Commencement speakers are usually successful individuals who are happy to share their secrets of success with the leader of tomorrow. These individuals speak from experience, and we can surely learn from them, but it’s important to realize that anyone’s experience is a sample size of one and it can be difficult separate how much is luck and how much ability or hard work.
In addition to commencement speakers, endless book on the subject have been and will be written. Just figuring out which ones to read could take more than a little time.
Before you go too far down the path of life, I suggest you curl up The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success (The Science Behind Why People Succeed or Fail) by Dr. Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi. The author is a renowned network scientist who conducted research across numerous successful people produce a set of principles that challenge conventional wisdom and explode comforting myths about the path of success.
From his research, Dr. Barabasi has derived the following five laws of success that he summarizes in this 20-minute video. Every student and parent should read and discuss this book.
One big take away: Performance is about you, what you do and how well. That’s not the same thing as success. Success is about how others perceive that performance. Here’s a quick video overview featuring the author discussing a few aspects of “The Formula”.
