Do's and Don't of your first day

I am sure everyone has a good first day of work story that haunts you in your sleep or on the flip side a story that gets your smiling ear to ear every time it crosses your mind. I recently started a new job for a rather large, big boy company. The objective of this post is to shed some light from my first day.


Do's:

• Be early. com'on it is your first day. #given 
• Be yourself. When you meet with your new co-workers for the first time just simply be who you are. If you are not, two months down the road they will make fun of you for acting like a noob when you first started working. 
• Record your thoughts. Journal, blog, or text message just write down all of your thoughts from your first day. You will be overwhelmed and it will give you confidence looking back to see how you have improved over time. 
• Find your pace not your sprint.  You want to work hard but do not set too high or low of an expectation about yourself.

Don'ts:

• Lie about your story. The more you lie the more you have to remember
• Be that first day brown-noser. Your days of sucking up in college are past. It is all about results. #getbuckets
• Be afraid. Have a little more confidence in yourself than fear. It is okay to have a little amount of fear in you, it will keep you humble and honest. Never waste your time with fear though. 
• Try to figure out everything on your own. It is your first day, you will have no idea of what you are doing. haha It is better to ask for help than to ask to fix something you messed up. Key point here, once someone invests time in you to teach you something, you best not have to have them reteach it to you. 

Be a leader in your own life not a victim of your own goals

There are certain times in life where we need to put down the book, stop writing and JUST LIVE LIFE.
It is good to keep fresh so that you do not get burned out. I did not say go on a vacation, if you are like me you can't afford (both money and time) to have one but you can look around your life and take in new outlook. 

A wise man once told me some advise before I was married, "Never chase after girls, worry about your life and get your ducks in a row so that they will chase after you. Be a leader not a follower." 

I love this advise because how many times are we chasing after things; a job, a spouse, a goal, a house, a grade and so on? We need to stop chasing after our dreams and start leading them. How do you lead your dreams? If you want to lead them you are going to need to have the mindset that you are leading your dreams into war. The best way to do this is to have your dreams work together or said another way, consolidate your tasks. Multitasking is trying to do two things at the same time and is way too much work. Instead try consolidating, it is combining your dreams and goals so that they build off of each other.   

The take home message:
Act of Faith, don't react on fear. Have just a little more faith than fear. Recognize trials as the blessings that they are.

Nailing an interview

Welcome to nailing a job interview. The purpose of these posts are not to go through all the generic do's and don'ts about everything you have to do but rather some exclusive information that will help you stand out just a little more than the rest.

Quick tips a about the interview process...(beyond the basics)

Phone interviews

1. Make sure you find out if you are going to call them or if they are going to call you.
2. Have notes written down- they don't know that you have them.
3. Know your resume and have it right in front of you
4. Practice with a someone on the phone before the real deal
5. Make sure you are in a quite location, strong cell phone reception and check your phone's battery

In person interviews 

1. Remember names of everyone you talk to
2. Use mirroring techniques, as in use the same body language as they do
3.  Relax and be yourself, don't market yourself as someone that you are not

Prepare in how you respond to any interview question by mastering the  S.T.A.R. 

Specific Situation

• In order to avoid generic, broad examples, start your response with an example. Set the background by saying something like, "Two summers ago I was doing door to door sales for X company"

Task

• What responsibilities or events that you had to act upon. "We had to do training every day at 9am"

Application/ Innovation/ Development

• What did you do that separated yourself from the crowd? "I went in at 8 am every day by myself to get additional training" 

Resolution/Results 

• Give an example to show how you increased numbers or became better.  "Because my sales increased, more and more employees started to catch on to my positive energy and  join me at 8 am."

Practice doing the S.T.A.R. approach. 
Comment below what you would put to the question below and tomorrow's post will feature the best one. 

Example: What is your greatest weakness?

Situation:
Task:
Application:
Resolution:

Getting a minor vs. work experience; Do I pick one or the other or both?

Chances are you have the same question as i do; are minors worth the effort? What value will they bring to me and which one should I pick? My main argument in this post is that it all depends. Lets break it down. 

Why you should get a Minor 

Besides making you sound cooler, what value does a minor add to the individual that work experience cannot offer?  Well first a minor adds diversity and an intellectual expansion, or said simpler  it helps you stand out because not every gets one and you become more ed-amin-cated. You want your minor to give you a skill set that helps you toward your graduation goals. If you want to go into being a dentist, chances are that you are going to run your own dental office and a minor is business would come in handy. Grant it that a freshman has more opportunity to get one than a second semester senior, weigh your options. Minors extend your major and give you that niche. 

Why you should get work experience? 

Going to school is important, don't get me wrong but the extra three words on the resume is hard to compare to "battlefield experience". Experience can come through various ways such as clubs, interviews, internships, shadowing, part-time gigs, and even summer adventures that send you to the craziest places. You wont have to waste time on pointless assignments that you do in class but chances are that you will be stuck doing pointless work tasks, like filling up the water cooler or fixing the printer. The best experience that I have gotten has been from joining up with clubs, as tacky as that sounds. I wanted to learn more about business but did not have the time in my schedule to take on 6 more credit hour a semester so I joined three business clubs. Each club does real life case studies that can go right on the only resume, I have gotten job interviews because of the connections that clubs give to you. Although you do not get any credit for taking them, you do get a lot of free pizza and valuable application of your studies. 

The choice is yours

Personally I have done with the experience route and find more value in the field than in the class-room but every situation is different. What do you think? Comment below.  

3 critical factors in a winning mindset

Turned on +Spotify  and this song came on...... Let's start off with a chill beat <----Love this song.

Okay... back to business. We need to have a winning mindset. If you don't you will be spending more time redefining your goals than reaching them. Pick a destination of where you want to be and do not let anyone stop you. 
Defining yourself is limiting yourself 
How do you define yourself? Do you say that you are a good writer, good at math, science, and oh let me guess a hard worker right? Words are very dangerous, I am doing an internship at the justice courts and what I have learned is that WORDS CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU.  So many times defendants talk their way into jail and harsher punishments. That being said, when you are asked to describe yourself; 1) hopefully you have thought about it before 2) you don't limit yourself to what you have studied in school 3) you best define yourself as adaptable, versatile and always learning. If you can't say that about yourself, start now!  
Doubt the haters before you doubt yourself 
This whole idea comes from Dieter F. Uchtdorf from the +The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. if your want to see it -->(Cool message). So this happens to me all the time when I go to a marketing strategy events, students trying to network like dogs always come up to me and ask me what my major is. I say with a smile, "American Studies". Every time, not even lying, they get this puzzled look on their face. At that time they have two thoughts racing through their head, "Is he serious? He has no chance! haha " and then soon it sets in, "crud I have no idea what that is, he is so much diverse than me and the other 100 marketing majors". Darn toot'n bro. Don't let people faze you, honestly you will notice this more and more as you begin to meet more people, most of the time they are very insecure about where they are at and they try to validate themselves through putting you down. This being said, don't put them down but do not let them walk on you. Be more prepared than the haters and make them wish to have been a part of your humanities major by the end of it.   
Having a "set apart" attitude
Going off of the last topic, you have to have confidence in yourself. If you are not 100% sold about yourself you have NO CHANCE of having anyone else buy into your brand. You have to be almost crazy about your goals and ambitions, no matter how extreme they are. Take time to prepare in how you want others to see your personal brand. It is really important you understand who you are and where you are going so that when you are in the situations you can be more natural at it. In every conversation you have about your career goals, do all you can to get people to jump onto your bandwagon, instead of jumping off because of you. If you have enough passion and drive you can do anything and it is SO MUCH EASIER once you have people backing you. 


What are your winning mindset attributes? 

5 Tips that are NEEDED in preparing for your first job out of college

Finding your next job starts days, weeks, months and even years before you quit your current job

1) Have an updated resume

Make your resume look good, please use the outline above so that you don't get owned. You should always be updating your resume and linked-in account (that requires that you are doing things that builds your resume and linked-in account, instead of using Facebook to look at cat videos, use it to learn about opportunities). Don't know what to say about yourself? This is where the magic of Linked-in steps in. Lets say that you are trying to put down your experience and do not know what to say; simply just search your current position and look through what people have already said about themselves. It is like a monkey see monkey ideology but think of it as a monkey see monkey do better. Take the best parts of what you find, add in your own zest and WABAMO you got a hot profile. LET ME SEE YOUR RESUME'S AND LINKED-IN ACCOUNTS. I would love to go over them and offer some advice. 
2)If you are in college talk to a college counselor
College counselors are paid to make sure you get paid after college. You are their job. Don't go into a meeting with one and say, "I have no idea what to do with my life, tell me what I should do." That is a very lazy way and sure, you will get some help but you are not exploiting the opportunity to the fullest. Instead try to bring a sense of urgency and a plan of what you want to do. Do some homework. This does three things for you 1) tells the counselor that you need business 2)saves you a lot of time 3)you are able to get the most out of the counselor. You do not need to have the next 30 years of your life planned out, but start with having your day planned out, then your week, month, year and so on. Ask them for suggestions to improve your current path instead of having them give you a life plan to live out. It is your life, so take charge.  
3) Getting as much education as possible does not cut it anymore; in today's world get as much experience as possible. 
Education is no longer required to be just within the walls of an university. Go out there and learn about everything your job requires. If a potential requires you to know how to code, then go to codeacademy.com and spend 5 hours mastering the basics. If you need to learn spanish then watch disney movies on Youtube in spanish until you can sing along to the songs. Yes you need to get into a good university and get good grades, but that alone will not set you apart. Extend your education through your own passionate learning. Then apply, apply, apply everything that you are learning every where you go. Give advice, write blogs, ask questions, JOIN MANY DIFFERENT CLUBS. 
4) The "N" word....Network
This is by far the most important one of them all. Every day go out of your way to meet 5 new people. It is easy. MAKE SURE YOU WRITE DOWN THEIR NAMES, ADD THEM ON FB, TWITTER, LINKED-IN. You will forget them if you don't. Share with them your life's passions and goals and listen to theirs. Make them a brand champion in your self brand and have them be excited about what you are doing and offer your services to help them out. As you help them, they will help you. Need more tips about networking? Ask me your questions in the comments below. 
5)Don't be afraid to ask questions
My favorite question to ask is, "What more do I need to do to become qualified to work at company X?" If you ask that question to yourself, friends, family, job recruiters, and even strangers on a daily basis you will get a wealth of knowledge poured out. Take time to come up with 3-5 really good questions that you can ask to anyone that will increase your value. Asking questions shows that you are willing to change and listen to others. That humility will alone set you apart. Ask and ye shall receive, know and it shall be open unto you. (anyone know where that scripture is? comment below)

The take away- Get your life so that you have some kind of base, then build your dream like upon that foundation. 

Adding humanities majors to your team will add HUGE value

I'll keep the intro short. Everything and everyone has a stereotype attached to them, we have to look past the status quo and focus on the individual if we don't want to miss the boat. Ideologies comes and go and so do our presumptions on people. My goal today is to change your mindset to show you how much value hiring an Humanities major can bring to your team.

B- is math is not always > an A in english

Who ever said getting an B- in a hard science is better than getting an A in humanities has no idea what it takes to get an A in an upper level class. The critic most likely had to take some humanities GE class and hated it. Yeah I hated mine too, but the same argument could be made for the GE math requirement. GE's only get your feet wet and a whole lot of information that is not really applicable to life but as we transcend into the upper level classes, this is where the real value comes from. Don't get me wrong doing calculus is hard, i've taken the class, but with a math class you practice problems going into a test. Imagine having you whole grade based off of three essay questions. Professors in humanities don't hold your hand and do practice problems, but rather they focus on unlocking the mind to challenge and question the social norms and require you to produce. In math you have a final answer, it is a safety net. There is always a right answer and with that comes the warm blanket of reassurance from working around the problem until it is solved. Once you come off conquerer you move onto the next problem to "plug and chug" you way through life. Crunching numbers does give a sense of accomplishment and a lot of good comes out of it, but it is a very conservative approach. For Humanities there is passion because there is no such thing as a 100% right answer in writing, but only a defendable one. The best trait that comes from writing is that it is impossible to BS your way through anything in humanities. Sure, there is an occasional paper that can be busted out on a whim but you can't tell me that writing for upper level class can be a cake walk. 

Each Professor has a different grading style; Versatility 

Now there is a fine line behind being a brown nosing snob and playing the field to your advantage. The beginning stages of listening to the voice of the customer starts but changing writing styles to the professor. Think of a paper like a product; it has information( features) that add benefits to the consumer(those who read it). Each Professor has a different PHD from each other; for example I have had professors who's focus was on urbanism, cinematography, African American studies, satire (yeah you can get a PHD in that) and even early American Christian history for women. All PHD means is that they are as segmented as it gets on their studies and know a certain topic very, very, very well. It is a classic joke that the first paper is always failed because nobody knows the teacher's writing style, but as the semester goes on the students are able to adjust their writing style so that they can get the A. It doesn't cut it being a stubborn writer. University level writing skills require versatilely and the ability to listen to the consumers (professors) effectively to have them "buy into your idea". 

Humanities majors know how to research and apply segmentation,

Primary and secondary research are vital resources for any humanities major, we live and die off of that. No student can make it far without sticking his or her nose into books and painfully collect information. I call this "panning for gold," A person who is looking for a place to prospect has to find a plot of land (subject matter) and a lot of times has to move from spot to spot until they find the ideal spot. After that they have to sift through rocks, mud, water, fish and who knows what in order to find those golden flakes, and an occasional nugget. The golden flakes are added up over time and as they are placed together real value comes out. I would say that a good 95% of all research doesn't not get into any paper. For each and every paper there is a vernacular that has to not only be mastered but must be used as a tool to create new ideas to cater to an audience. Each and every paper calls for the student to do hours of archive building. For example one possible subject matter for a paper would be how Hurricane Katrina hurricane changed an aspect of New Orleans. Sounds easy right? For that class I wrote about Hurricane Katrina was exploited by Lil Wayne in his album Tha Cater III. Sounds cool right? Well talking about a rapper or a music an album wont last 10 pages. This is where I had to collect mountains of data about musical theory in general, then for specifically New Orleans and even then for a target group the lower-class African American's musical history in New Orleans... just for my intro paragraph. It is a classic segmentation exercise that is commonly used in business.  

Now go hire a humanities major. 

Agree or disagree? Comment below your thoughts

Peace

Top 5 Monday morning songs to get you through anything.

If only Monday morning were like that

Huge shout out to all of you guys and gals who have been reading my blog. I will hit 1,000 views after this post, well unless this post is a epic flop. It means a lot when I see that my viewers like, share and comment on my posts because each and every time it happens, it is like giving me a major high five (who doesn't love those?).

Back to business,

Monday mornings are sometimes more like Monday mournings. Coming off a weekend of failed attempts to do homework, upcoming deadlines,looking forward to things that we are really excited about and even the approaching unknown can bring lot of anxiety that magically appears only on Mondays. As we depart from the mystical land of the weekend back to reality we need to come out of the gate swinging and not let the doubts of Monday morning even think about coming into our lives. No'body got time for that! Lets turn that arise and grind to be an arise and shine; we all could use a little shake up wake up and what I found out is that music can give us that much needed boost. Below are my favorite songs to get my inner fire going, let the fire spread! Listen to them and lets go take over the world this week. What are your favorite Monday Mash ups? Comment below ----->  Here is the playlist on Youtube 

"Over My Head" The Fray

"The Fighter" Gym Class Heroes 

"Safe and Sound" Capital Cities 

"Good life" One republic

"Float On" Modest Mouse

What I've learned from my first business case study

Don't tread on my bro

What I learned from my first business strategy case project is that bachelor's degrees can only bring you so far. It is about how badly you want it. Give me passion or give me death. 

Work hard enough to earn respect 
This is where everything begins. How much do you want it? Do you want it more than you can breathe? Are you willing to sacrifice grades, friends, employment, entertainment, sleep, eating and spending time with love ones so you can get done what is required? In a never ending world of improvement, it is a requirement to be a Peter B. Kyne's Go Getter if you want to amount to anything. If you set the tone in work ethic, it doesn't matter if you have a degree in scuba diving, your team will look to you as a leader. Now, there is a fine line, let your actions speak for yourself and don't boast about how awesome you are... use Facebook for that. Instead, lose all your fear about how under-qualified you are and do what you can do. If you can research, research the pants off the project, if you make cookies- make the best dad-gum cookies known to this world. If you can organize and plan effective meetings then gosh darn it make sure you take control of it. The worst thing, absolute worst thing you can do is to wait around and be told what to do. I hate those people. Literally hate them. Those people are still in a diaper high school mindset.

Be humble enough to ask for help and even more importantly embrace criticism:
In each and every case, you do not come up with the right idea in the first five minutes. I would say about 94% of the ideas that your team comes up with will be wrong. Being wrong is the worst. After all those hours of preparation and refining your ideas, some team member just shuts it down. haha Sometimes you just want to go "shut them down" if you know what I mean. The American experience is about compromise. You have to be able to adjust and open your mind to deeper prospectives. So this area is my favorite, asking for people's criticism because this helps you gain a better connection with the person you are asking help with. Don't get me wrong, they will have to prove me wrong but when they do they feel like a Boss and you get the much needed help. The worst thing that can happen here is that they are not 100% honest with you and cripple you. Since you are a go getter, that should not bother you at all

Finding your competitive angle means digging deep:
There are some base traits that everyone has such as hard worker, high level of detail, passion but there are some that make your different diversity in the team means playing to your strengths, delegating your weaknesses, exploiting opportunities and eliminating your threats. It might take you a couple of weeks, projects, and even months to fully understand what you bring to the table, but once you find that niche exploit the heck out of it.  

The difference between quantitative and qualitative data: 
haha just go to this website. It helped me out and it will help you out. 
http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/AD1/qualquant.htm

The take home message. 
Humanities majors can make it in the business world. It is all about how much you want it. I don't care if you are a tuba major, if you want it enough you will force yourself above and beyond anywhere close to where you have been before. 
HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT IT?????????

What are your top 5 ways to get fired up? Comment below?

Game changing poem "The Calf- Path" by Sam Foss

The Calf-Path

Sam Foss

I.
     
One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
  
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.


II.

But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way;

And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,

And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade.
Through those old woods a path was made.
     
     
III.
     
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about,

And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because ‘twas such a crooked path;

But still they followed—do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,

And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
     
     
IV.
     
This forest path became a lane,
that bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load

Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
     
     
V.
     
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;

And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;

And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
     
     
VI.
   
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about

And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A Hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;

For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.
     

VII.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;

For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,

And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.

But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.

Ah, many things this tale might teach—
But I am not ordained to preach.

Somedays we get our trash kicked.

Somedays we get our trash kicked. For some it happens on a daily basis, for others it comes from time to time. We just feel a little off and we have no idea where that shinning drive of yesterday is today. That flat out emotion of being lost in narcissistic questioning clouds our minds and we are forced to spend every moment self addressing ways to escape this anxiety in order to transcend towards the light, even if that means we need to put up a fight. 

Okay Listen to this now -> Bleed it out by Linkin Park

There is something special about this song that just gets me fired up. I'm going to be a little more personal than usual for a moment right now, I got owned today. I am part of a strategy club at my university and we do case studies for companies to gain experience and get connections. Just found out my team did not even make the first cut after hours of slaving away. I am pretty sure I am the only non-business major dumb enough to be in this group haha but I am on a mission and sometimes we need to do hard things. Each and every case, I have to comprehend a new rhetoric and understand a lot of complex ideologies very quickly. I do have a competitive attitude, an obsession with my work and in delivering quality, but the problem is so does everyone else. My competition not only has more background and experience than I do but they are gunning for every job that I am. I feel out gunned, out matched and out smarted every single day. But ----> I DON'T CARE.... I LOVE IT! I really do. Let me tell you why.

If I try to be like them, I will fail; I wont get the job. Simply said I am under qualified to follow the calf path (click on the link to get the context). I HAVE TO INNOVATE AND BE DIFFERENT. I HAVE TO. Think about that for a few minutes. Are you following the calf path? Are you striving to just follow the crowd or do you want to create your own path. Failure is a harsh teacher, but she is still a teacher so before you pack your bags up and go home, keep going. Use what you learned from today to change your game plan for tomorrow. Never stop learning and use it to improve. Measure your improvements and never give up. This feeling can be utilized so that you pray a little harder, do a little more, be a little better, and achieve more.

GO GET IT! <--------- (you want to see this) 

Using Twitter to get more out of the books your are already reading

An important caveat
I by no means can be called anything close to a +Twitter  ninja, but, thanks to +Erik Deckers, +Kyle Lacy and a lot of work. I can tell you a few things in how to master blue bird. 

Imagine a magical world where while you are reading a book, a question about what the author is saying comes into your head and you wish that you could sit down and pick apart the author's brain for just a moment. Dream no more, Twitter is that magical world.

My view's of twitter before I made the change;
Honestly, I only used Twitter to look at my sister in laws' tweets and retweets to get a little laugh, get +ESPN  updates and learn what is new with famous celebrates while I am procrastinating my life away.

A New Network
If you are a go getter, hard worker, and have a dog-like innovation drive, chances are you are reading books, lots and lots of books. I know I am. Each book that you read is emotionally tying you to the author and is qualifying the grounds of short conversation between you and them; meaning that each and every author of a book your have read is a new person to follow, be followed by and interact with on twitter.

Help them help you by you helping them help you. 
Behind books and blogs there are hours of blood, sweat and tears that goes into every word.  The author has invested a lot of emotion behind their complex ideas and they LOVE it when they are told that their hard work had made a difference in a reader's life. Authors love to be followed, tweeted to/about and know that their hours slaving over each and every idea in their book actually made a difference in somebody. Plus the conversation between you and them expands both of your brands. There is a fine line however, be educated in your answers and do not waste their time. Be sincere in reaching out and don't try to bs something just to get your link posted on another site. 

Authors are mentors 
Chances are that the author did not stop exploring the book's subject matter once the book is completed. There a volumes of tweets, blogs and articles that they write to enhance your knowledge of the subject. You can further your connection by keeping current on what they are up to as well. Just remember you are trying to help each other, don't be annoying. 

The take away message 
To sum up what has been talked about, I want to reiterate there are so many opportunities that are needed to be exploited from a very innovative learning world. Challenge the status quo in learning and connecting. 

Comment below about how you are changing the game through social media... 

Tired of being an under-qualified generalist instead of a specialist? Listen to the voice of the employer

Times of Change

Tired of being under qualified? 
Are you being beat out of  jobs due to your english, psychology, history major? Feel like you don't add value to the work field? Don't know how to sell yourself? Lets fix this. 

You are the product
In business there is a saying, "Listen to the customer," companies, instead of focusing on developing a product, having low prices and beating our the customer,  they listen to the VOC. What in the world is VOC? 

What is the Voice of the Employer, VOE? 
Easy. It is the voice of the customer, dare I dub it the cries of the customers. In order to get transactions from customers, companies need to adapt. Now think of yourself as your personal brand and the customers are the companies that we are applying for. 

Do some homework,know 6 things; 
About the company
Company culture
Job openings
Job details
Primary responsibilities
Qualifications

Go get Qualified

Now that you know what the VOE is, go and get a book about it. Get experience, this is where you need to be a dog. If you don't go all out in this you are going to fall short and you are wasting your time. This is where you passion comes in. Passion and sacrifice go hand and hand, do whatever it takes.

Build your value in with two sentences.

[I] compete in the [Job category] and provide [biggest benefit] to [Company identity] when I am [attributes they are looking for in a hire].  [I], unlike [main competitors], am unique because I provide [element of differentness].

Complete your goals; start simple and grow outward

Welcome back to the battle. Day one of seven in the books. Has today been just one of those days that you are glad that you survived or was it one that you have thrived? Why? Did you come closer to your goals? Do you even have a goal? Have you ever completed a goal? No?Here's how;

Start with a low expectation then grow to life defining goals; meaning that it will do you no good to set a goal about everything in life. Start with one thing. Here is a method that I like to use with with goals.

Start anywhere, write it down and do it.
          
 Today my goal is to just make it through the day. 

Once you have completed that  monstrous goal, add to it. 

  Today my goal is to make it through the day by reading thenobleway.blogspot.com

Now you are going somewhere, but at the end of the day, review it, add to it.
           
 Today my goal is to learn how to market myself by reading thenobleway.blogspot.com

Keep adding and adjusting this goal until it is well defined. 

            

  Today, in order to reach my goal of getting a job, I will learn how to market myself by reading thenobleway.blogspot.com

Define your life around constantly changing goals so that you can slowly inch towards the destination of your dreams.

Thinking about law? My court internship experience

There are times in life where we come across an opportunity that challenges our current life's outlook, career paths, friend choice and even our beliefs. Our reactions to these opportunities shape the rest of our lives. The paths that are chosen, or not chosen, by an individual opens or shuts doors to job possibilities. Internships begin to shift the focus of student’s mindset from the classroom to the work place. Transcending the work place causes the student to ask questions like, “can I see myself participating in this field of practice for the next five, ten, even forty years of my life” or, “how can I market myself to land a job?” More specific, the student goes through a mental cycle of reflection that allows them to examine and redefine themselves in their studies before they graduate. This internship cycle, when recognized, opens a powerful venue of growth with the student’s scholastic pursuits. The focus of this paper will be to reflect on experiences, so far, during my internship at the city of Provo justice court.  Further, I will expound on how this internship experience has allowed me to better understand my educational pursues by redefining and adjusting the goals that were established at the beginning of the internship.

To begin, ever since I was in kindergarten I have wanted to be a judge; this is important to know because the remainder of the paper will be explaining how even after fifteen years of chasing after this childhood goal, I have adjusted it in a matter of weeks. At the beginning of the semester I chose to participate in a internship at the justice court because my initial expectations for this experience was to get a letter of recommendation and obtain another bullet point to put on my resume to help separate me from the competitive sea of applicants striving to get into law school. I had only been in a courtroom once before this semester, due to running a red light and being a participant rather than an administrator at the courthouse.

As shallow as this goal of becoming a judge may have been, once I began the internship I engaged myself in learning all I could about the court system; I established four basic goals to base to enhance the experience. First, my primary goal was to see how the court system worked from start to finish. This was done through interview, working with and doing personal research with the police officers, clerks, attorneys, the public defender, prosecutors and the judge. I even, time to time, talked to the defendants to get their understanding of the law. My second goal was to increase my ability to interact with people effectively, as well as, to execute and deliver on tasks and projects that were assigned to me. Third, as I got a grasp on my duties and tasks, I would then apply my critical analysis skills that I have learned from the American Studies major to better understand certain keywords that naturally came to mind through a deep study of the courtroom. My last goal was to take a proactive approach of constantly challenging myself to understand why the courts are the way they are. What I came to find out is that each one of these goals helped to naturally change my mindset of what I wanted from my career because they helped me look at what I can best market myself in the job field.

What I have come to find out after seven weeks of my internship is that although I never once disliked or hated the court system, but there are other things that came into my life, that simply have become more appealing to me and my mind. This semester I started to get serious about my minor in business. I took my first business class, marketing, and was introduced to a whole other profession what caused a fire to burn inside of me. It was like a reawakening to my education. The combination of how my mind was focused on getting a job from doing my internship and the possibilities of jobs through business got me question what I wanted to do. Jeffery R. Holland, former President of Brigham Young University, shared a personal story about a vacation trip that him and his son, Matt, took many years ago. They were driving home on a maze of back trail roads; they came across a fork in the road, not knowing which road to take. The father took this as an ideal teaching opportunity to his son and suggested that a prayer should be said. They both had a feeling that they should go left and so they went. Ten minutes later they came across a dead end, Matt being confused asked his father why they went down this back road. The father responded that the sun was about to do down and this was the quickest way that he could have answered the two travelers to go down the wrong road to meet the dead end so that they could proceed confidently on the correct road. [i] As the sun setting of graduation approaches to students, there are times that we are given inspiration in the course of action we must take that leads us to a flat out dead end. In return, we can know confidently that we need to take the other direction in the road of life.

This being said, during the course of the semester so far I have had a great experience at the justice court that are universal skills for being in a work place. I got to see how the administrative individuals in the court have an unique perspective with their interactions with the other employees. There is a code of unwritten rules in the workplace that is learned only with hours spent in the work environment. Key skills of how to deliver and pay close attention to detail, even to be able to anticipate needs from employees and customers, if you can call defendants customers. But, like any job court houses, or the office place, is not a place for children; this is a serious practice with real punishment and the difference between doing and not doing my job correctly could result in people ending up in jail  

As I continue to complete the remainder of my time at the courthouse there is a fresh new mindset that I have in going forward. Things that I wont do include, underperforming because I do not want a profession in law, burn bridges of all the great people that I have met, start over in my education. Rather, I will use what I have learn to not only understand law, but will continue forward to develop skills in professionalism, networking, association with clients, ability to complete tasks and develop myself so that I can market myself to future employers.

           

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[i] https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/what-are-prophets/bio/jeffrey-r-holland?lang=eng