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DePaul University: Kellstadt Graduate School of Business - Commencement Dinner- 6-2011

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Dan Michelson
Dan Michelson

Dan Michelson shares lessons he learned from his time at DePaul and in his career. He discusses how an assignment in a class taught by Dr. Joel Whalen to appeal to all five senses in a speech transformed him from being afraid to speak to groups into being comfortable presenting to thousands. He also talks about taking a risk to leave a stable job for a startup that was losing money, which opened doors for professional growth. His final lesson is about taking action to make a difference, like starting a nonprofit to send abused children to camp.

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DePaul University ¨C Kellstadt Graduate School of Business Commencement Dinner June 10, 2011 Presented by: Dan Michelson Thank you so much for the opportunity - it is really an honor to have been chosen by the students to spend a few minutes with you tonight. But I have to be honest, when I started pulling together my comments I was really struggling to find just the right thing to say and to share. In fact, I was literally seconds away from Googling "commencement address" to get some examples of what one says at such an occasion when my wife Kim reminded me that I wasn't actually the commencement speaker - I was the "guest speaker" at the commencement dinner the night before graduation. Now for those of you who aren't married, you should know that one of the primary roles of a spouse is to put you in your place. In that light, while it is clear that there will be no honorary degree for me tonight, I did want to remind my wife that we do get a free meal, so it's a pretty good deal. While no search engines were used for this talk - the reality is that anything that I would have found on Google to say to you had already been said before. So, I decided to keep things simple and just share a few lessons that have made a difference in my life. Some that I learned at DePaul and some since. The first lesson and this is one that you will hear over and over and over again is that you need to set tangible goals. So let me take a shot at setting a tangible goal for myself right now and it involves every single person in this room. The goal is this - one year from today I would be absolutely thrilled if you could just remember one thing, anything that I said tonight. In fact, for anyone who contacts me one year from today with just one thing they remember, I will buy you the book of your choice. The only thing I ask in return is that once you read it, you need to let me treat you to a cup of coffee and share what you learned. Not a bad deal. Now getting you to remember just one thing may seem like a ridiculously easy goal to hit, but surprisingly, it is close to impossible to accomplish. And that's the second lesson - communication done right is incredibly rare - and that lesson was taught to me by a professor here at DePaul 20 years ago. In fact, let's replay that night in class right now, so you can learn the same lesson.
Here's how it went - think of the greatest speech you have ever heard. It can be something you experienced first-hand, a lecture from a professor in school or an inspirational speech. Or it can be something you watched on TV or youtube. Picture that speech right now. Does everyone have one in their mind? Now try to recall one thing they said. Now a second one. A third? Most people struggle to remember one, some can remember two, and three is incredibly rare. The lesson? If from the greatest speech someone has ever seen, they can only remember two (or maybe three) things, what makes you think that in your speech you can do any better? Who was the teacher? I will give you a clue. There's a great quote I heard recently that describes this person perfectly: "Anyone who thinks there is a difference between entertainment and education doesn't know the first thing about either one". Clearly they were talking about Dr. Joel Whalen from DePaul. I am not sure how many people can honestly say what I am about to say, but I have actually used the lessons Dr. Whalen taught me and that I learned at DePaul every single day since I graduated. But there was one night in those three years that I can still picture right now as if it happened yesterday. The assignment was each student was given 90 seconds to give a speech on something, anything and to get people to actually understand and care about it. The twist was you had to appeal to all five senses - see, hear, touch, smell, and taste - so that your audience could actually experience your story. And it worked. In a room full of strangers, we all became connected. That may sound like a stretch, so here's an example. There was one women who got up and talked about her mother dying of cancer and what it felt like when she first walked in the room to visit her - that unmistakable smell of a hospital room, the sound of the monitors, the sight of her mom as a shadow of herself even 6 months before, the tears rolling down her face so fast, out of breath not knowing if she could ever stop crying. Still sound like a stretch? Well I can still remember the story I told - which was not about something tragic, but something magic. I was a huge baseball fan when I was growing up. One beyond hot, beyond humid day, when I was nine years old, my parents took me to a White Sox game. In the 5th inning, the game got hit with a rain delay. The rain was just starting to let up when the sun peaked out and we witnessed this incredible sun shower - rainbows were everywhere and it had that perfect smell of fresh cut grass right after it rains. It was magic. Then I saw two Minnesota Twins players jogging out to play catch and I ran down to see them. Everyone else was hiding from the rain and the seats were empty, so I was able to get right up to the wall. I was wearing an iron-on t-shirt which was sticking to me because it was soaking wet. Suddenly one of the players overthrew the other and there was a real baseball sitting right there in a pool of water, right in front of my feet. I was literally shaking.
I picked up the ball, with the water running streaming down the skinny arms of my 65 pound body, and asked Rod Carew, who was leading the major leagues in hitting at the time, if I could keep the ball. He said, ¡°Yes¡±. I ran to what felt like every single person in the stadium yelling to them that "I got a ball!" until I found my parents. I told them what happened. They asked, "did you get it autographed?¡± My eyes opened up as wide and as a big as my baseball, I swallowed my breath and sprinted to the Twins dugout. I found a coach and told him the story - he ripped the ball out of my hands and told me not to move. Tears rolled down my eyes, but then they went away. That same coach came back with the ball autographed by every player on the team. Why did I share that story? Because I am a big Sox fan? Maybe. No, actually the real reason is that something as simple as that one night and that one story, turned a guy who was petrified of getting up to give a speech in front of a group of 5 people into someone who now has given presentations in front of 3,000 people without hesitation. It was simple, but for me it was a transformational moment. And, for that night, and for the lessons I learned from him, I wanted to present a gift, a major league baseball that says the following "Dr. Joel Whalen. Thank you for helping me find and share my story. You're the best. Dan Michelson". (Invite Dr. Whalen to come up to receive the ball) Now, I know many of you may think that what you have learned here at DePaul are transient and temporary. And if that's how you think, you will be exactly right, what you have learned here will be gone the minute you walk out the door. But there are others in this room that recognize what is unmistakable. That in today's world, knowledge is now a commodity. It is as far away as your smart phone and a search engine. What is rare is the person who has the fire in the belly to try things and the confidence to fail. To apply what they learned and to search for what they don't know instead of wrapping themselves in the comfort of the blanket of what they already know for sure. I, unfortunately, was not one of those people. I left DePaul and got a job in consulting. It went well. Then I got married and didn't want to travel so I played it safe and took a job at a company called Baxter, which, for me, was actually quite an accomplishment because this was the same company that had rejected me three times before. But I had the persistence of an ex-door to door copier salesperson, so for me "no" didn't mean "no", it just meant "not yet, keep trying¡±. But that changed for me one day after being there for seven years, when I read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a sleepy little company called Allscripts that was losing close to $18mm every quarter, but had a cool handheld electronic prescribing device and visionary CEO named Glen Tullman, a social entrepreneur who was on a mission to change how healthcare was delivered in this country. I was intrigued, got an interview and then an offer. So I was faced with a decision. Should I stay with the incredibly stable company where I was doing well, or should I take a salary cut to go to a start-up that was losing money. I couldn't make a decision for a month, until finally one day it came to me when I was driving to work. My wife was pregnant with our first child at the time and I thought "what would I tell my kid to do if
they were in this situation?" The answer was clear - I would tell them life is too short to play it safe, take a shot. My decision was made. This lesson on taking risks has proven to be the right one - we have grown Allscripts, the healthcare software company I currently work for, from 150 people in a warehouse in Libertyville to over 6,000 people worldwide and from $27 million in revenue to $1.5 billion in revenue per year. And I can honestly tell you that those numbers would be smaller if I hadn't spent my nights and weekends for three years at DePaul. But I could also tell you nothing at DePaul prepared me to make that decision on that day. It was up to me. Just as your decisions will be your own. So, the question is not what you know today, but rather, how you will answer the following questions tomorrow: ? Will you decide to take risks? ? Will you decide to work harder than anyone around you and do the lonely work when no one else is watching? ? Will you decide to take an extra hour, because you want to make something not just good, but great? ? Will you be willing to fail and fail again? ? Will you be willing to follow your passion? ? Will you be willing to trust your gut? When I made that decision on that day, I trusted my gut and it opened other doors. At the extreme, I have had the chance to meet Presidents (like Obama), brilliant creators (like Will.I.AM) and childhood idols (like Bruce Springsteen). But, more importantly, I have learned that I can make a difference in the world around me, not through ideas alone, but through action. And that's the final lesson for tonight - action. My wife and our two kids Emma and Ian volunteer each month at LYDIA HOME, a group home on the West side of Chicago for kids that have been physically and sexually abused by their parents. One day, I had a moment when I realized that these kids were really no different than mine, except for one thing important thing which was everything ¨C they didn¡¯t have parents. What may have seemed obvious was an epiphany and it sparked my wife Kim and me to take action. What we learned is that many of these kids had never been out of the city or had ever had a family vacation in their life. With that motivation, we started an organization called projectMUSIC. The idea was to use the power and passion of music - a benefit concert - to pay for the experience of overnight camp for the 40 kids who live at LYDIA. When we started it, I honestly didn't know if we could even raise enough money to send one kid to camp. But because we took action, we have now raised over $150,000 to send these kids to overnight camp every year over the past five years. Once again, the lesson here is that knowledge and ideas can change your mind, but only action can change lives.
So, no more lessons for tonight - the rest is up to you. But here's what I can promise: ? By coming to DePaul, the question isn't whether doors will open for you, they will. ? The question is whether you will see them and whether will you be willing to walk through them. So, when you call me a year from now so you can get that free book and that cup of coffee, please remember just one thing that you heard tonight and is these two words - take action. If you do, amazing and incredible things can happen and will happen for you. The stage is set, your future is bright, the possibilities are endless, embrace it, and enjoy it. Thank you.

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DePaul University: Kellstadt Graduate School of Business - Commencement Dinner- 6-2011

  • 1. DePaul University ¨C Kellstadt Graduate School of Business Commencement Dinner June 10, 2011 Presented by: Dan Michelson Thank you so much for the opportunity - it is really an honor to have been chosen by the students to spend a few minutes with you tonight. But I have to be honest, when I started pulling together my comments I was really struggling to find just the right thing to say and to share. In fact, I was literally seconds away from Googling "commencement address" to get some examples of what one says at such an occasion when my wife Kim reminded me that I wasn't actually the commencement speaker - I was the "guest speaker" at the commencement dinner the night before graduation. Now for those of you who aren't married, you should know that one of the primary roles of a spouse is to put you in your place. In that light, while it is clear that there will be no honorary degree for me tonight, I did want to remind my wife that we do get a free meal, so it's a pretty good deal. While no search engines were used for this talk - the reality is that anything that I would have found on Google to say to you had already been said before. So, I decided to keep things simple and just share a few lessons that have made a difference in my life. Some that I learned at DePaul and some since. The first lesson and this is one that you will hear over and over and over again is that you need to set tangible goals. So let me take a shot at setting a tangible goal for myself right now and it involves every single person in this room. The goal is this - one year from today I would be absolutely thrilled if you could just remember one thing, anything that I said tonight. In fact, for anyone who contacts me one year from today with just one thing they remember, I will buy you the book of your choice. The only thing I ask in return is that once you read it, you need to let me treat you to a cup of coffee and share what you learned. Not a bad deal. Now getting you to remember just one thing may seem like a ridiculously easy goal to hit, but surprisingly, it is close to impossible to accomplish. And that's the second lesson - communication done right is incredibly rare - and that lesson was taught to me by a professor here at DePaul 20 years ago. In fact, let's replay that night in class right now, so you can learn the same lesson.
  • 2. Here's how it went - think of the greatest speech you have ever heard. It can be something you experienced first-hand, a lecture from a professor in school or an inspirational speech. Or it can be something you watched on TV or youtube. Picture that speech right now. Does everyone have one in their mind? Now try to recall one thing they said. Now a second one. A third? Most people struggle to remember one, some can remember two, and three is incredibly rare. The lesson? If from the greatest speech someone has ever seen, they can only remember two (or maybe three) things, what makes you think that in your speech you can do any better? Who was the teacher? I will give you a clue. There's a great quote I heard recently that describes this person perfectly: "Anyone who thinks there is a difference between entertainment and education doesn't know the first thing about either one". Clearly they were talking about Dr. Joel Whalen from DePaul. I am not sure how many people can honestly say what I am about to say, but I have actually used the lessons Dr. Whalen taught me and that I learned at DePaul every single day since I graduated. But there was one night in those three years that I can still picture right now as if it happened yesterday. The assignment was each student was given 90 seconds to give a speech on something, anything and to get people to actually understand and care about it. The twist was you had to appeal to all five senses - see, hear, touch, smell, and taste - so that your audience could actually experience your story. And it worked. In a room full of strangers, we all became connected. That may sound like a stretch, so here's an example. There was one women who got up and talked about her mother dying of cancer and what it felt like when she first walked in the room to visit her - that unmistakable smell of a hospital room, the sound of the monitors, the sight of her mom as a shadow of herself even 6 months before, the tears rolling down her face so fast, out of breath not knowing if she could ever stop crying. Still sound like a stretch? Well I can still remember the story I told - which was not about something tragic, but something magic. I was a huge baseball fan when I was growing up. One beyond hot, beyond humid day, when I was nine years old, my parents took me to a White Sox game. In the 5th inning, the game got hit with a rain delay. The rain was just starting to let up when the sun peaked out and we witnessed this incredible sun shower - rainbows were everywhere and it had that perfect smell of fresh cut grass right after it rains. It was magic. Then I saw two Minnesota Twins players jogging out to play catch and I ran down to see them. Everyone else was hiding from the rain and the seats were empty, so I was able to get right up to the wall. I was wearing an iron-on t-shirt which was sticking to me because it was soaking wet. Suddenly one of the players overthrew the other and there was a real baseball sitting right there in a pool of water, right in front of my feet. I was literally shaking.
  • 3. I picked up the ball, with the water running streaming down the skinny arms of my 65 pound body, and asked Rod Carew, who was leading the major leagues in hitting at the time, if I could keep the ball. He said, ¡°Yes¡±. I ran to what felt like every single person in the stadium yelling to them that "I got a ball!" until I found my parents. I told them what happened. They asked, "did you get it autographed?¡± My eyes opened up as wide and as a big as my baseball, I swallowed my breath and sprinted to the Twins dugout. I found a coach and told him the story - he ripped the ball out of my hands and told me not to move. Tears rolled down my eyes, but then they went away. That same coach came back with the ball autographed by every player on the team. Why did I share that story? Because I am a big Sox fan? Maybe. No, actually the real reason is that something as simple as that one night and that one story, turned a guy who was petrified of getting up to give a speech in front of a group of 5 people into someone who now has given presentations in front of 3,000 people without hesitation. It was simple, but for me it was a transformational moment. And, for that night, and for the lessons I learned from him, I wanted to present a gift, a major league baseball that says the following "Dr. Joel Whalen. Thank you for helping me find and share my story. You're the best. Dan Michelson". (Invite Dr. Whalen to come up to receive the ball) Now, I know many of you may think that what you have learned here at DePaul are transient and temporary. And if that's how you think, you will be exactly right, what you have learned here will be gone the minute you walk out the door. But there are others in this room that recognize what is unmistakable. That in today's world, knowledge is now a commodity. It is as far away as your smart phone and a search engine. What is rare is the person who has the fire in the belly to try things and the confidence to fail. To apply what they learned and to search for what they don't know instead of wrapping themselves in the comfort of the blanket of what they already know for sure. I, unfortunately, was not one of those people. I left DePaul and got a job in consulting. It went well. Then I got married and didn't want to travel so I played it safe and took a job at a company called Baxter, which, for me, was actually quite an accomplishment because this was the same company that had rejected me three times before. But I had the persistence of an ex-door to door copier salesperson, so for me "no" didn't mean "no", it just meant "not yet, keep trying¡±. But that changed for me one day after being there for seven years, when I read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a sleepy little company called Allscripts that was losing close to $18mm every quarter, but had a cool handheld electronic prescribing device and visionary CEO named Glen Tullman, a social entrepreneur who was on a mission to change how healthcare was delivered in this country. I was intrigued, got an interview and then an offer. So I was faced with a decision. Should I stay with the incredibly stable company where I was doing well, or should I take a salary cut to go to a start-up that was losing money. I couldn't make a decision for a month, until finally one day it came to me when I was driving to work. My wife was pregnant with our first child at the time and I thought "what would I tell my kid to do if
  • 4. they were in this situation?" The answer was clear - I would tell them life is too short to play it safe, take a shot. My decision was made. This lesson on taking risks has proven to be the right one - we have grown Allscripts, the healthcare software company I currently work for, from 150 people in a warehouse in Libertyville to over 6,000 people worldwide and from $27 million in revenue to $1.5 billion in revenue per year. And I can honestly tell you that those numbers would be smaller if I hadn't spent my nights and weekends for three years at DePaul. But I could also tell you nothing at DePaul prepared me to make that decision on that day. It was up to me. Just as your decisions will be your own. So, the question is not what you know today, but rather, how you will answer the following questions tomorrow: ? Will you decide to take risks? ? Will you decide to work harder than anyone around you and do the lonely work when no one else is watching? ? Will you decide to take an extra hour, because you want to make something not just good, but great? ? Will you be willing to fail and fail again? ? Will you be willing to follow your passion? ? Will you be willing to trust your gut? When I made that decision on that day, I trusted my gut and it opened other doors. At the extreme, I have had the chance to meet Presidents (like Obama), brilliant creators (like Will.I.AM) and childhood idols (like Bruce Springsteen). But, more importantly, I have learned that I can make a difference in the world around me, not through ideas alone, but through action. And that's the final lesson for tonight - action. My wife and our two kids Emma and Ian volunteer each month at LYDIA HOME, a group home on the West side of Chicago for kids that have been physically and sexually abused by their parents. One day, I had a moment when I realized that these kids were really no different than mine, except for one thing important thing which was everything ¨C they didn¡¯t have parents. What may have seemed obvious was an epiphany and it sparked my wife Kim and me to take action. What we learned is that many of these kids had never been out of the city or had ever had a family vacation in their life. With that motivation, we started an organization called projectMUSIC. The idea was to use the power and passion of music - a benefit concert - to pay for the experience of overnight camp for the 40 kids who live at LYDIA. When we started it, I honestly didn't know if we could even raise enough money to send one kid to camp. But because we took action, we have now raised over $150,000 to send these kids to overnight camp every year over the past five years. Once again, the lesson here is that knowledge and ideas can change your mind, but only action can change lives.
  • 5. So, no more lessons for tonight - the rest is up to you. But here's what I can promise: ? By coming to DePaul, the question isn't whether doors will open for you, they will. ? The question is whether you will see them and whether will you be willing to walk through them. So, when you call me a year from now so you can get that free book and that cup of coffee, please remember just one thing that you heard tonight and is these two words - take action. If you do, amazing and incredible things can happen and will happen for you. The stage is set, your future is bright, the possibilities are endless, embrace it, and enjoy it. Thank you.