As I’m working on learning to become a better leader, I didn’t think Maria Shriver’s Ten Things I Wish I’d Known – Before I Went Out into the Real World wouldn’t be a bad read. She’s a very successful news anchor and reporter. I was searching for something short to read and it came up. Of course, she has some good advice for entering the real world!
I’d like to take a few moments to provide some commentary on her ten things!
Why Wait Entering the Real World?
First off, Ms. Shriver wrote this book based on a speech she gave at the College of the Holy Cross. This speech was written for college graduates, but I don’t see how it couldn’t fit in with the younger crowd.
Like many very successful people, she found her calling young in life. She tagged along with her father on his campaign trial and met many members of the press. After hanging out with them, she wanted to get into journalism. I found it strange that she didn’t pursue it from the moment she realized this. Instead, she went to college and got a degree in American Studies at Georgetown University.
I’m not exactly clear why she didn’t go for journalism, broadcast journalism, or television production. She did mention having some anxiety about mentioning it to her family since politics was such a big part of their history.
However, I’d like to point out that youth shouldn’t wait so long on entering the real world. They also shouldn’t enter the real world with a debt burden.
It does sound like her parents were pretty amazing, though, especially her Mom. She told them her plans on going into journalism. They let her know they didn’t know how they could help her, but that shouldn’t stop her. Kudos to them!
Entering the Real World at the Bottom
An instructor at The Art Institute of Las Vegas told his classes numerous times to “grab a broom and start sweeping” when we found a job. I think Maria Shriver embodied this piece of advice wholeheartedly. She learned and did everything she could, thanks to the fact her first couple stations were nonunion. She even did things no one else wanted to do. I’m pretty sure that made her stand out!
I’ve always believed the best leaders start off as grunts. My younger self wouldn’t listen to an outsider nearly as much as someone who rose through the ranks from the bottom. Leadership is way more than the ability to do a job or some tasks. However, sharing experience and even just being able to use appropriate jargon will make someone respect a leader more.
Recently, I’ve been reconsidering my “best leaders start off as grunts” theory. Leadership is way more than just knowing how to do a job. The following line from the book has helped me reconsider the possibility to not enter a new career from the bottom:
“I didn’t know if I was really ready, but I just had to give it a shot.”
Maria Shriver, Ten Things I Wish I’d Known – Before I Went Out into the Real World
As time passes, making a change and helping people are things in which I’ve grown more passionate. Aside from inventing the next great invention or curing cancer, leading may be the best way to do them!
Burning Bridges – Don’t Do It!
Soon, I’ll be writing a post on my experience with burning bridges. I know better. Over the last couple years, I’ve burned more bridges than I would’ve liked. I have my reasons, but are they good enough reasons?
A lot of Ms. Shriver’s Ten Things are all pretty common sense. Perhaps the one that is most common sense is Your Behavior Has Consequences. She learned a great lesson in humility I think everyone could learn from. Celebrities have so much pull, and they need to be responsible with all that pull. You and I don’t have nearly as much pull, but we absolutely be responsible with the influence we do have.
Older people sometimes tend to get bitter and more set in their ways. They have the opportunity to share wisdom with all of their experience. Luckily, her cameraman was able to bestow some wisdom on her after she made a huge mistake. Keep your ears open to those who have experience. It’s the mother of all teachers.
I also learned a big thing about mentors in her book. Until I read Ten Things I Wish I’d Known, mentors mostly seemed like someone to go to when you didn’t know what to do. Ms. Shriver really focuses on the ethical guidance a mentor can provide. This is extremely important in the field of journalism, but it should be important in everyday life. Integrity is the value I treasure most. Doing the right thing when no one is looking seems to be the most difficult thing to do for a lot of people.
People need more integrity and should seek to get it when questioning themselves.
Maria Shriver’s Mom – The Bastion of Truth!
I stated earlier that her Mom seemed to be a very amazing parent. Let’s hope she embodied all the advice she bestowed upon her daughter!
The book is chocked full of advice and motivation from her mom, not just for entering the real world, but for life in general. Two lessons I was able to pull for myself that were the most impactful came from this chapter:
- When I was a maintenance manager, so many of my coworkers were always trying to blame someone else. They did extremely little to accept responsibility for any shortfalls. Listening to the biggest blame game I’ve ever been a part of grew so extremely tiresome. Unfortunately, the only reason it was able to last so long was because the hotel was so profitable (it had the highest room rates in town). The hotel didn’t need to fix anything. As I learned working in maintenance for that stint, not fixing an issue when it come up leads to fixing more issues down the road.
- I’ve constantly heard that good looks go away, but I’ve never heard her way to look at it! Although, I think their world has so many more attractive people than most of us. Us normies people don’t take care of ourselves like we should. But we should. Not only for presentation, but mostly for our health. By the time March 2020 rolled around, the CDC estimates America was about 41.9% obese, and severe obesity was about 9.2%!
This book may be worth the read just for her mother’s advice! I suppose she had a lot of experience – she had 7 siblings and 5 children. Maria was the only daughter.
You’re Going to Fail When Entering the Real World
Failing is a part of life. Maria wants you to know this.
Before entering the real world, you probably have seen people with perfect lives. Just look at social media feeds. It’s crazy how either a person’s life is perfect or perfectly miserable!
Mrs. Shriver wrote this book back in 2000. Back then, social media was just getting started. Myspace wasn’t even out yet! You should go back and check your Myspace account if you haven’t lately. Hopefully your pictures will load!
I’m going to go against Maria here. I’m willing to bet there are people who won’t fail. Some people are flat out lucky, and some people are flat out evil. Between the fakeness on social media, the evil, and the lucky, it’s hard to believe everyone is going to fail.
Fakeness: It’s important that social media is like a permanent first date. The chance someone is putting his/her best foot forward on it is almost 100%.
Evil: I’d love to believe good always triumphs over evil, but is that always the case? It is when good people do nothing, that’s for sure. But remember, your actions have consequences.
Lucky: Some people will just get lucky. You might get envious. It’s so important you don’t let that envy consume you. Envy will drag you down. Just remember the classic quote:
“The harder I work, the better the luck I have.“
I thought this was a Thomas Jefferson quote until I found this page: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/21/luck-hard-work/
Make Yourself Options When Entering the Real World
The more I’m searching about leadership, the more I’m seeing stories of people’s lives bombing because work was there life. If I had more awareness of this when entering the real world, I may have changed course much sooner. Shriver’s RKO ending to her career at CBS is a great example of how something so hard you work for can just end.
I ended up quitting Comair. The writing was on the wall. Morale in the company was so low and I let the brainwashing of going to college get to me. However, Comair ended up shutting down, and I would’ve had to react instead of being proactive.
The vast majority of us learned how something could come to an end abruptly on March 2020. I was working at The M Resort Spa Casino and potentially rising up the ranks fast when that all ended within a week.
At SkyWest, I planned on moving forward with that company. However, when they announced they were closing the base I was at, they demoted me. Why would I want to work for a company that lied to me from the beginning?
I spoke of being a maintenance manager earlier. I put so much time into that hotel – up to 60 hours a week, learning so many aspects of the hotel other than maintenance because of short staffing. After I realized just how trashy the leadership was, I put my two weeks’ in. That was me ending that, but I regret putting so much time into that potential career because I was miserable.
Before entering the real world, look for multiple ways to take care of yourself and your family. And save money.
The Rest of Maria Shriver’s Book
The rest of Ms. Shriver’s book focuses mostly on the stress of being a “superwoman”, raising a family, being married, and laughter.
Although I don’t connect with being a woman, raising a family, or being married as much in comparison to the rest of the book, there still were bits of advice I could take from her experience. I guess technically being married is something in which I can connect. I’ve been engaged long enough! But I just hear constantly that when you put that ring on it, everything changes. I highly doubt it will, but we’ll see.
Laughter, however, I learned way back during my time in the Army. These last few years I’ve been laughing less. I need to change that.
Maria Shriver’s Ten Things I Wish I’d Known – Before I Went Out into the Real World turned out to be more of a life book than the leadership book I hoped. However, growing in life can probably be the foundation of growing to be a great leader when entering the real world! From family, marriage, to career, Ms. Shriver’s experience can empower people from all walks of life.
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