Welcome to the latest edition of our irregular and irreverent newsletter. In this issue, you’ll discover 5 great commencement speeches, 6 career tips for recent grads (and everyone else), 10 articles worth reading, and more.
Let’s get started.
5 AWESOME COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
It’s graduation season — that glorious time of year when we launch young people into the future by making them don Renaissance Fair costumes. If you’re not attending graduation this spring, here are 5 excellent commencement speeches from the last 10 years that can fill the void.
Steve Jobs at Stanford (2005)
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
J.K. Rowling at Harvard (2008)
“There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction.”
Stephen Colbert at Northwestern (2011)
“If we’d all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.”
Toni Morrison at Rutgers (2011)
“Please don’t settle for happiness. It’s not good enough.”
George Saunders at Syracuse (2013)
“It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.”
6 ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF ANY SATISFYING, PRODUCTIVE CAREER
Once students graduate, they need to find something to do besides playing Xbox in their parents’ basement. So a few years ago, I wrote a book called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need to help young (and old) people understand the world of work. The 160-page graphic novel about a hapless office clerk, a tart-tongued sprite, and some magic chopsticks takes a whopping half-hour to read. But I know you’re busy, so let me save you 29 minutes by listing the book’s 6 key career lessons:
1. There is no plan.
Make decisions for fundamental, not instrumental, reasons.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses.
Do the things you do well — that give you energy rather than drain it.
3. It’s not about you.
The most successful people improve their own lives by improving others’ lives.
4. Persistence trumps talent.
There are massive returns to doggedness.
5. Make excellent mistakes.
Commit errors from which the benefits of what you’ve learned exceed the costs of what you’ve screwed up.
6. Leave an imprint.
Recognize that your life isn’t infinite and that you should use your limited time here to do something that matters.
More: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko
10 ARTICLES WORTH READING
Even graduation season won’t stop us from offering our popular, oft-clicked feature. From my Instapaper account to your inbox, here are 10 articles that got me thinking:
How the elevator transformed America
Is the elevator as important a force in American history as the automobile? This Boston Globe piece might convince you.
100 Great Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask
In Inc., Leigh Buchanan asks business leaders which questions we should ask ourselves.
Hindsight — It’s Not Just for Past Events
Oliver Burkeman on the value of one of my favorite tools: The pre-mortem.
Master’s degrees are as common now as bachelor’s degrees were in the 60’s
An astonishing 8 percent of American adults now has a master’s degree (via Vox).
If You Do This, Your Emails Might be Rude
Adam Grant offers advice that everyone should read before sending his or her next email.
Schooled
Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education. A stomach-churning piece from The New Yorker.
5 Small Changes You Can Make to Be Way More Productive
Jeff Haden convinced me of the wisdom of radically reducing items on my daily to-do list.
U.S. man finds lost mother in Amazon tribe
An amazing and twisted tale of an anthropologist dad, a hunter-gatherer mom, and their American son.
The complete guide to structuring your ideal work day
Quartz’s Rachel Feltman offers some smart, non-trite suggestions.
Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance (and More)
In Harvard Business Review, Google’s Laszlo Bock provides a peek into the company’s audacious 100-year study of the how and why of work.
2 NEW VIDEOS
We’ve added two new videos to the Resources section on DanPink.com. One is a 3-minute RSA Animate video on some key ideas in To Sell is Human. The other is a 4-minute Big Think video that describes one of the best persuasion techniques I know. Happy viewing.
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As always, thanks for reading our humble newsletter. Stay tuned to the next issue when we’ll be announcing a new and very cool project. (Hint: You’ll be able to watch it on television this fall).
Cheers,
Daniel Pink