College Success Tip – Determine The Right Major For You

Before you spend 4 years in college studying something and then 100,000+ hours in the “real world” working in a certain field, don’t you think it would be wise to spend some time determining the proper major?  It is easy to say, “Lots of people do something that has nothing to do with their major after college,” but that isn’t an excuse to waste four years of classes and tuition doing something you either don’t enjoy or have no desire to do after college.

If you are unsure of what to major in, spend some time meeting with academic advisors in various departments throughout the university.  Also seek out professionals in those areas and see if you can take them out to lunch, shadow them at their offices for the day or even do an internship.  You’ll have a much better idea of what you like and don’t like once you go through this process – it’s better to spend a little bit of time figuring out what you don’t like now versus figuring it out after you studied it in college and spend your first couple years doing it after you graduate.

Also, don’t be afraid to switch majors while you are in school.  Again, it is better to figure this stuff out early in the game than to wait until a year or two after you graduate to figure it out.  Your parents might be picking up the tab on your first degree, but I bet they will be a lot less willing the second time around.

Many times, majors are chosen for the wrong reasons.  A few examples of the wrong ways to choose a major include:

• “I’m doing it because both of my parents were (major)’s”
• “(major)’s make way more money than (major)’s”
• “Only (characteristic) can be (major)’s”
• “Being a (major) is way too much work”

If you aren’t sure what you would like to major in, here is the biggest word you need to know:  passion.  Figure out what you love to do, study it in college and then do it in the “real world.”  Don’t worry about what fields hire more frequently, who makes more money during their first year out of college, or any of the other irrelevant items that too many people will lead you to believe are important.  At the end of the day you will be happier and more successful if you simply major in something that you enjoy.

The Bottom Line:  Pick the right major for yourself, not the best one for your parents or the one that you think will make you the most money.  In the long run, life is too short to not be happy and enjoy yourself.  If you are able to find something you enjoy and learn about it on your campus, you’ll be off to a great start!

College Success Tip – Surround Yourself Well

It is crucial for your college success that you surround yourself with the right people.  Their characteristics could include being intelligent, responsible, dependable, loyal and ambitious.  Of these people, make sure that you develop a core support group that will be there for you during the best of times and the worst of times; you’ll have lots of both while you are in college.

It is also important to have multiple groups of friends, not just one group.  For instance, if you are in a fraternity, those can be your closest and best group of friends, but make sure you have friends in other fraternities, outside of the Greek system and through other organizations.
If you are having difficulty meeting people then certainly get involved in different organizations and also make sure that you are being outgoing, likeable and introducing yourself to people.  This may feel uncomfortable but you have to put yourself out there sometimes.

Finally, surround yourself with a diverse group of people.  This will build character and teach you more about yourself if you have friends that come from different types of families, have different majors and different levels of intelligence.  The more diverse and different they are, the better it will be for you.

The Bottom Line:  The company you choose to surround yourself with will have a huge impact on your personal development, so make sure to choose wisely.  College is a great time to meet lots of new people, so take advantage of this and surround yourself with positive people who will make you a better person.

College Success Tip – Get to Know Your Advisors

Similar to the importance in getting to know your professors, also make sure to get to know your advisors.  This includes the academic advisor you are assigned, advisors in the organizations you are involved with and the advisors in your major.  They are paid to advise students, so make them earn their paycheck!

From an academic standpoint, advisors are a great resource for helping you plan your schedule, showing you the right classes to take and telling you about certain professors.  They will usually have “inside information” as to when certain classes will be offered and any upcoming changes.  If you have a good relationships with them, they may even be able to find you a spot in a “full” class.

You will also have advisors for the organizations you are part of.  Many of them have been advising this organization for a number of years, so you can potentially learn a lot from their expertise.  If you have a desire to be a leader in the organization it will only benefit you to have a good relationship with the advisor – chances are they play a role in determining who is elected to certain positions.

There will also be advisors for your major, in the career center and other places.  Shake their hands, introduce yourself and get to know them.  You never know how they may be able to help you, and chances are they will at some point.

The Bottom Line:  It will never hurt you as a student to build great relationships with a variety of people, including advisors.  Get to know them and be likeable – it almost always come in handy when you need it most!

Searching for the Right Place to Live as a Young Professional

Settling on your ideal place to live as a young professional is a four step process:  choosing the characteristics you are looking for you, researching those characteristics, talking to residents of the place you are considering, and finally, visiting the place to make sure you love it.

1.    Choose the characteristics you are looking for
2.    Research those characteristics
3.    Talk to the locals
4.    Visit the place

Choose the Characteristics

The first thing you must do is to determine what exactly you are looking for in a place to live.  Figuring out what makes you happy will help you to narrow down your search.  Characteristics of a place that you may want to consider are:

•    Weather
•    Median Family Income
•    Population
•    Crime Rate
•    Employment Growth
•    Median Home Price
•    Proximity to Family and Friends
•    Cleanliness
•    Traffic
•    Median Age of Population
•    Professional Sports Teams
•    Entertainment
•    Nightlife
•    Dining
•    Culture
•    School System
•    Local and State Taxes

If you know that you enjoy skiing and if you want to be close to your family and friends, then you have probably narrowed down your search considerably.  If you love warm weather and insist on a large city with great nightlife, then you can cross a large portion of the country off your list.  Setting some basic parameters will allow you to compile a list of locations; obviously the more specific your parameters, the more narrow your search.  Focus on making yourself a manageable list so that you can do research on each place, but not so specific that you are leaving out potentially great places that you may have never thought of.  The goal of this exercise is to come up with 10-20 cities that you would like to look at in detail.

Research the Places

Once you have a list of places that interest you, you can research each one.  This may not sound like a lot of fun, but it actually is!  It gives you a chance to learn more about many different places and will help you narrow your search to the places you would potentially consider for relocation.  Simply figure out which characteristics are most important to you and then examine those details for all of the cities on your list.  An Excel spreadsheet is a great way to organize all of this data and compare each of your places.

Once you have built your spreadsheet, you should be able to narrow your search even further.  You can use any process to narrow this list – choose your top five or ten based upon your most important criteria or eliminate the bottom half based on the learning of facts unbeknownst to you before you began your research.  The purpose for building a spreadsheet is to view your potential locations side by side to compare them more efficiently.  Narrow your focus to the places that are the most appealing.

Talk to the Locals

The next step in the selection process is to contact people in each place to conduct a brief interview with them.  This will allow you to learn a lot more about the place and can also be an excellent way to build your professional network.  Make a list of items to discuss with these people, making sure to address your biggest questions, concerns and curiosities about each place.  Some questions that you may want to ask include:

•    What is the weather like throughout the year?
•    How clean are the streets and sidewalks?
•    Are there a lot of great career opportunities for young professionals?
•    How is the housing market?
•    Are the people friendly?
•    Is it a transient area or are most people born and raised their?
•    Is the local economy reliant on certain industries?
•    What is your favorite and least favorite thing about this place?
•    Would you consider it a good place to raise a family?
•    How easy is traveling in and out of the local airport?
•    Is the public transportation good?
•    Is it a walk-able city or do you need to drive everywhere?

These are just a few of the hundreds of questions you could ask local residents of the places you are considering.  You may be wondering where you can find people to contact if it’s a place where you don’t know anyone.  Great question!  There are tons of ways to find local people to talk to, such as lists of alumni from the high school or college you went to, the chamber of commerce, local realtors and the tourism department.  Successful individuals are always willing to help young, ambitious people in any way that they can.  Use these resources to help find the right place and begin to build a network in those places you are considering for relocation.

Visit the Place(s)

Depending upon how the process has materialized to this point, you may have found one or more places that you have fallen in love with.  If your budget will allow for it, try to personally visit as many places as you can.  You may need to narrow the list down to one or two that you want to consider.  If possible, build your professional search into this visit (much more on this process in the next chapter).  Ideally, you will visit a place and spend 5-7 days investigating whether it’s a place you would like to call home.  You will also strive to secure a few different professional options.  The most important thing to ask yourself is, “Do I see myself living here and calling this place home?”  If you spend enough time driving around, talking to people and seeing as much of the place as possible, you can usually determine whether you want to live there or not.  Make sure that you are spending enough time navigating through the place yourself, don’t just spend all of your time on highways and hitting tourist spots.  See where people live, shop, eat, go to school and go out.  Make a personal determination on whether or not it could feel like home; there is nothing scientific about this part of the process.

College Success Tip – Don't Be Afraid to Ask For Help

Very few people in this world ever really “know what they don’t know”, but it is important for you to try your best to understand what you don’t know.  In other words, have a good sense for what you don’t know and then be willing to ask for help.  For instance, if you aren’t sure what a professor is looking for on an assignment, send him an email and ask.  If you are in a leadership position with an organization and having difficulty accomplishing something, go into your advisor’s office and have an open conversation.  Share your thoughts and feelings – chances are the advisor has seen this situation plenty of times before and can offer you a quick suggestion that will solve everything.  Much easier than trying to do it yourself and struggling, right?

Other examples would include seeking career counseling from the career services department and going to the health center if you are sick.  If you feel as if you may be dependent on drugs or alcohol, seek help immediately!  Your campus has knowledgeable professionals that are paid to help you in any way that they can.  Take advantage of this resource if you need help in any way.

You will also want to have a solid group of people around you that can give you advice whenever you need it, such as your parents, mentors and a peer group.  We’ll talk more later about building a great group of people around you and how this will benefit you immediately and for the rest of your life.

The Bottom Line:  Don’t be afraid to ask for help, whether it is a small question on a term paper or a huge career related issue that is keeping you up at night.  Have a good understanding of what you don’t know and never hesitate to ask for help – you are never alone and will always have people who are trained to help you and support you.

College Success Tip – Take Responsibility

You are given an incredible amount of freedom when you step on campus your freshman year.  You should consider yourself fortunate to have this great opportunity, so don’t take it for granted.  Embrace the great opportunity that you have and commit yourself to working hard each and every day.

Regardless of whether you are paying for your college or someone else is, you have a responsibility to go to class, learn, work hard, get involved and take advantage of the amazing opportunities available to you.  For those of you on scholarship, you most certainly have an obligation to your school to give your absolute best – you were chosen over many others and the school gave you the scholarship on the belief that you would add a great deal of value to the university community, both in and out of the classroom.

The Bottom Line:  You are an adult, so make sure to take responsibility and act like one.  With the great deal of freedom you will be given comes an obligation to be responsible for yourself and your actions.

Why Every Young Professional Must Have a Vision of Success

The first step in being successful as a young professional is to determine what you would like to accomplish in your personal and professional life.  Understand what you are truly passionate about and what would give you excitement every single day.  To accomplish this, two factors are completely necessary right now: having a commitment to being successful and knowing what you must accomplish in order to feel successful.

If you were building a skyscraper, would you just start laying down materials or would you need a blueprint that specified how everything needed to look?  If you were going to start a business, would you have a business plan or just cross your fingers and hope you made money?  Your life is no different – your blueprint or business plan is your vision of success and it will guide you throughout your building process towards success.

The sooner you can create a well defined vision of what success looks like to you, the sooner you can begin working towards your goals and dreams.  Don’t get stuck with the majority of young professionals who wake up, go to work, go home and repeat this process five times a week with no idea what direction they are headed in.  If you are waking up in the morning without any reason for going to work other than to pay the bills, you won’t be very motivated, and your day-to-day activities will not have much purpose.  If you aren’t inspired or motivated by anything, your days will be longer and less enjoyable than the days of someone who has a meaningful purpose and specific goals in mind.  The same holds true for your personal life; without strong relationships and involvement in a variety of activities you will have trouble feeling a sense of purpose.

The biggest mistake business owners make is spending too much time working in their businesses and not enough time working on their businesses.  They are involved in the day-to-day grind and aren’t able to take a step back and look at how they can run more efficient and effective businesses.  The same principle applies to your life; it is easy to continue through the daily grind instead of questioning things.  It is essential, however, to take that step back on a regular basis and to evaluate what you are doing well, what areas you must improve on, and how you can more efficiently accomplish your goals.  This is otherwise known as your vision of success.  Having a clearly defined vision of success will allow you to remain focused on what you want to accomplish while never losing sight of your true desires.

If you were to randomly ask 100 young professionals what their visions were for success in life, I would bet 95 of them would look at you with a blank stare and be initially speechless.  How scary is it that the vast majority of young professionals are unable to tell you what they are trying to accomplish in life, either personally or professionally?  I have found that the young professionals without a well-defined purpose or vision had no idea what they were working toward, if anything at all.

The sooner you can develop your vision and know it by heart, the more likely you are to have daily, monthly and yearly actions that are propelling you in this direction.  The more clearly defined your vision is and the better you understand what you need to do to accomplish it, the more likely you are to make decisions that will lead you to your dreams.

You must be able to clearly explain to anyone what your vision is for your future and what is necessary for you to feel successful in life.  When people ask you where you see yourself in 10 years, they will be amazed at how clearly defined your vision is for yourself.  They will admire you for this and probably be jealous at how well you have things figured out at such a young age.  Once they understand your vision, they will also be impressed at how your actions consistently align with your goals.  Create your vision and work towards it every day – starting today!

Young Professional Success Tip – Start a Business

Let me make something clear; this doesn’t mean that you need to write up a 50 page business plan, raise $100,000 of capital and try to invent the “next big thing.”  This simply means that as a young professional you should offer a product and service to other people.  Determine what you are passionate about and offer it in the form of a product or service.  This doesn’t need to be your primary source of income and you may even offer it for free initially.  Figure out something you are good at or enjoy doing and find a way to offer it to others.  By doing this, you are building something you enjoy, and it won’t even feel like work at all.  Imagine if one day you could make enough doing this thing you love, that you wouldn’t need to do anything else.  So many people across the country have become “accidental entrepreneurs,” meaning that they started to do something they loved to help others and began getting paid to do it. The next thing they knew they were making enough to pay their bills and decided to do it full time.  The bottom line is that you will never know until you try, so give it a shot!

Young Professional Success Tip – Travel as Much as Possible

There may never be an easier time in your life to travel than right now while you are young – take advantage of this and start seeing the world!  Traveling to new places a lot of great advantages, such as getting to:

- See new places
- Meet new and interesting people
- Leave your comfort zone
- See the world
- Experience new things
- Learn more about yourself
- Find a better place to live
- Visit Your Friends
- Re-Energize yourself
- Have fun!

There are many others as well, but you get the idea.  Take advantage of this opportunity, because it will probably become much more difficult to do as you become older and start a family.  Make it a goal to take a road trip at least once every 3 months and go somewhere you have never been before.  Do that for 5 straight years and you’ll get to see at least 20 great new places that you have never seen before.  By doing this, you will have many more experiences than most others your age.  Travel, travel, travel!

Young Professional Success Tip – Have a Vision of Success

A vision of success is simply a clear idea of where you want to be in the future.  You must be able to close your eyes and picture what success looks like and feels like to you.  Some of the many things that could be included in your vision:

- Family you build
- People in your life
- House you live in
- Cars in your driveway
- Relationship with your faith
- City you live in
- Vacations that you go on
- Career that you build
- Business that you start
- Organizations you are involved with

98% of people in this country do not have goals for their future.  That’s right, if you walk up to 100 people at a mall or in a restaurant, 98 of them would have no clue what they want their futures to look like!  If you wake up every day without a vision of your future success and the goals you want to accomplish, it will be very difficult to accomplish a whole lot!  

It isn’t difficult; you just need to determine where you want to be and then align your decision making with it.  For instance, if you want to become a business owner then you’d better be investing in books on business leadership, surrounding yourself with entrepreneurs, building a business plan and doing the other activities necessary to begin building a successful business.  You can’t just say you want to do something – you must begin executing your vision immediately!

Your vision may change over the years, but it is important that you are working towards something, not just getting up, going to work and trying to survive.  Have a huge vision, know what your success will look and feel like and then start taking the steps necessary to reach your vision!