Part of being successful is undeniably striving to achieving your goals, whether academic, sporting, musical, career-orientated or otherwise.  But that is only part of it.  Success is more than a list of achievements you can write down on a piece of paper.  Simply what you have "achieved" doesn't define if you are successful in life.  At university, in the workplace, I've begun to realise that its other more immeasurable things that matter.  Your list of achievements may evidence you have certain abilities, but its these other sorts of qualities that often end up earning other people's respect and begin to mark you out as someone who is successful.  Exactly how did the Dean of Law dressing as a woman cause me to have such an epiphany? - well, on stage that night he was exhibiting some of the qualities that I think mark out a person as being successful.

The right attitude

Opportunities

Opportunities - that's one thing you've probably heard a lot about especially coming to the end of your schooling life.  Make the most of them and all of the associated propositions.  The spin I'd put on that is make sure you don't miss any simply because they might not seem like the easiest choice to make at the time.  The best opportunities are often the harder ones to choose, and more often than not they take you out of your comfort zone.  Judging by the height of his high-heels and the scandalously short nature of his skirt, I'd say that Professor Todd had definitely gone way out of his comfort zone!  Aside from my decision to go to Canterbury as opposed to Auckland University, I think one of the tougher choices I made that proved to be a fantastic opportunity was towards the end of 2001 when I was booked, with a friend to go to Colorado for 3 months over the holidays on the Work USA programme.  We were off to work on the ski-fields and earn ridiculously large tips from wealthy American tourists.  Then September 11 happened.  My friend decided it was better if she didn't fly in and around the US so she pulled out.  This left me going off to the snow by myself, not actually knowing how to ski, not knowing anyone in the US .  Luckily I had a fully refundable ticket.  But instead of treating it all as an opportunity to cut my losses and stay home in Auckland for the summer, where the risk of Al Queda terrorist threats was substantially less than in and around the US , I decided that this was too good an opportunity to miss.  I had never been overseas before and decided to take this as a chance to go where I wanted to go.  I figured that it would be sunny both in California and Florida, so after flipping a coin I ended up on a plane to South Beach Miami for 3 months, with no job and knowing no-one.   Needless to say what had looked probably the more difficult option in comparison to staying home in safe old Auckland ended up being a amazing opportunity.  I had a fantastic time and travelling far out of my comfort zone really let me learn a lot about myself, and how I coped with different situations.  Where else do you get to have 6-foot drag queens buy you drinks all night, witness an undercover policeman arresting a drug dealer on the main street, or have the chance to be abused for being a terrible waitress by Florida's rich and famous?  Clearly, this sort of thing wont be everyone's cup of tea, but the message is still important: just because an opportunity might not look like the easiest option, you often get the most value out of those situations which take you out of your comfort zone.

Ability to get on with a diverse range of people

Its taking these sorts of random opportunities that also give you a better ability to get on with a really diverse range of people.  Yet another attribute that I think is crucial in order to be successful in life.  Clearly, Professor Todd had this ability.  As Dean of Law he was charged with the task of bringing together an entire department of people to work as an efficient unit.  Yet here he was rehearsing and socialising with a group of students night after night - many of whom he would have had very little in common with.  But it definitely didn't show.  Going to a university in another city or country even, means you get to know a real range of people, and are more likely to be challenged by different points of view or perspectives you hadn't necessarily come across before, and I think this can be extremely useful when you eventually find yourself in the workplace.  It is crucial in the work environment to have the ability to get on with people very different to you, because like it or not, you have to see these people everyday for at least 8 hours a day and if you cant relate to them, those 8 hours could end up seeming like an eternity.   Whether its getting on with another solicitor in your team who only ever seems to talk about car-racing, or a partner who's been practising law since before you were born and doesn't extend you a good morning, or tell you which particular file he's talking about before launching into the intricacies of the memo he's expecting on his desk before lunchtime, or a secretary from across the floor with 3 kids under 5 who's favourite topic is how she can get her 3 year old to stop biting the 2 year old.  It's the ability to make small talk with the CEO of a major New Zealand company about that awful outfit Helen Clark wore on the Breakfast show yesterday, how awful your game of netball was last week, or your views on whether Dan Carter looks any good in the new jockey ads - believe me, I've been forced to do all three at one point or other.  I'd imagine I've got as much in common with all these people as the rest of you - not much.  And often its not easy.  But I really believe it's those random opportunities I've had that took me out of my comfort zone that have broadened my outlook on life and made getting on with a diverse range of people relatively painless.

Work/life balance

The final quality Professor Todd illustrated that night that I want to talk about is the ability to achieve a work/life balance.  This phrase might sound a foreign to many of you, but once your days aren't regulated by fairly rigorous timetables like at school, it becomes far more difficult to get that balance - there's no bell to tell you to go home from uni or work.  Each year since I've left school I've seen more and more how important it is to get the balance right.  The first year you leave home is likely to be the first time you start to properly notice the need for such a balance.  Especially if you are studying, rather than working, it can be quite a radical change.  There is no-one to keep you in line.  You can sleep in until one and miss your lectures if you feel the need, then you can get up and start drinking at 1.30 and miss your afternoon lectures.  Or , you can spend 12 hours a day slogging it out in the library in an effort to top every one of your subjects.  Clearly these are two extreme examples, but I've lost count of the number of people I've heard express regret about how they failed to strike the right balance during uni.  You don't want to be repeating a year, but you want to make sure you enjoy yourself as well.  That's one thing I think I can say quite adamantly.  Even though I was able to achieve my academic goals, I don't feel like the time I devoted to studying meant I missed out on anything.  I studied, but I also played sport, I sometimes skipped lectures to drink in the sun on Friday afternoons, I rarely missed a bbq thrown by the Engineering Society, an end-of-year stein or a law ball, and like my flatmates, I still spent hours playing Playstation during study leave.  But I can quite honestly look back and say I think I went close to getting the balance right. But how did Professor Todd dancing round like an idiot illustrate that he'd managed to get a good work/life balance?  The Law Revue was one of those things that only university students would try to put on.  Anyone could be in it regardless of talent or a distinct lack of talent (I'm still not sure which category I actually fell into).  People simply volunteered to play roles rather than audition, and preparation for the entire show was squeezed into four intensive weeks, with rehearsals nearly every night.  For a student, being in the Law Revue meant juggling lectures, studying, assignments, sport, socialising and any other commitments with rehearsals, which left little time for sleeping.  For a lecturer who didn't have the luxury of choosing not to turn up to his Monday morning contract lecture at 9, he had to juggle rehearsals each night, lecturing, marking, tutoring, a range of other commitments as Dean of the Law School, as well as a family to try and see every now and again.  But Professor Todd was able to do it, and it's a skill that many people struggle to master.  And the right balance is especially important once you get into the workplace - without that balance you can become a bit one-dimensional and at the end of the day, its those additional dimensions that will make you a happy, interesting, successful person.

To conclude I just want to reiterate the message that I believe the Dean of Law epitomised that night, on stage, in drag, lip-synching to ABBA - success is more than just the sum of your achievements.  While striving to achieve your goals is undeniably part of becoming successful, it is those more immeasurable qualities that I believe make a truly successful person.  On that note, I'd like to wish you all the best in whatever goals you choose to pursue and all the best in becoming "successful".