Many, many years ago I sat around with an old grad-school buddy as we shared a dream sequence about our careers.

Both of us had significant achievements and accomplishments within our respective careers and had a vision of one day working together as consultants.

Our relationship started on the day of my first graduate school exam!  There I sat in the back (always the back!) of the classroom ready to take an exam in “Principles of Accounting.”  This was fairly significant as my bachelor’s degree was in Nursing, this was my first true ‘business’ course. 

The professor handed out the exam with this foreboding cautionary suggestion; “when calculating your accruals, make certain you take into consideration how many days are in a month.” 

I cringed!  I said aloud, “Great!  I am going to fail my first grad school exam because I don’t know how many days are in a month.”

Bill, a guy I had scarcely spoken too prior; turned sideways in my direction and said, “Thirty days hath September, April, June and November.  All the rest have thirty-one except for February which is all ‘blanked’ up you ‘blanking’ moron!”

So, after first learning a nursery- school rhyme in grad school, I aced my exam and Bill and I became best friends!

It turns out Robert Fulghum was right!  “ALL I REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW, I (UNFORTUNATELY) DID NOT LEARN IN KINDERGARTEN!”

Here is what Robert Fulghum learned; and in some cases I didn’t!

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.

And it is still true; no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Bill, even though we rarely see each other and speak only seldom; Thanks for always being there to hold my hand!

NOTE:  This blog started out to be; “Fake it, Til you Make it!” but it took a pleasant detour when I remembered my beginnings with Bill…. Check back next Humpday for “Fake it…”

*Source: “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” by Robert Fulghum

 

Lon Kieffer, author of “Get Out of Bed and Go to Work!”, Speaker, Consultant, Executive Recruiter and Expert on Workplace Culture Change and Generational Conflicts, gives seminars, keynote and plenary addresses, runs annual sales meetings, and provides Common Sense Consulting at:  www.LonKieffer.com. He can be reached at:  (302) 462-6748 or via email at:  Lon@LonKieffer.com