Lisa Hillenbrand ’79, P’16, director of global marketing at Procter & Gamble
Here are 10 tips from ’79, P’16, director of global marketing at Procter & Gamble. She delivered the keynote address at SophoMORE Connections 2014, speaking to a capacity crowd of second-year students, alumni, faculty, and staff in Huntington Gymnasium on Friday, January 17.
1. You have a splendid education to do anything that you want to do.
2. You’re going to have to create your career — and it’s going to have to be a combination of what the world needs and what you do well.
3. Failure is an uncomfortable experience, but it’s how you grow and how you discover what you want. To succeed, you have to fail a lot.
4. It’s absolutely fine to admit that you’re miserable at something because chances are, if you’re miserable at something, you’re not going to do it well. Listen to your gut, and say ‘something is wrong here.’ Make a course correction.
5. Quoting her sister, Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand, “Effort comes much more easily when you have a passion for your work, and the result is so much better.”
6. Companies like P&G are looking for three things: leadership, strategic thinking, and people skills.
7. Be connected. Read a lot. Look at a lot. As you do those things, step back and ask ‘what am I doing, and why am I doing it?’
8. The jobs of tomorrow are not going to be the jobs of today. You’re going to do many different things over the course of your career, and that’s OK.
9. I’ve told stories of exceptional people — you all are equally exceptional.
10. Many of you have had your parents’ wishes, your friends’ wishes in the backs of your heads for a very long time. These four years are about you getting all of that noise out of the way and saying ‘what do I really want to do?’