Graduation Day - What are you studying today?
Graduation ceremonies abound all around us this time of year. Students who have dedicated a lifetime to studying reach the ultimate accomplishment of receiving their diploma. For some it’s a high school diploma, for some it’s college, and for others it is a graduate degree of sorts. Any way you look at it, getting the diploma and walking across the stage is a fantastic feeling. However, after all the pomp and circumstance, the euphoria dies down and we go off to get a job.
Even after we graduate, we should still be eagerly pursuing knowledge.
WHAT HAVE YOU GRADUATED WITH TODAY?
Those of us who are middle aged are constantly learning about new technology that our millennial counterparts don’t even have to think about. I call that a graduate degree in information technology. Just to function in today’s society you have to be well versed in powerful computing equipment – we call it a cell phone. I know of people in industry that have had to learn how to operate machinery and operate vehicles. None of these earns you a graduate degree, but you can’t live without learning those lessons.
I want to highlight a degree that you will never finish because it will take a lifetime of learning – the study of people.
If there is one thing I have learned in these past fifty years of mine it is that we are always learning about those we work around. Just when we think we have someone figured out – BOOM – they throw us a curve ball. That is the great thing about people. We are all so complex; sometimes we can’t even figure ourselves out, let alone others. Are you studying people?
Recently, on one of our iWork4Him radio shows, we talked about the DISC personality profile and how to use it to better understand those we love and ourselves. DISC describes the combinations of the temperaments found in all people. The results of taking the DISC profile test are infinitesimally varied because everyone is different, but many of our characteristics are common.
What blows my mind is that most of us know more about our iPhones or Android than we do about ourselves. You were uniquely created. You are extra complicated. Knowing yourself makes it so much easier to interact with others and to help them to know you. A lifetime of learning is ahead of you.
Study yourself and study others; understand who you were created to be.
Knowing yourself will make life in the workplace simpler.
About the Author, Jim Brangenberg
Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!