Inspirational advice for job seekers and college grads

Here's an inspiring excerpt I read from God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours by Regina Brett.

Graduates: Go after your own grail with gusto

The parents are starting to panic.

As college seniors prepare to graduate, their loved ones call and write me for advice: My daughter, my son, is graduating from college and there are no jobs. They spent all that time and money to prepare for a career that might not exist. What can I say or do to give them hope?

Before you start making room in your basement for them to move in, give them the greatest graduation gift there is: believe in them.

Hope for the next generation isn't found in the want ads. You make your own hope.

Don't believe the rejection letters. Believe beyond the statistics.
Believe in spite of the facts. Believe in your place in this world even
when the world doesn't believe in you.

We've all heard the stories:

Elvis Presley once got an F in music and was told to keep his day job
driving trucks. Michael Jordan was cut from the high school basketball
team. “Gone with the Wind” was rejected 38 times before it was published.
J.K. Rowling lived on welfare before Harry Potter made her a billionaire.

Beethoven's music teacher said he was hopeless at composing. Winston
Churchill flunked the Royal Military entrance exam twice and finished last
in his class. Lucille Ball got sent home from acting school for being too
shy. Julia Roberts failed to get a part in the soap opera “All My
Children.”

Thomas Edison was fired twice for not being productive enough. Babe Ruth
held the record for most strike outs. Walt Disney was fired for his lack
of imagination. Van Gogh sold just one painting his whole life.

You have to believe in yourself even when no one else does. You have to
believe bigger than the disbelief around you. You have to believe in
miracles, in what you can't see.

That might mean you have to create the job you want. You might have to
design the life you want to live. Three years ago, I made a fake book
cover and wrote my name down as the author. It inspired me to buckle down
and write my first book. My real book is now on sale at bookstores near
you.

A year ago I taped the New York Times best seller list to my office door
and boldly put the title of my book on it. My book just made the real list
three weeks in a row.

My vision board has a photo of me chatting with Oprah. Okay, so I cut off
Sally Field's head (sorry, I really do like you, Sally) and put mine
there. Why not dream big?

Design the life you want to have. Name it, claim it and start living it.

Stop telling yourself, “I don't know what to do.” You know something.
Start with what you know.

Ask yourself, What do I know for sure? Start there.

I used to tell myself, “I'm scared” all the time, so I attracted more
fear. A big wad of it, like those giant rubber band balls. That was me.
Layer upon layer, that ball of fear grew. No more.

Snap out of it. Go make something possible.

A few weeks ago the seniors from Baldwin-Wallace sang their hearts out at
Nighttown in Cleveland Heights. They blew me away. They're all on their
way to Broadway. Talk about a dream out of reach. The odds are against
them.

So what.

Their joy was so contagious, my face hurt from smiling. One song set me on
fire to keep dreaming big:

“If you trust in your song, keep your eyes on the goal, then the prize you
won't fail, that's your grail. So be strong , keep right on, to the end of
your song. Do not fail. Find your grail.

“Life is really up to you. You must choose what to pursue. Set your mind
on what to find. And there's nothin” you can't do.”

Find your grail. It's out there.

Just believe.

So what advice do you have for college grads and job seekers? Please leave your comment – below.