Advice for graduating seniors - George Phillips' Top 8

A friend of mine, George Phillips of Gallatin, TN, gave a dynamic speech to the 40 top graduates of the local high school. He called it his "Top 10", but "in the interest of time", he shortened it to his Top 8. They're pretty great, so I thought I'd share them here (with his permission):

1. READ A NATIONAL NEWSPAPER.
You have worked hard, focused on your studies to make good grades and to do well on the SAT’s and ACT’s. Some of you, if you were like me, may have been somewhat tunnel- visioned on those goals. And by being here tonight you have shown that you have the ability and the discipline to meet those goals. Now, it is time without losing the focus on getting good grades, to focus on getting ready to be more engaged as an active citizen in the world around you.

Curiosity and knowledge about what is going on around you, in your county and the world, I think are the difference between those who live purposeful lives and those who just pay the bills. Now don’t get me wrong, you’ve got to pay the bills, and you need to remain focused on getting good grades, but if you can, you need to reach you larger potential, and try to impact the world around you.

To do that, you need to know what is going on. Unlike many at college who sleep in until 5 minutes before their first class, get out of bed, go the Star Bucks, have a bite of breakfast, and read a national newspaper, like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal before class. Of course, that may be old fashioned, you can read all of those on-line from your laptop, but read one and try to do it every day.

When, as a junior at Duke, I got the opportunity to be the driver for my Congressman as he traveled across the state preparing to run for Senate, Coach Stephenson’s advice paid off, because as we traveled together across the state, often alone, I was better prepared to engage him on the issues he was dealing with, because I had been reading about them the past three years.

That Congressman was elected to the US Senate and eventually elected the Vice President, and that summer traveling with him across Tennessee was the first step in a journey that eventually led to me being on his Senate campaign, Senate Staff, Presidential Campaigns and being appointed to the Justice Department in DC as a part of Clinton Administration.

Read a national newspaper every day when you can you may learn things that will help you in ways you may not even know.

2. BE ON TIME.
My first job, with then Congressman Al Gore was being his driver. And as much as I like to flatter myself that the political career I’ve had was because my knowledge of the issues, the fact is, that as his driver, being on time and being dependable was probably more important.

Somebody said, “Never forget that those show up, run the world.” I knew some brilliant people at Duke that were far smarter than me, who just didn’t live up to their potential because they weren’t disciplined enough to show up.

Up to now, your parents have probably stayed on you to do your homework, go to bed, get up and get to school on time. My Dad got up every day at 4:30 am so he could make sure Durham Lumber Yard was ready to open at 6:00 AM and the trucks were ready to roll. He stressed to his three sons, “show up on time.” And even more important than his words, was the example he set.

College is different. Sometimes Professors don’t even take attendance. Whether you show up or not is up to you. You need to realize that you are not doing all these things because your parents make you, you are doing them because they are what you need to do to be successful, not for your parents, but for you.

When I got to Duke I was convinced they had made a mistake in admitting me. I was scared they were going to find me out and kick me out. That fear, and the habit that Dad drilled into me, made me, for the most part, get to my classes on time, even the early ones.

Once, after Duke had won a big basketball game the night before against the University of North Carolina, when Michael Jordan was playing for UNC. That was big. I was out late celebrating at the bonfire in quad and, well, lets just say I was out late. The next morning when the alarm clock went off, I wanted to sleep in. But with that fear and my Dad’s voice saying be on time I somehow got to the 8:00 am class, although I might have missed my paper that morning.

When I made it to that 8:00 am class, yes parents, 8:00 am is early for College, there were only about 10 of us for a lecture that normally had about 50. The Professor didn’t give us the expected lecture, instead he gave us the outline of what he expected to ask on the final exam. He didn’t take an attendance roll, but he found a way to reward those who showed up. Show up and be on time.

3. BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE.
Up to now you may have been defined by your friends, history, family, things you did in grade school, middle school, and your group of friends at High School. Some of you are not happy with how you have been defined. When I was dropped off by my parents at Duke I did not know a single other student there. I had never ever stepped on campus until I arrived to move into the freshman dorm.

High School was about conformity and trying to be like everybody else. College is different, in College being unique is valued. I hated country music when I was in High School, it wasn’t cool. I got to Duke surrounded by folks from New York and New Jersey, and suddenly I found I loved Johnny Cash. I wore black a lot. The things that weren’t cool at home, made me unique at Duke.

In going off to College instead of being defined by lots of things that you weren’t able to control, you now can define yourself. And you may find that some of values you learned in Gallatin, that you may not appreciate, give you a good foundation to stand on.

4. REMEMBER YOUR MANNERS.
I remember my older brother, Dan, before I headed off, told me that I was going to find myself with lots of folks who were smarter, richer, better traveled, and who had gone to the top prep high schools in America, like Phillips Exeter, Choate, McCauley, MBA, wherever. He advised me, however, not to forget my southern manners, be polite, open doors, continue to say yes mamn and no mamn, and yes sir no/sir, even if folks looked at you funny. He said I would find myself in situations that were new and odd to me, but if I remembered to behave myself and be polite, that I would fit in anywhere.

But truth be told, Dan told me that advice in connection to how to better compete for the attention of the girls against my more urbane, sophisticated classmates. I do think that some of them thought my manners, that were more the norm in Gallatin than Duke, made me different, and that was not a bad thing.
Politeness is a quality that I learned in Gallatin that served me well in College and in life, and I think it will you too.

5. KEEP UP WITH YOUR FRIENDS.
Besides family, friends are what makes life really worth living. Having and keeping friends has been recognized since time immortal as a key ingredient to a happy life.

Aristotle, said, "Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods."
It is easy in High School to keep up with your friends, in fact, in High School sometimes you can’t get away from them. But you will be surprised how easily you can fall out of touch with even your best friends. I dare say if you asked your parents, most of them who are at least my age, really only keep up with a very few friends from High School.

College is different. Connecting with your friends up to now has been easy. Going forward its going to take more effort to organize around folks’ schedules and lives.

Find opportunities over the holidays when your fiends are back in town from school to get together. Establish a tradition of having a pre-Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or lunch with your high school friends.
When I graduated from Duke one of my best friends invited me and about 20 of our friends to his family farm in Highlands, North Carolina, for a long weekend in June following graduation. It began a tradition that we came to call our “Weekend of Men” and continues as we will be heading off to our 24th annual Weekend of Men this June.

While families and work intervene to keep some of us from showing up every year, the attendance has been pretty steady over the years with folks coming from the West and East Coasts, and over the years far as Dubai, England and Germany.

That weekend is often the only time I see many of those guys all year. They come so far because the opportunity to be with friends gets rarer and more precious as you get older.
Make the effort to keep up with your friends, it is worth it.

6. TAKE A DETOUR.
Your parents may not like this advice, my Dad did not like it when I told him I was putting off law school a year to work on Al Gore’s Senate campaign, he thought I needed to get that law degree and get to work, real work, as soon as possible.

But I strongly encourage you to consider doing something off track and different between College and work and/or graduate school. Once you get into the workplace and have a family, your ability to take detours will be dramatically reduced. Do it while you can.

Travel abroad, work in the peace corp., travel across America, work on a fishing boat in Alaska, on the ski slopes in Aspen, on a Dude ranch in Oklahoma, or if you can’t find anything else, work in the campaign for somebody you believe in. Do something that will give you great stories to tell your children and grandchildren.

Take a detour while you can (but notice I said after you graduate from College!!).

7. DON’T PROCRASTINATE.
John Wooden the legendary basketball coach at UCLA had a famous quote, “Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail.” Most of you are bright and have shown you can work hard or you wouldn’t be here, but let’s add another piece of practicable advice, don’t procrastinate on your work.
In High School most to the assignments are such that you can get away with waiting to the last minute as long as you gut it out the weekend before the project is due, maybe with your parents helping you out. Some of the brightest folks I know are terrible procrastinators. At Duke I saw some awfully bright guys not do well because they waited too late to start, or slacked off so much the beginning of the semester they could never make it up.

College is different, it is harder than High School. There is enough pressure in College, don’t put the extra pressure on yourself of not doing the work as you go along. The few folks I saw drop out, did so because they waited too late to do the work and put so much pressure on themselves they just melted down.
Another member of my family, Karen Phillips, suggested that when you get an assignment that you set a series of smaller deadlines to meet before the ultimate due date. You need to try to set a schedule every week, and every day, where you are working on things that have to be done.

Aspirations without setting goals and actually scheduling time to work on them, are seldom met.

8. WORK HARD.
I know you are expecting to me to say the time honored advice, “play hard, work hard.” But I already know that you are going to play hard in College, and you should. Take advantage of this rare place in your life to have fun, but don’t forget why you are there.

You have opened doors to College by being in the Top 30. Doing well in College can open doors into work or graduate schools. But the contrary is also true, if you don’t do well, College can also narrow your opportunities. Use College to open doors, not close them.

My Dad, who came out of High School in West Tennessee as the son of a sharecropper with no prospects of going to College went off to work as a welder in Texas. After World War II started Dad enlisted with the Army and they gave him the GI’s entrance exam.

Much to their and his surprise he scored so high he qualified for a special program where instead of being sent to combat, they offered to send him to an accelerated college and training program at MIT or Harvard. Dad had never heard of MIT, so he choose Harvard.

He suddenly found himself surrounded by the brightest of his generation, most of which came from extremely privileged backgrounds. His preparation at a rural High School in Morris Chapel, TN with a senior class of 19 and limited curriculum had not prepared him to the level of most of his classmates.
BUT, Dad had grown up hungry, plowing the fields with mules. Before he joined the army he said it was rare for him to eat 3 meals a day. While the others at Harvard grumbled about the food, he thought it was the best he had ever had or seen. He said everyday he woke up he was just excited that they had indoor plumbing, electricity and access to phones, three luxuries that he didn’t have for most of his childhood.
AND while he struggled to pass the courses, he had something else, he had the values of hard work. He always told me when I was discouraged, to think about the shape he was in at Harvard, and that if he could make it there where he came from, I could surely make it wherever I was with my background I had from Gallatin, if I was just willing to work a little harder.

Gallatin has given you the background to make it wherever you go, as long as you don’t forget the other value that I hope Gallatin and your parents have imparted to you, the value of hard work.

B. CONCLUSION.
Before you take off for College, take time to thank those who have helped you get where you are, and where you are going.

Your parents, teachers, coaches and mentors have been the well that has sustained your preparation for college and life. Keep up with them and go back to them over the years, you will find an occasional drink from the well that set you off on your journey, can also replenish you along its way.

In conclusion…
1. Read a National Newspaper Every Day.
2 Be On Time.
3. Be Who You Want To Be.
4. Remember Your Manners.
5. Keep up With Your Friends.
6. Take A Detour.
7. Don’t Procrastinate. and
8. Work Hard

By the way, there is not an adult in this room including me, that would not love to have the chance to be sitting in your seats right now. Every day at College you should wake up enthused to be where you are.

These will be some of the greatest days of your life. Appreciate them and make the most of it, every day.
So it is my hope that you venture off that you might remember 1 or 2 of these pieces of advice and that they are helpful to you, … even if you forget who shared them with you.

Comments

[Audrey - Pinks & Blues]

I love this post!! Love it!!
Fantastic!!! :)
Best,
Audrey