Tuesday night I had the great privilege of speaking at West Virginia University’s Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity.

This was the first public speaking opportunity I have had to speak about my new book “The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated.”

I focused on the last chapter of the book, Find Your Passion and Not Your Job. I made a post about my speech on Tuesday.

I do want to thank Jonah for all of his hard work to make the event possible.

As you can see from the picture above I will be wearing my WVU sweat shirt proudly even though I live in Pittsburgh the home of WVU’s arch-rival the University of Pittsburgh.

I am giving a speech tonight at West Virginia University on my book The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated.  However, I am focusing on the last chapter of my book “Find Your Passion and Not Your Job!”

Here is an overview:

How to find your passion

-          Get real life work experience while you are in school.  Students should be thinking about internships, special projects, or any type of experience they can gain while they are school.  The job market is too competitive to think that a degree is good enough.  Getting out into the workforce is one of the best ways to determine what your passion is and what it is not.

-          Mentors – find a mentor at school, work, and home to help you find your way in life.  We cannot do life alone, we need help.  A big help can come from someone who is willing to directly or indirectly mentor you.  Everyone who is successful today is successful because of the people around them.  The lone ranger mentality does not fly in business or life.

-          Childhood experience – what did you do while you were a kid that might have been something you can do now as an adult?  What were your interests?  Your likes?  Dislikes?  The seeds of our passion have been woven into our lives since we were children.  Think about your own childhood.  It might give you clues to your career passion.

How to miss your passion

-          Indecisiveness – many students never get over what I call the “Noah Mentality.”  My son, Noah, is nearly eight months old so his attention span is about as good as a fly.  He goes from one thing to the next and leaves a path of destruction behind him as he goes.  For many college grads this mentality has not changed much.  Indecisiveness can leave a person passionless.  How many majors did you have in college?  How many jobs have you had since graduation?  The grass is always greener mentality will also leave us passionless.

-          Choices – the choices we make throughout life can force us off our path of finding our passion.  The choices we make have consequences.  Sometimes these consequences will cause our pursuit of purpose and passion to take a back seat because we are forced to pay for the mistakes we make.  Consider your ways before you take the wrong path.

This is a highlight of my speech tonight.  It is laced with stories and humor to entertain and teach at the same time.

I will give a full report of how the night went tomorrow.

In the world of email and electronic job boards do we really need to be as concerned with cover letters as we once did?

Another question might be; is anyone actually reading your cover letter?

How long does a recruiter spend reading your cover letter if they actually do read it at all?

Will your cover letter make or break the hiring decision for you?

I have never been a fan of cover letters but as far as most recruiters go they say it is still a must have document. One thing to keep in mind about a cover letter is that if you are going to do it you better do it well. A poorly written cover letter can be quick turn off for a recruiter who has hundreds of resumes to look through in a given day. A cover letter must be error free.

I wanted to share a resource CollegeRecruiters.com has put together on “The 10 Things To Avoid In Your Cover Letter.” I think it summarizes all of the things you need to know about how to write a cover letter. As I said in beginning of this post a cover letter isn’t as prevalent as it once was because of trend toward electronic job postings. However, if you do need to create a cover letter you may as well know how to do it well. This article you help you do that.

Well another loss for our precious Pittsburgh Steelers. As our city mourns we will try and gather ourselves back up to start a new week on Monday.
Do you let your attitude at work rise and fall by weather or not your favorite team wins, or weather or not your favorite driver wins on Sunday?
It would be easy for an entire city to go to work tomorrow feeling like they cannot be happy again until the Steelers win . However this is a good reminder for us to not allow ourselves to get so caught up in the sports highs and lows over the weekend that it affects our performance at work on Monday.
I know for me my Terrible Towel will fly a little lower at work this week but I won’t allow my spirit to do the same.
Go Steelers!

Have you ever had an experience that should have been infuriating but because it was so ridiculous it just makes you laugh?

I had one of these experiences recently with one of our fine, taxpayer funded, United States Postal workers.

As most people know the post office typically closes at 5PM on most weekdays. Which by the way, is completely absurd since the majority of its customers work until at least 5PM and cannot make it to the post office before 5PM or 6PM. Some post office buildings stay open later but my little post office in my small suburban town chooses to close at a time when the only people who can do business there are stay at home moms and the retired.

Since the post office closes at 5PM I was very happy when made it at 4:50PM the other day. Now unfortunately for me the postal employee who was working behind the counter did not feel the same bit of relief I did when I walked through the door 10 minutes before she was suppose to close the door. In fact, she started off the conversation by saying,

“If you are going to mail those packages you are going to have to hurry. We close in 10 minutes.”

Since I had two fairly complicated packages to mail I needed the assistance of the “mailing expert,” our find postal employee. Let me ask you an obvious question. Do you think this postal employee, who gets paid through my tax dollars, was happy that I needed her assistance with my packages ten minutes before she was suppose to close? Well if you guessed that she was not happy you would be right.

As I began to ask her questions and ask for forms that I needed to fill out her answers became much shorter and irritated. As every minutes and second ebbed away on the government issued clock behind her she became more and more hot headed by the second.

As I fumbled with my box and customs forms she finally belted across the counter,

“Look you are going to have to leave and go to the other post office down the road because they are open to 7PM.”

My response was, “Why would I leave I am nearly done.”

“Well, we close at 5PM, and it is 4:55PM.”

Needless to stay I stayed and finished the paperwork and address labels without any of her help. By the way, I finished at 5:00Pm on the dot!

Let me ask you another question. If you owned a small business and a CUSTOMER walked in 10 minutes before you closed, no matter how unprepared they were, don’t you think you would try to help them with their need even if you were suppose to close only minutes before they walked in? Aren’t your customers the way you put food on your table? Aren’t they everything to your business? If you treat them the way I was treated by this postal worker how long do you think you would be in business?

What kind of customer service or customer appreciation does the USPS show by treating its customers with such utter disrespect and distain?

What happened to the CUSTOMER is always right mentality? Do they not teach that in the training program for new USPS employees? The mailing process can be quite confusing if you are not use to mailing large packages, especially international ones. Shouldn’t the resident expert want to help the CUSTOMER with their shipping needs? You would assume all of these questions would be easy answers but as my “Newman-like” employee displayed it obviously isn’t as easy of a questions as I thought.

No matter what job you are working at, weather it is for the government or private industry, let me encourage you to rise above the disgruntled, burned out, retirement waiting bureaucrats.

Be remarkable in your customer service efforts.

Be helpful and respectful of your customers.

Your performance is directly tied to the attitude you have toward your customers.

I will close with this: As Newman said on Seinfeld, “When you control the mail, you control INFORMATION!”

Everday I am finding more and more reasons why ever job seeker should have a blog. C.M. Russell over at SimplyHired.com feels the same way.

He makes 7 points on why every job seeker should have a blog. I particulary like the one idea about posting a video on your web site to welcome visitors. YouTube is making it to easy for this not to be done. I am working on doing this very thing for my own web site, Justin Driscoll.net as we speak.

To read the whole article click here.

Last night I had dinner with a very good friend of mine. I knew something was wrong at dinner but I didn’t push the issue. After dinner my wife suggested I give him a call to make sure everything was OK. When I called he told me he is completely unhappy in his job. To make matters worse he has no idea what he wants to do for a living. In other words he doesn’t have a passion for anything in particular.

For some people their career passion comes easy for them. They know what they want to do before they ever graduate high school or college. Then once school is out of the way they pursue their passion like there is not tomorrow.

On the other hand, these is a section of the population that has no interest in work or anything that has to do with work; especially a job that forces you to sit behind a desk all day. If you are like my friend who cannot seem to find a job that is a good fit or one that makes you enjoy what you are doing what are you to do?

Everyone’s situation is unique and different but I am convinced there is a job out there for you that you were destined for. I am even more convinced that you can find a job where you can feel satisfaction and accomplishment everyday. One of the complaints my friend made was that his job is not rewarding or satisfying. He isn’t concerned about making loads of money but more concerned with doing something where he will have an impact on someone or something through his job. Is this easy to find? No, but it is not impossible either.

My friend is 26 so he is starting to ask himself those questions all of us ask. What am I doing with my life? What impact am I having on the people I touch? Is my job really what I expected it to be? Am I doing what I should be doing in life? As I encouraged him let me encourage you. God has a plan for all of our lives. He promises us He will never leave us nor forsake us. I have to remind myself of these promises on what seems like a daily basis. Today may seem dark and dreary but remember “Joy comes in the morning.” Today may not seem all that great but isn’t it amazing what a good nights rest will do for you?

If you are feeling discontent and dissatisfied with your job it might be time for a change. On the other hand it might not. If you have one bad day at work that doesn’t mean you should change everything in your life. Make sure you weigh your decisions carefully before doing anything rash. For those of us who are very emotional people we made need to temper our emotional decisions by a good nights rest. Then in the morning get up and think with a clear mind before we do anything we will regret.

Finding our passion in life is not always easy. It may take a few changes or tweaks but I know it is out there. Have you found yours?

One of the few shows I watch on TV started back up for the fall season tonight. That show is none other than the Amazing Race on CBS. For those of you who do not know, the Amazing Race is a race around the world between 12 teams from all walks of life. Along the way they have to complete tasks and overcome challenges. Every week is very interesting because it is always in a different part of the world with new tasks and challenges.

This season the producers of the show have become very politically correct which disappoints me. They have tried to be as inclusive as possible; they have various faiths, nationalities, races, and have course the hick Americans from Kentucky. The only traditional American team on the show is depicted as the blue collar Americans from Kentucky. Oh well, I guess that is how the networks view every day Americans. Ok, on to the point of this post.

The reason I mention this show tonight is because one of the teams, Peter and Sarah. They showed an unbelievable amount of passion tonight in this first episode. The teams were in Beijing China at the Great Wall of China. Their task was to scale a very tall wall using a rope and pulley system. Sarah the women with the prosthetic leg, had to climb up the wall just like everyone else. That wouldn’t be so hard for someone in relatively good shape and using both legs, but for someone with a prosthetic leg it could be a bit more challenging. She showed a great deal of passion tonight by scaling up that wall faster than nearly every other team. She started off slow but once she figured it out I was amazed at how fast she actually went. Her team finished third for this leg of the race out of the 11 that are left.

I have not been born with any physical disabilities and nor do I know anyone who has. However, if I did have a disability like this I hope that I would have as much courage and passion as this women Sarah does. Great job Sarah!

I had the great privilege of meeting someone who truly had a passion for his career today.

I had to buy a suit for some upcoming speaking engagements today at Joseph A. Banks. The gentleman who waited on me was named Milton. As I began to look at suits and get to know this “Milton man” it became very obvious that this man loved to sell suits for a living.

It is unfortunate that we do not have more retail associates like Milton. He was very careful to take everything into consideration when speaking with me about what I wanted in my new suit. We looked at every color and style of suit in my size because Milton wanted to make sure I knew all of my options and saw every possible suit I could buy before I made a decision.

Once I found the suit we had to pick the shirt and the tie. We looked at a white shirt and a blue shirt. Then we laid out at least 15 ties trying to find the one that went best with the white shirt I chose to wear with my new blue pinstripe suit.

Milton went on to tell me that he has been selling men’s suits since he was out of college. Now that may not be a big deal for someone who is in their 30s, but Milton is in his late 60s or early 70s. He has worked for companies like Ralph Lauren and American Eagle over his long and illustrious career in merchandising / retails. You would think that 70-year-old Milton would be bitter and disgruntled to be spending his Saturday night working at a suit store, but his attitude was up beat and positive. Shouldn’t he be kicking back and taking it easy with his wife on a Saturday night? Milton may have not wanted to work this particular Saturday but if he didn’t he sure didn’t show it. His attitude was positive and made me feel like this purchase was the most important purchase I have made since I bought my house. He also made me feel like it was as important to him as it was to me. This is a true mark of a passionate retail associate. His passion was infectious. It made me feel good about buying this suit so much that I bought a second one that we looked at earlier in the shopping experience.

Milton was great. He has passion for what he did and therefore made my buying experience much easier and enjoyable. I left Joseph A. Banks feeling like that was the best retail experience I may have ever had.

To summarize what Milton did right:

1. He had a positive attitude.
2. He loved the product he was selling; men’s suits
3. His personality reflected his love for his job.
4. He was patient with the customer
5. He knew everything there was to know about the smallest details of the products he sold, men’s business attire.
6. He tried to up sell in a tactful way.
7. He tried to get to know his customer rather than just pushing me out the door after the sale.
8. He was friendly
9. He opened up and let us know a little bit more about who he is as a person so we felt more comfortable with him.
10. He made me feel like my suit purchase was as important to him as it was to me.

Milton was great. He wouldn’t let me take his picture with fear of it ending up on the internet. It’s not like I have a blog or web site that I could have posted it right? Milton told me he didn’t want me to take hispicture because he didn’t want to beome famous . Well, sorry Milton you are going to have to live with your fame for now. Or at least until this post goes into the archives.

Hopefully you have your own picture of Milton in your head. Maybe it’s someone you know or maybe even yourself. Since Milton wouldn’t allow me to take his picture please insert your picture here.

I wanted to comment on a Yahoo Finance article today about Knowing When To Quit.

They make some great points about finding direction in your life after graduation and determine when would be a good time to quit if you are unhappy with your current employer. Here are some things that stuck out to me.

1. Approach your job search with a plan in mind and not haphazardly.

2. Be willing to change your focus after graduation because you may not like working in the field you have studied for the past four or five years. That may be a difficult decision but a necessary one for your happiness.

3. Don’t stay at a job where you are completely unhappy. If you are dealing with a boss that is very difficult to work for you may do more harm than good to yourself over the long run. Not everyone can work together effectively. If this person does not fit well with your work styles don’t kill yourself, move on and find someone who does work well with you.

4. If you cannot stand working for someone ask to be moved within the company to another supervisor or look for another job.

5. When you are unhappy at work you will be less productive there and at home. Find a job you like, but more importantly find your passion!

Happy reading.