How do you rate yourself on courage, curiosity and connection?

This time of the year we get the chance to be inspired by the commencement speeches held by successful (typically older) people in front of ambitious (typically younger) graduates. Graduation is a milestone in a life, and a great moment to pause and reflect on the things that matter. At Mountain Wisdom we watched Steve Jobs’ speech to Stanford graduates when he shared three stories about connecting the dots, about love and loss, and about death.

This year Stephen Spielberg spoke at Harvard and I would like to invite you to pause for a moment and watch the 20’ talk.

When you are done please ask yourself a couple of questions:

• What have been 'character defining moments' in your life?  What have you learned of them?
• What are the voices that you have been listening to in the course of your life; and when have you started to listen to your own inner voice?
   
• How often do you follow your conscience telling you ‘here is what you should do?’; how often do you follow your intuition that is whispering ‘here is what you could do?’;  and how often don’t you follow either of them because it would make you feel uncomfortable?
   
• 'No man is a failure who has friends’; how much time do you spend to maintain and nurture your friendships? when was the last time you have added a new friend to your circle?
   
• We are wired for tribalism which has its advantages but also its dark side.  When have you recently allowed yourself  the categorization into 'us and them’? What could you do instead to find and strengthen the WE?
   
• How and when could you replace fear with curiosity?
   
• How good are you with eye contact? Go out, look into people’s eyes and make a human connection.

None of the above is rocket science, but rather the basics of human life. It seems though that we never really graduate on being human. It is an ongoing journey, so much to learn, and every moment a new opportunity to grow and connect.

Best,

Ekki