This year, the co-founder of KAPTÁR, Áron Levendel, gave a speech at the graduation ceremony of Corvinus University. Here you can read the entire speech along with all its lessons.
,,Hello, dear Corvinusians!
It is an honor to be here with you today, so that I can greet you and congratulate you on this great milestone. It is an honor and special because this is the first graduation ceremony I am attending. My diploma was brought by the postman, and to be honest, he didn’t make a big fuss about handing it over.
I may be 10-15 years ahead of you in terms of experience, so I don’t want to tell you what to do or what not to do. However, I am happy to share what has brought me success. These are such important lessons and understandings for me that I wish I had known 15 years ago, at the end of university. That’s why I say these things to my then self as much as to you now.
You are most likely to be decision-makers, influential people, I have gathered my thoughts with this in mind (my entrepreneurial understanding, as it is not relevant for everyone here, I will leave it to myself). I will talk about self-improvement and the path.
I emphasize that these are my current understandings and misunderstandings of my young self, and if anything from this is useful or thought-provoking for you, then this speech makes sense here.
But please listen skeptically, okay?
So Dear Áron,
The perspective and critical thinking acquired on public gas is super important, but no one in the world will care about your degree.
Or if so, you’ve come to the wrong place. Sorry.
What should you focus on instead?
How well you can express yourself and your ideas, how well you can think in a team, incorporating other ideas, how quickly you learn, how self-reflective you are, and how confident and easy your English is. So instead of chasing papers and all kinds of “CV-positive” elements, deal with self-knowledge and self-development! I will tell you one specific thing that helped me to understand what I mean:
- Self-expression – lecture, teach, record yourself and review; attend a public speaking practice community;
- Teamwork – talk about teamwork, volunteer, organize with others, take on roles and take responsibility; In the last 2 years of the university, I got involved in the organization of a large-scale conference, where I got to know and build relationships with the cream of the Hungarian and international organization development community.
- Learning – keep a thought diary, write down what concerns you, what decisions you made, what you learned from them; When I was preparing for this, I read back what I wrote about before… often the best inspirations can come from yourself!
- Self-awareness – meditate, occasionally go to a psychologist, therapy, self-awareness group; I often turn to my coach, friends, and siblings, if I’m stuck on something, I want to examine it out loud.
- English – speak a lot and don’t try to speak well, because it will improve with practice anyway, listen to books in English!; I always struggled with English because I wasn’t diligent enough and I don’t have a special talent for it, but today I dare to take on anything in English because I learned the language by using it.
It’s a lot of work and requires persistence, I know. But it’s so worth it. It helped me a lot to find what my job is, what I really enjoy in my life, and to find people with whom it is a real pleasure to work and learn.
In getting to know the world, getting to know yourself is the biggest puzzle and adventure.
When my younger son said at the age of 3 that he was now going to meditate, and I asked him what exactly that meant to him, he said that “I’ll sit down and pull myself out”. Take yourself out often, you will always find something different, talk about yourself with others, accept help, and especially learn yourself by practicing, and you will not be able to describe who you are anywhere.
These skills can be developed well, and I have found that the higher the position someone is, the better they are, the faster they advance, and the more they are supported by others along the way. In short, dear Áron, getting to know yourself will be your best investment.
Dear boys, girls and non-binaries!
Hope and uncertainty, passion and thirst for knowledge.
These four keep me motivated and energized even after many years on the road.
Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic (you know, their Árpád Göncz) said that
“Hope is not our belief that something will turn out well, but the certainty that what we do will make sense, whether we succeed or not.” The certainty in hope is that it will make sense. That the dots will connect in our story, albeit only after the fact, but this is often not visible in advance. So the question is not whether what you decide on now will be good for; rather, what do you gain with it right now?
I always tried to appear confident to compensate for my inexperience. Everyone presents themselves as something, of course, show yourself to be confident, because it gives others security, they will follow and accept you more easily…
But don’t beat yourself up, be honest with yourself and your inner circle, allow yourself to be insecure, because maybe that’s the best state you can be in. Those who are uncertain weigh, pay close attention, try to grasp the complexity of the situation, think in terms of alternatives, and this makes them credible. Those who avoid uncertainty close doors, simplify, cling to partial truths, and ultimately get it wrong. (It would be a high ball to politicize here, but I’ll skip it). So dare to be insecure, voice it, set an example!
Dear graduates,
On what basis will you decide on a job? And why will you stay there permanently?
What I started, I still do today. I am very lucky that I have always received many confirmations. I wish you the same, to find a place where you can be brilliant, not just your boss or your workplace. However, I learned one important thing: Passion never came at the beginning, but only years later. If I had chosen according to what I was immediately passionate about, maybe I would still be looking for it today… The passion came with the experience, not before it.
And the more I knew, the greater my thirst for knowledge became, the more I wanted to know. The thirst for knowledge therefore stems from knowledge and not from ignorance. Today, I think the reason I see the important from the unimportant is better, I manage to make simpler and better decisions, because I made a lot of mistakes and I have good access to these mistakes, I have worked on them.
Therefore, dear colleagues,
Make bad decisions too, make a lot of mistakes, and be wrong, because this all means that you are on the right path to a full life. Reflect on them, learn from them, and especially enjoy the journey.”
Aron Levendel, 24th of March, 2023, Corvinus University of Budapest
