Real-World Speaker Series: October Edition

Robert DeLena, our speaker this month, created his own recruiting firm and wrote a co-memoir with his son (who’d spent most of his education in therapy schools that did more harm than good). Throughout the speech, the room was silent. You could have heard a pin drop in The Space. Robert told our students a story of failure. Failing as a baseball player, as a lawyer, as a father. For a while, he wanted his son to be all the things he hadn’t been. He took that failure and he learned from it. Through skiing, the father and son found common ground and a form of joint therapy that improved their lives and their relationship. At one point, after a good day on the slopes, Robert’s son turned to him and said, “Mountains only look like mountains when you’re looking at them from the bottom.” Those words captured everything they had went through as a family.

We’d like to thank Robert for his time and for donating 30 copies of his new book to our school. After the talk, many innovators lined up to talk to him and ask for an autograph. The Collaborations department at NEIA made the theme of this speaker series “What’s Your Story?” Professionals from all kinds of industries come to campus to talk about their journey: the ups, the downs, the stops, the starts.  With these real-world connections, students see firsthand that there are many shades of success, that success rarely follows a linear path.