My elderly neighbor ime with idiots and then wonder hy it's hard to meet someone would occasionally get confuse and try to come into my railer at which point I'd draw the curtain back and stare out the window grumpily. "You get off my lawn you whippersnappers. I'm honestly surprised th t I didn't get a rascal sc oter, it's mostly turning radius that matters, and j st become a greeter at Walmart. hen I applied they would have to d me, "I think you're too youn to be a greeter here." At which point I would have said You just made my day" and th n slapped him playfully on he arm with my handkerchief. If I'd stayed there another month, probably would have just sh iveled up and died, like that guy from the Indiana Jones mov e who drank from the wrong gobl t. Is that story weird? It fe ls weird now that I say it out loud. reat to date. If you move to he desert, like say you elocated to the desert. And hen you told me that the urfing there is terrible. I ould agree. I bet the kayaking s terrible too. And then I ould ask you why you expected and dunes to offer optimal atersports. I am by no means a arriage or dating expert. But f you spend all your time with diots, you're going to marry an diot. That's just math. And t's true for life in general. I you're an entrepreneur, and y u spend all your time hanging o t with entrepreneurs who make te rible decisions, it's going to be easier for you to make te rible decisions. The people yo spend time with matter. Number eight thing that nobody tells you when you graduate from college is don't be an idiot online. Recently, I talked to a CEO that I know. During th conversation he told me hi Number nine. The ninth thing no one tells you when you graduate company had started using firm that create online backgroun checks for potential employees There are now firms that wil scrape your TikTok, Twitter Instagram, anything you d online and create an extensiv profile on you. The compan from college is don't burn many bridges. I know a few jerks who thinking about interviewing yo right now has something new t think about. Is that invasion o privacy? Maybe, maybe it is. Bu the days of employers not re earching your digital fo tprint are long gone, my fr end. And I'm not talking about j bs for just high paid e ecutives. I'm talking about a y and every level of corporate w rk. Why is this a problem? B have made it pretty far in life, to pretend otherwise would be a cause we all tend to be idiots o line sometimes. We complain a out our past bosses, we whine a out our jobs, we post photos f om spring break, we go on long urse-filled political diatribe and bit by bit, pixel by pixe, we create a profile of ours lves that will sink even the most amazing resume. Want to ru n an interview that went really ell? Do something stupid on Fac book. Want to reduce the value o that college degree you're g tting right now? Make ho rible mistakes online. Do you w nt my best career advice? Stop being an idiot online. Your ne lie. Jerks occasionally win. They make lots of money. They t job is watching. I promise. hat's why I'm always so flabber get famous. they accomplish lots and lots of things. They succeed asted, which is such a fantastic word, I'm always so flabberg in a million different ways. But there's a catch. Jerks who win sted when I see someone com lain about their job online. T only win temporarily. The people around them are just biding at's easily one of the dumbest t ings you can do and it's stup d on two levels. Number one, so eone at your current job might s their time. They're waiting until they get brave enough to e it. Even if you are a priva e account, they might see it leave or have a slightly better option or life catches up with And number two, no one wants to hire the complainer. No the jerk and they finally lose. When any of the above three one sees you complaining and go s, "Hey, this person looks li happens, people will abandon ship as fast as they can. Because no one healthy likes a long term journey with a jerk. e a real team cancer Look at how they're evisc rating their company publicly. It would be awesome if they Being nice is a much better long term plan. Not only does it ould do that to our company too. Let's reach out. Let's allow you to build something really amazing, with really ee about hiring them." amazing people, it just feels a whole lot better too. Being a jerk is always an experience that empties you out. It might gift you with outward success, but inwardly being mean, cruel or dismissive to other people hollows you internally. Nice works better. So how do you do nice? Well, I'll give you seven simple words that will completely change your ability to be nice. Think of it as a new soundtrack. You ready? Here they are. Pretend you live in a small town. Let me say it one more time because I talk so fast. Pretend you live in a small town. When you live in a small town, you are not anonymous. People know you, those people will see you again. You can't burn bridges because small owns don't have many bridges. ou might disagree with someone ut when you realize you'll robably see them at the grocery tore, the elementary school, he church, the movie theater, ou have a greater incentive to e nice. When you're anonymous. t's a whole lot easier to be a erk. See the internet for many, any examples. The worst of you an come out because you don't hink you'll see those people gain anyway. Who cares? Say the assive-aggressive statement, cut off the stranger, climb ove someone because they are just i the way. Maybe right now, yo live in New York City and yo think this is the silliest ide you've ever heard. You don' live in a small town. There ar millions of people flowin through that city every day Fair enough. Fair enough. Bu keep this in mind. Ever industry is a small town, yo will work with the same peopl again, you will see the sam people again, you will run int the same people again, I got speaking engagement, fo instance, at a company once tha has 100,000 employees. It's on of the most valuable companie in the world. The person wh booked me said "Oh, hey! One f my coworkers worked with yo 20 years ago. He'd loved to sa hey when you're in town." I sha ed an office with this person t the first real job I ever ad in 1998. Did I think I wou d see him again? Did I think we' both change cities and indu tries multiple times only to cross paths two decades lat r? Of course not. Thank goodn ss I wasn't a jerk to him. That' not always been the case. I've burned some bridges. Some o t of necessity, some amou t of immaturity and arrogan e, a dangerous cocktail. Lik, oooh, those two things togethe are so terrible, immat rity and arrogance. Ugh, I wis I'd been nice. I do. I think you'll wish you'd have been ice too. Nice wins long ter for you, and everyone aroun you. Pretend you're in a small town. Because you are. eve y industry is smaller than you t ink. Don't be a jerk. it for this week's episode. Thank you for all the encouragement you guys have been giving me about my new book Soundtracks. If you're an overthinker and want a little help turning overthinking from a super problem into a superpower, pick up a copy wherever books are sold. We'll also link to it in the show notes. Make sure you follow this podcast so you don't miss another episode. And if there was anything you enjoyed today, hit me up with a quick review. Thank you so much for doing that. See you next week. And remember, all it takes is a goal. This episode of the podcast was brought to you by Medi-Share. Text JON, J-O-N to 474747 for more information. Huge thank you to Medi-Share for sponsoring it. J-O-N to 474747.

Producer:

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.