Kristal Braley, BBA '12, student speaker at the McCombs School of Business Fall 2012 commencement, knows something about accomplishing goals. She set her sights on a McCombs education and did everything she could to get here, often working three jobs at time while completing courses at a technical college in Madison, Wis. Once she made it to Austin, she established a new goal — to make the commencement speech at her graduation, and she worked tirelessly until the moment she stepped onto the Frank Erwin Center stage Dec. 7.

Braley’s college experience has been anything but typical. As a single mother raising a 3-year-old boy, Bryce, she had to learn time management as she learned about topics such as finance and marketing in her classes. She says that while the balancing act was difficult, those challenges inspired her commencement speech.

"Because of everything that I went through to get to graduation, I always had to know what I was going for," Braley said. "I had to have that one thing, that light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted others to know that you need to find something that can get you up in the morning, and it was easy to know that's what I wanted to speak on since [graduation] is what got me through."

Braley said that although the audience at commencement was large, she was ready to make her speech and share her experience with her classmates and peers.

"I think I was more nervous to waiting in the backroom than I was actually making my speech. By then, I was thinking, 'Oh, this is a piece of cake,'" Braley said. "It was fun because I recognized a lot of the people, and I just realized that we all had done it and that we all were in the same spot. That really lessened my nerves."

Braley left the listeners with one piece of advice for their futures.

"Make every day a chance to be inspirational," she said. "Your actions and what you do at any point and time can be inspirational for others, and it's important to remember that."

Reposted from McCombs Today

As Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse addressed students on Sept. 27, one fact became increasingly clear: the man knows how to stand out.

Since joining Sprint five years ago, Hesse has been recognized as a wireless industry VIP by publications such as Laptop Magazine, which named him Most Influential Person in the Wireless Industry, and Fierce Wireless, which named him one of the best turn-around CEOs of all time, an honor also given to Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs.

He spoke on campus as part of the Undergraduate Business Council’s VIP Distinguished Speaker Series.

Since taking the helm at the end of 2007, Hesse has increased Sprint’s stock value by 140 percent, leading the company that he claims was just months away from bankruptcy to become the number one company in customer satisfaction.

Hesse shared his advice on how to stand out in the workplace:

1. Work hard

“In business, in school, in athletics, the person that usually wins and achieves is the person that worked and trained the hardest.”

2. Communicate well

“Communication skills are crucial. What got me noticed at AT&T in the early days…was my ability to write well and clearly. And, of course, being able to speak well. Communication skills are very important.”

3. Be a team player

“One of the reasons I got promoted so much is because the peers of my boss had heard about me and how much their people liked working with me, and I always tried to work hard with my peers. I think peer support meant a lot. A lot of the people that worked for me later in my career were people who were at one time peers.”

4. Accept that you might fail

“You have to be okay with failing from time to time. You have to work and make sure that as CEO you’re doing everything possible to make [an idea] successful, but you have to also know when it isn’t going to work and pull the plug.”

5. Be optimistic

“I look for a really positive and optimistic attitude. [People that stand out] look at the bright side and they can go get it done. As Dwight Eisenhower said, ‘A pessimist never won any awards.’ Right away, I can feel who has that and who doesn’t.”

6. Avoid arrogance

“For our interviewers and for me, what you want to avoid more than anything else is arrogance. That won’t fit inside the company or the corporate culture. A lot of students have to figure out that balance between telling your story and making sure we know how good you are without crossing that median, if you will, that goes into arrogance or pompousness.”

7. Do the right thing

“There are a lot of things that we say make us the good guy. At every meeting, for every decision, the last question is, ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ I think it matters to our employees and our customers because it’s good business…. it really is up to businesses and business leaders more than ever to do the right thing.”

Reposted from McCombs Today