Randy Moore
HR Tech Evangelist
1) Words can hurt, and affect people's lives
You might just be joking around, I know your heart was always in the right place.
At your 10 year reunion your friend Eric will sit next to you. He will leave for a bit and come back dressed like a woman, having been harboring this inside for years, and wanted to come out to best friends like you.
Eric, I said you’ve never looked better my friend. Eric said, glad to hear that, I wasn’t always so sure, and have been afraid to say anything for all these years. Eric mentioned, a few times we were all joking around and some of the things we joked about, weren’t really a joke to Eric. I was like, man whatever I said please accept an apology, and I am very much behind you all the way. See Randy, what may seem trivial to you at the time, can and will affect a friend.
2) Speak out, don't internalize, or blame yourself.
You’re going to have a terrible thing happen towards the end of your second year in college.
Your roommate is going to die in a car crash, he asked you to go buy him a six pack of beer. He promises to stay in the dorm. You leave to visit a friend at another school and spend the night.
You have to be back the next day to play baseball for the state championship D1. When you get back you’re greeted by 2 police and the coach to let you know what happened. I couldn’t believe it, and blamed myself for buying him beer. I went to the dorm and there his fiance was taking down all his posters and stuff. I couldn’t even stay there in a room now by myself with blank walls. This was also the week before finals. You have no ability to study for finals. You go ask if you can have some time to heal and then study and take the test. The Dean actually says, are you by chance just doing this to get over on the school to get more time to take the test? You are floored, the Dean said you would have to write a report, go infront of some board and try to convince them why you would need more time. You are horrified, and incapable at this young age to deal with it, so you just skip all tests, and fail every class, You refuse to go in front of people and talk about something you couldn’t even talk to anyone close about. You have to leave the school, go to a junior college to make up the grades. You will decide to go back, but as soon as you do, you just can’t, the emotions come right back, you now can’t seem to get ready for any test anymore. So you decide to leave school to play baseball for a living and leave college for good.
This will affect you forever unless you speak out, tell your parents, go get help, talk to people, and don’t blame yourself, Sergio chose to drive. Stand up to bad behavior whatever it may be and Speak out.
3) You don't need to prove yourself to everyone, it's ok just to be you.
I know you love sports, and love to compete. You will because of sports, have certain expectations to always be the best. Everyone expects you to be that person who always is the best at everything. This will put a ton of pressure on you to always be proving yourself. As you get older you become your biggest critic, you put all the pressure on yourself that you have to be the best, that’s what everyone expects of you naturally. To this day it’s a struggle to just be comfortable with who you are, and not have to be more than that. When you call your dad from spring training, telling him your fears of not being good enough, that you need to prove your best. Dad will say Randy, you don’t ever need to tell someone how good you are, they can see you on the field, they know how good you are, just focus on what you can control, not what you can’t. Try to just be ok with who you are.
4) Spend more time with your dad, and family.
You are going to be super focused on your sports career, then building your business. You will feel like I can always go visit pops, and the kids live with me. Unfortunately, your dad is going to pass away very suddenly, they never really figure out why. Your kids are going to grow up before you know it, and be out the door on their own adventure.
You will spend quite a bit of time wishing you had gone and spent more time with your dad, you’ll miss him greatly, thinking he would have given me so many more memories if you had just taken the time. It will be too late by then, and the kids move out and start their own lives, once again you wish you’d spent every second possible with them. Trust me take the time, make the time, you’ll regret it if you don’t.
5) Bet on yourself, learn to survive, if need be on your own.
You will be told, get a good job, stay with the company and grow with them. It’s all about stability. As you get older, it becomes more difficult to get a corporate job. You will think that you’ve attained all these skills, and everyone would be loving that. Instead all you get back is, your over qualified, too much money. But because you become a life learner, know how to run a business, you’re ok, and can survive and take care of your family no matter what, you’ll be ok.
Thank you Randy Moore for writing A Letter To My 13 Year Old Self. Contact Randy if you want to talk AI / AR / VR in HR Tech