Last Sunday, my sister, Elizabeth Conlisk, gave the commencement speech to the 2010 graduating class of St. Ursula Academy, our alma mater. Her message to the graduates was simple, yet very wise. “Know yourself, be yourself and see what other people see” are the three powerful themes that Elizabeth shared with more than 140 graduates of the all girls’ Catholic high school.
Elizabeth is the Vice President of Communications and University Relations for the Big Ten Network, a position that builds on her 25+ years of experience as a journalist, a communications specialist with Miller Brewing Company as well as the spokesperson for The Ohio State University.
Her message resonated with the graduates and parents alike and is every bit as applicable to each of us in our roles as leaders. I’m proud to share some excerpts from Elizabeth’s address on today’s blog post. Here goes….
KNOW YOURSELF
“The first thing I want to say is for you to KNOW YOURSELF. What do you like to do? What don’t you like? What moves you? What makes you happy? Are you a numbers girl or do you prefer words? For me, the only times I’ve gotten off track are when I didn’t pay attention to that advice.
When I was 23, and about a year out of college, I went to work for Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee. Yes, the BEER company…at 23…it was a blast. It was exciting to travel around the country – I hadn’t been out of Ohio much until that point – and write stories about Miller events. During my time there, I also wrote speeches and planned sales meetings, and learned a lot at an early age from working so closely with the executives who ran the company.
But I didn’t want to sell beer my whole life. So after a while, I decided to make a move. I took a job – with a great Vice President title – with a company in Columbus. The good news was that it was in Columbus, much closer to my family. The bad news was that the job was about nothing that I liked or was interested in. After having all the fun I had at Miller, the job was about promoting….natural gas. Wake me up when it’s over! Honest to God, I tried so hard to like it. But in the end, I just couldn’t get excited about the business. See you’re already nodding off, too! I didn’t know myself well enough – or at least I didn’t pay attention to that little voice inside of me that said, “natural gas? Really?” Lesson learned!
BE YOURSELF
The second thing I’d like to suggest to you is…BE YOURSELF. It takes a lot of energy to be someone you’re not…and when you get out into the world, you’ll need every bit of it to meet the challenges that you will ultimately face. It will be up to you to define what “being yourself” really means.
To me, that means having a sense of humor, even in the face of stress and adversity…and especially most recently as a spokesperson for Ohio State and the Big Ten Network I’ve faced a bit of both…and so lightening up comes in handy. I think back to the time when I was interviewing to be the spokesperson for Ohio State. Very cool job – I really did still bleed scarlet and gray, – and I was really hoping to get it. I’d made it to the finals and was about to interview with OSU’s president at the time. I’d never met a university president before, and was kind of nervous. During the interview, we went through my background so he could get a sense of the experience I brought to the job, and of course find out if we’d work well together.
Then he asked me what made me different from the other finalist – who, frankly, I didn’t know, nor did I know her experience. “How the heck should I know” wasn’t an acceptable answer, that I knew. I paused….and then whipped out my OSU I.D. from my freshman year and said “well, I still have my student I.D.- pretty good picture, don’t you think?” He got a kick out of my answer and we laughed about why I’d hung on to the I.D. for so long. I’ll never know if that made the difference – I did get the job – but I do believe that being willing to show him a part of my personality was better than another reciting of my credentials and accomplishments.
SEE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SEE
And my third and final message is: SEE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SEE…I’m talking about the positive people who want you to succeed. Right now, you have an image and opinion of yourself that of course is based on your experiences up until this point. In the coming years, you will change, blossom and grow so much…in college, in your first job and as you experience relationships and romance that may even lead to marriage and children. You’ll develop new skills and achieve new heights, and success will come at different times for each one of you. If you ask me, even at my age, I’m still blooming. So let your self-image evolve, as your life evolves.
When I first started working at the Big Ten Network, I had a lot of anxiety about the fact that while I love sports, I’m not the encyclopedia of statistics that some of my co-workers are. I can’t tell you who the top running backs from 1983 were or give you the pros and cons of the cover 2 versus the deep six defense (I don’t even know if there is such a thing as a deep six defense. I made that up!) But that’s not why the Big Ten Network hired me – that’s not what or who they saw. Who they saw was someone with experience in corporate public relations, politics, media relations and higher education whose track record in all of those fields would be valuable as we launched a brand new TV sports network, that as they’re writing about today is changing the landscape of college sports. So, I probably could have saved myself a lot of worry by just reminding myself to see what other people see…
…..I have been blessed with some fabulous life experiences and with all my heart hope that you’re as fortunate as I have been. The advice I have today seems simple, and I hope that it’s simple enough to remember….that was my goal….to remind you to KNOW YOURSELF, BE YOURSELF and SEE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SEE….simple themes that have worked very well for me.”
Well, Elizabeth, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
To your success,
Mary
