7 Strategies for Success After Graduation

One either learns from mistakes or they learn from mentors. I spent a good portion of my life learning from the former, so it is my responsibility now to share those mistakes so that one may learn from them to avoid walking the same path I chose. If you were going to walk through a minefield, wouldn't you want to follow somebody?

These are some of the lessons I learned upon graduating that can be helpful to anyone who's recently made or soon to make that transition.

1.) Graduation is an event, success in an endeavor

"Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile ideal" -Earl Nightingale

Graduation is here. It’s a time to celebrate. It’s a time to waive our old life goodbye and start anew. The sky’s the limit. The world’s our oyster. Now, why is it that so many are so terrified of the prospects of flipping the tassel? Well, let’s look at it objectively. We spend the first few years of life learning how to walk, how to talk, and then the next thing we know we are put into a school system where we are now at the mercy of our teachers and faculty to be guided for the next 15-25 years or so.

Then we go to college to get a good education so we can get a good job and the next thing we know we are crossing the stage having never really thought about whom we want to become and what we want to accomplish. We had been guided until now and even a major decision like picking one's major was based on what we thought sounded cool or what a guidance counselor suggested we do based on standardized test scores. “Little Johny, you seem to have done well in math – you should be an engineer or an accountant”.

No, we are standing on the sidewalk in our cap and gown smiling for pictures and wondering what the heck we are supposed to do. The cycle of graduation, promotion to a higher grade, graduation, another promotion, graduation, promotion, and so on has come to an end. Now it’s on us. No more guidance. What do we do?

Well, most folks go straight into the workforce in whatever path was chosen for them and never question it. They work their job, get the spouse and have some kids, and paint their picket fence beige to show their uniqueness and until they are 65 they wash, rinse, repeat. About 10 percent of the population will go back for a Masters's. Either because they want to be a doctor or an attorney, which are noble traits, or because it’s right back to the comfort zone.

More degrees are fine; however, success isn’t in attaining a degree. Success is not an achievement. You can’t hang success on your office wall and the letters that you tack on to the end of your name aren’t indicative of having achieved some form of success. Graduation is great, and I certainly enjoyed mine. Please, I recommend that you enjoy yours too! To have graduated is worthwhile of celebration; however, it’s only the beginning and was certainly not somewhere I wanted to plant my flag.

2.) Education starts outside the university walls

“Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” -Jim Rohn

For me, I was never really good at school. I could hardly sit still for hours on end. I daydreamed, talked, and was always getting in trouble. Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you’re cut out for it. Maybe a formal education was exactly what you needed to land the job you wanted on the ladder of your dreams and now you’re off to the races. That just wasn’t me. My education began once I graduated and realized that everyone that had just walked that same stage as I was making 30-40k a year and expected to just shrink their dreams down to the size of their income and look forward to Christmas bonuses, annual 5% pay bumps, and the weekends. I thought to myself that there has to be a better way.

That’s when my education started. I started reading, listening, and surrounding myself with the affluent. I started associated with people with bigger dreams, sturdier bank accounts, and loftier ambitions than myself. That’s when I really started to grow. School taught me how to take tests. Wisdom taught me how to be successful. I’ll never use what I studied in microeconomics 101 in my career and certainly don't need trigonometry, so I figured I’d learn the principles of success from those who have achieved success – and aren’t just teaching from some book.

3.) Proper learning is learning how to Learn, Unlearn, and Re-learn

"When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before." -Henry David Thoreau

The hardest part of this learning process for me was unlearning 20 years of poverty-mindedness that I had developed from listening to broke teachers and broke coaches and broke parents. Now don’t get me wrong, these people cared about me and wanted the best for me; however, they could only teach me what they knew and had done and coming from a small town in rural East Tennessee that wasn’t much. Now we can’t ever eliminate something from our memory, that’s biological. Psychology tells us that once it’s there, it’s always there. We can, though, dilute the old negative thinking with positivity and growth-mindedness and that’s exactly what I started to do.

I had to learn what success really looks like, not what magazines and Instagram portray it to be, unlearn what I had previously thought, and relearn what building real affluence looks like with a renewed perspective. Had I used my old way of thinking it would have been like trying to build a house upon a bank of loose sand. It would have eventually crumbled.

4.) Every decision is the Test

"Our success is found in our daily decisions" -John C. Maxwell

Now in school, I got really good at cramming for tests. I would wait until the night before an exam and gather all the materials, ask all the smartest students for their notes and study guides, and stay up all night memorizing all the stuff that was expected to be on the test. Then, in the morning I would regurgitate everything I had taken in the night before onto the paper, hand it in and hope for a passing grade. It worked well enough to get me my bachelor's.

Then I graduated and started to realize that if I want to accomplish significance then I can’t just cram the night before and expect to wake up one day wealthy. Every day I am presented with a test. Every day I am presented with opportunities to use what I have learned and make decisions that will determine the trajectory of my life. Everything I know about time management, mind management, relationships, wealth creation, stewardship – these are what my decisions are going to be based on. So I had to ask myself this question: how am I doing in these departments? What can I do better today? What decisions am I making right now that aren't in my future self's best interest? (I’ll give you the answer – I sucked!)

5.) You’re already the boss

"When you get yourself under complete control, you become your own boss." -Napoleon Hill

I started working for someone other than my dad when I turned 15. I was on a housekeeping crew at a local outdoor sports camp which was a great job for a 15-year-old. I got a golf cart and got to eat lunch with the campers. It was bliss. By the time I had graduated college, I had already spent two years working with local attorneys, two years working with a local start-up tech company, launched my first company and had found my way into the insurance industry. Somewhere along the way, I started to develop a deep-seated resentment towards authority until one day I made a decision that I was no longer subservient to any man and that I was my own boss. That was the most freeing decision of my life because it allowed me to bury all those negative feelings and take ownership over who I am and where I am going.

I decided from that moment forward that if it’s meant to be it was up to me. I realized that my success wasn’t going to be bestowed upon me and that it wasn’t going to come with any certain title or position or salary but it was going to be earned. I realized that all my decision would be revealed eventually in my character, my disposition, my health, my finances, and my relationships. I realized that even though nobody saw me eat the donut, they would know when I took my shirt off at the beach.

That was the day I became the boss of me. I became the captain of my ship and the master of my soul. I took my future into my own hands, stopped blaming parents and the government and taxes and bosses and circumstances, and became the Chief Opportunity Office of my life. That decision freed me up mentally to actually serve my employers, my customers, my wife, and add value to others without expectancy. That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

6.) If you want to live like the rich, don’t listen to your professors

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" -Mark Twain

Once I took ownership over my life I realized that I had to start taking counsel from a multitude of those wiser, wealthier, and more successful holistically than me. I realized that if I wanted to run a successful life I was going to have to learn from those who run successful lives. I started seeking advice, mentorship, and guidance from those who were in life where I wanted to be.

My first instinct was to turn towards my professors. I had some great professors. They were the ones that everyone I was hanging out with looked up to. They were the ones that everyone around me was trying to impress. They had their own offices and didn’t work a typical 9-5 and were able to give back through teaching and educating and it just seemed like the way to go. When I asked them what I should do to be successful, they all suggested that I get a Masters or PH.D. They all suggested that I get more degrees and find a good career and work really hard, but for what? What did they have that I wanted?

Once I started checking the fruit in their lives, I started noticing that they weren’t exactly where I wanted to be. Most of them were working well into their 60’s, drove old beat-up cars, and were divorced or unhappily married. They were teaching subjects they had no real credibility in (okay, my Entrepreneurship 101 teacher DID own a small business one time). They were philosophizing and theorizing about what it takes to be in business when most had never worked for a business other than maybe for a short time while obtaining their Ph.D. in the subject and certainly, none of them were successful entrepreneurs. They were all working jobs! I took the rose-colored glasses off and started examining how they were living and once I did that it didn’t take long to realize that I was looking in the wrong direction. I had to change focus.

7.) Write the last chapter, FIRST

"Begin with the end in mind. Start with the end outcome and work backward to make your dream possible." -Wayne Dyer

I realized that I am going to have to write the last chapter of my book first. How do I want this story to end? How do I want to close out this adventure? What do I want the end of this book to be? A drama? A comedy? I had to determine what I wanted out of life before life would give me what I determined. I had to write the last chapter and so I did. 

I hope these tips can be of some service to you. I've made so many mistakes that it is my responsibility to help others learn from them. Life's too good not to.

Successfully,

Dalton Daughtrey