Entitled of Nothing

For this week's post I want to talk about a great comment made by Brad Wiskirchen, who had a long career working for the Bank of San Fransisco. During his Q&A session, one of his answers caught my attention " The problem with this generation is that young people believe they are entitled of everything" This is not the first time I have heard something  along these lines by a successful person.

We tend to be the ones who always ask What's in it for me? It is always about how much we will get paid, what benefits we will have. I believe we have to stop thinking we are entitled to great things and start working hard for what we want. I know it is not bad to negotiate of our benefits and salary, but we have to work hard and demonstrate we are worth it.

From now on I will work harder for what I think I deserve. I have to earn it and prove myself I am worthy of my dreams. We are a good generation, we have great ideas, vision, and ambitions. However, we have to work harder, just like our past generation.

Never Rush Over

This week I had a learning experience that seems stupid but believe it or not, I took something away from it. On Monday I had to go up to Murray to do some personal business. However, my wife had to use the car that day so I decided to ride the front runner. I wanted to be in time for the train so I left home early (Which is a couple of blocks away from the Provo station). I bought my ticket and got onboard. When I was in my sit waiting for the train to leave I realized I had not brought my cellphone.

How was I supposed to meet my contact once I arrive in Murray? Well I had to rush to my house to get my phone and see if I could run back to still catch the train. As you may have guessed, I did not make it and missed the train. In addition, when I look for my boarding ticket I could not find it ! ! what I bad luck, I was gonna be late for my meeting and I had to pay twice for my ride. Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and relax for a minute. I enjoyed the view and the moment. I looked at my wallet and somehow I had placed the ticket inside it. For some reason I did not remember doing it at all. But there it was, my ticket.

I learned that rushing things over not always end well. There is a time for everything and we have to stop in life once in awhile and ask ourselves where are we heading and if we have our "phones" with us. We have to take a minute to remember where we have placed that ticket that will take us to our destination. Not everything has to be done rapidly. We have to enjoy the moment.

From now on I will try to take my time to ponder and plan for those special things in my life. In that way I will make sure I do not lose the important things to me.

Out of The Comfort Zone

Being comfortable is one of the best feelings in life. However, in business, comfort may be your enemy. While doing one assignment for a class a came across a great article that presented the idea of working out of our comfort zone.

The article provided me with guidelines of how to work out of my comfort zone when it comes to networking. We have to open our eyes and minds  to be more receptive to ideas that may be different than ours. By doing this we will enrich our work and find new approaches to problems. It is easy to get along with people who are similar to us. But the real challenge comes when we have to interact with those that do not think like us. This is not necessary bad, we have to remember that diversification will always reduce risk.

I will apply this guidelines to my networking meetings from now on. I will try to interact with people that shared a complete different point of view from mine to enrich my own knowledge. It may be hard at the beginning but it is worth the try.

Always be Ready for Change

Change is a constant part of life. The question is not if something will change but when it will change. I had the opportunity to attend a networking event this week and the topic discussed was how to take advantage of changes.

We have to be ready to embrace changes and turn them to our advantage. A change is a good opportunity to start over or to jump to the next level. We have to see the positive side of changing. If we are mentally prepare we will find good opportunities along with the change. One of my  bosses always said that changing is the opportunity to adjust our direction and press forward with more intensity.

What I took away from this event is that being prepare for a change has a lot to do with us approaching the change with the right mentallity. Usually I do not like changes but now I will pay more attention to changes in school, life, and work and take advantage of those changes.