Motivational Speaker- Mr. John F. Edwards

Mr. Edwards is a motivational speaker that has received many awards. Recently he came to my college to give a speech on how to be successful in life, but mostly in your profession. Going to his speech taught me a lot about how to be successful for when I get a job in my profession later. He stated that success was 85 percent attitude and 15 percent altitude, and that having a good attitude will increase your altitude. By saying this he means having a good attitude it is inevitable that success will happen.
The main thing that he stressed that is vital to having success at the workplace is communication. He stated that "the art of communication had become a dying art in corporate America." When he said this I think that he was trying to say that people are starting to become incapable of working together or relating to other's. This is causing a decline in the success that a business has.
He also said "communication is nothing more and nothing less than relationship development." Could this be linked with the rise in technology that has been happening? I think so. If you look at the way that children are growing up today, and how much technology they use, it is obvious that they are not communicating with each other as much as previous generations have. Today there are more games than I can remember and also more texting and computer use than there has ever been in the past. I do not see that technology use is going to decline, it will instead most likely increase, and because of that the people that interact with kids need to involve them in activities outside of that. There is no reason that kids can't play outside or in the house without technology and instead use their imaginations to make up games. By having kids do this I think that it will increase their ability to communicate well with other's and inevitably make them more successful when they become adults.
Mr. Edwards also talked about culturalization in society. Smaller groups are now being created in societies instead of having one large group. A prime example of this is the neighborhood that you live in. A few generations ago everyone knew their neighbors and would sit on their front porches to socialize, now very few people know their neighbors and even if they do it is highly likely that they do not socialize with one another. Instead people sit inside or on their back porch and only talk with the people within their household or people that visit them. By this happening people are not as friendly and are not able to communicate as well with people that they don't know. This is not good because now many people try to do work by themselves instead of working with other people. This is bad because two minds, or more, work better than one. It is often that when a group of people work together they are able to come up with more ideas than if they were working alone.
From what he said at the conference I realized that I am a person that is rather good at communicating with others. I take what someone says into account and do not discourage their ideas if I do not like them. If I happen to find something wrong with what they say I just try to expand on what they were thinking. A large part of this could have been from when I was a child because I didn't stay inside to play video games very often. Instead I was outside playing with all of the kids in my neighborhood. We made up games, rode our bikes, roller bladed, or played various sports. I hope that all of what he said ring's true and that when I start my job I am able to communicate well with the people that I work with to create a positive working environment and also one that I can excel in.