On Wednesday, November 12th, the Innovator Group hosted a lecture by guest speaker Kris Morin. Morin is a business strategy consultant for financial services and companies and also owns and directs operations for an investment management company focused in the acquisition and sale of real estate.

The title of Morin’s lecture was “The Three Biggest Mistakes College Students Make That Will Keep Them Broke For Life, Working a Dead End Job, and Unable to Achieve the Lifestyle of Their Dreams.”

These three mistakes, according to Morin, are:

1. “They don’t have a complete and clear purpose in life. They don’t know what they want to do or why they should really do it.”

2. “They don’t plan correctly. They don’t have the right behaviors in place that are going to hold themselves accountable to make sure that they’re going to be successful.”

3. “They try to do it alone.”

To solve the first problem, Morin says that people should look inward and choose a career path based on what they truly love to do, and how to become successful at it. He warns not to choose something simply because of external factors such as money.

Once they have figured out their goals, there is the process of obtaining that goal. To solve the second problem, Morin explained how planning is key to reaching any goals one would have, and they should take it one step at a time.

“I always like to say that ‘everybody plans for something but nobody plans for anything,” Morin said. “In other words, we all want to be successful someday, but nobody sits down and plans out exactly how it’s going to happen.”

The third problem is that people try to become successful on their own, and Morin explains that networking is important as it allows you to build connections with mentors who can help you.

“Now you need to surround yourself with mentors – people who are doing what you want to do, they’re made the mistakes you’re going to make, and they’re succeeding in the ways that you want to succeed,” he said.

When speaking of his lecture, Morin said that he wanted to teach students universal topics, not those that could only be used by people with a specific skill set.

“Everybody bring a unique set of skills and weaknesses and strengths to the table and depending on who you are in the audience, that may or may not work for you,” said Morin. “So, I wanted to boil it down to fundamentals, figure out what can I deliver that will ultimately be applicable to just about everyone.”

Morin also tells students to focus on their own approach to their future, and to not be influenced by people who may have different opinions than you.

Implementing feedback from the lecture, Morin plans to return to the University with a program designed to help students find success in their future.

“I do intend to build a full-blown leadership coaching program that I’m going to roll out specifically for college students nationwide. I’m going to pilot it here first with UHart students in the first quarter of next year,” he said.

Anyone with additional questions for Kris Morin can contact him at .