Earlier this month, I had the honor of being a guest speaker in my friend John White's class at Otis College. John teaches in the areas of Advertising Design and Communication Arts, and it was clear the group of students I was spending the afternoon with were a creative, inquisitive bunch.
So they probably wondered why an Accountant was coming in to talk to them -- especially an accountant who had just published a book. The creative types hire the number crunchers to manage the left brain-stuff, right?
Fortunately, I know that I don't talk like an Accountant is supposed to talk. And I brought with me a set of values cards for each of them, so that instead of listening to me pontificate on how they must do business when they graduate, they were engaged in identifying what is important to them now. We then looked, as a group, at how these values impact decision making both in business and in everyday interpersonal relations.
We also defined and discussed human capital, structural capital, social capital, and intellectual capital, and how these things are just as important as your financial bottom line. If you want to know about all the capitals, I suggest picking up a copy of my new book published by Business Expert Press called Five Eyes on the Fence, Protecting the Five Core Capitals of Your Business (Notice the neatly placed commercial).
The worth of a student or any business is measured in more than money. I think they could see that they already have considerable assets. One just needs to be aware and intentional about them.
I really enjoyed spending the afternoon with those students at Otis. I hope they enjoyed their time with me, too, and left class that day feeling a little richer.
