Hi, My name's Darryl Valegoff. I'm a professor of chemical engineering at Penn State University, and today we'll be discussing an acronym CENTER, which I use with many of my students and the professionals here at Penn State. A number of years ago, my friend Sebastian, who was in a PhD lab with me, came to me and said, Darryl I'm thinking of changing careers. And, I said to what? And, he said, I want to sing opera. Now, there are many things you can do with a chemical engineering degree, but singing opera, is typically not one of them. And, I didn't quite understand where he was going with it, until one day, he starting telling me about Puccini's opera, Tosca. And, he started telling me about Floria Tosca and the Baron Scarpia. And then, he told me about the end of act one, when Scarpia sings the famous aria,Va Tosca. And, as he goes through it, he gets to the end of it, and he says, Tosca, you make me forget God. As he's describing it, I'm sitting there mesmerized, almost breathless. And, I came to realize something about my friend Sebastian. Opera wasn't just something he was going to do with his life, opera was who he was. It was part of his character. Now, I still have many questions about how is he going to learn to sing opera. And, how is he going to pay the bills during this time? And, what if things didn't work out? But, I think he had some answers to these. And, as I've worked with students over many years, many students and professionals have the same questions. How am I going to succeed at my job? How am I going to work in the community? How am I going to balance family with work? There a number of villains that crop up when they're speaking. And, three of them are these. The first is fear. You have a fear of am I going to get the job? Am I going to lose the job? Am I going to keep my relationships? The second, is a lack of focus. People want to do oftentimes 1,000 things, but they're afraid to do one or two things really well, where they're held accountable for them. And, the third one, is that they're afraid to try an experiment. They're so bound up, either in doubts, or overconfidence, that they're afraid to run the experiments that will enable them to move forward. And, as I'm working with my students on these, we often go through this acronym CENTER. Now, in going through CENTER, I want to look at a number of statements, or questions that we might use in order to establish how the CENTER applied to what you want to do. And, as I go through these, I will say things like I am "blank" and I will be "blank" and these blanks are the items you need to fill in as you're going through. So, the first letter is C, which stands for Character. I am a Professor of Chemical Engineering. I will be the best teacher I can be. The E is for Entrepreneurship. I take smart risks and run smart experiments toward my dream of blank. Toward my dream of starting a business. Toward my dream of having a great family. The next letter is N, which stands for ownership. Ownership is, I choose blank. I choose to have a healthy body. I choose to get enough sleep each night. I choose to stay within my budget. The next letter is Tenacity, the T. And this says I will hold on in my pursuit of "blank" amidst all difficulties. I will hang on in my pursuit of starting my business. I will hang on in my pursuit of changing my dinner hour. The next E is for Excellence. I will commit and focus hard work towards gaining skill in learning differential equations, in learning how to do pottery. And the final letter is R which is for Relationship. Relationship is about, my family is, my girls and my wife. My home is State College Pennsylvania and Penn State. Who is your family and where is your home? And, as you go through these letters and practice them, you'll start to understand where your passions are, and what your purposes are, so that you can go make change in your area of the world. These, my friend, Sebastian used these same principles as he was establishing his new life. And, if you want to read more about that you can take a look at my book. But now, it's your turn. How will you go through each of these blanks? And, take an hour perhaps, to fill in each of these pieces and start on your way to changing your corner of the world. Thanks for joining me today. We'll see you next time.