Passion Breeds Success

Lesson #1. Everyone MUST be working towards the same goal. 

The initial meetings of this challenge were, well, more or less brutal. Everyone their own unique way of how they interpreted the challenge and their vision for this thing we were calling a conference. Everything was messy and the people who liked what we had come up with were excited and always wanted to work on this conference and then there was the other side of the spectrum where the people who were uninterested were clearly uninterested. This really bothered me. I decided to share my thoughts with a few people and soon realized they were on the same page as me. You might be asking why I decided to share with only a select few? Well because I knew some people just wouldn't care and the others who were passionate about it would get upset. Us in the middle kinda decided something needed to change. Once the organization structure changed, and then the whole idea of the conference changed as a result I finally felt great about this conference. Yeah, it came a little late in the quarter but it was needed. From what I have noticed everyone seems to be pretty passionate about the idea of this challenge. There will most likely always be a few people who have different ideas but for the most part the reactions I saw were excitement and motivation. Now that we are all on the same page and have a desire to work towards the same vision, I know believe that we have the potential to hold one of the most successful conferences that Ohio State has ever seem. 

Lesson #2 Not Everyone Can Be Heard. 

As much as it killed me to learn this (my Includer trait), its so true. Working in a group of 20 extremely intelligent people, who all come from different backgrounds and have many different outlooks on how things should be, is really difficult. As an outsider, I think it would look like the most interesting and insightful group of people; and while I would completely agree there are times where it can be a little much.When a group of 20 people all want to give their opinion on every matter, things don't get finished. The line needs to be drawn somewhere for where a few opinions is enough. Since we are a group of such talented and bight people we need to realize that each and every one of us has the ability to make a large decision and while it would be nice to have everyone's input, it just isn't practical nor realistic.. This leads me directly into my next lesson. 

Lesson #3 Trust is Crucial 

When someone says they trust me, I expect them to mean it. There were times when people would throw the "trust" word around and so while I felt completely empowered to work on whatever it was, it would sometimes bite me in the butt. I would show what I had completed and "this needed to be changed, this wasn't good enough, etc." It was, for lack of a better word, annoying.  Having trust in someone, to me, means expecting they get the job done, knowing they will do a good job, and not having the need to critique the work they completed. After communicating this with many people I eventually noticed a change. Rather than just saying trust I think now people actually practice trust. This trust that has been formed in the fellows has proven to be effective. I see this empowerment leading to actually getting things accomplished, not holding back because they are worried they will do it wrong. Establishing trust is hard, but necessary, and I'm thankful that we, as fellows, have found that crucial element. 

Potatoes & Rice?!

I was so excited when I heard we were finally doing something where our parents could get involved. My mom is constantly asking about BLF and what we are doing so I knew loved actually getting to be a part of it. I think it is important for the people close to us to understand what we are learning in these challenges and how they are shaping our leadership styles and the ways we are growing professionally from them.

For those of you who didn't talk to my mom... my mom and I are essentially the same person; which when working together can cause some problems. (Apparently I can never be satisfied.. I work with people completely different and its difficult, and I work with people exactly the same as me and its difficult.. ?) Anyways, like I said, working together we can sometimes butt heads. Although during this challenge it turned out a little differently. Neither of us are outstanding cooks unless we follow a recipe so from the beginning we both kinda stepped back and had fun figuring out different ways to beat chicken.. My mom and I both took on the same role and worked together to get it accomplished. Although I did see our particular behavior shine through when beating the chicken because she had her way of doing it and I had mine and since we are both stubborn we both wanted to only do it our way; after some time we compromised and I'm pretty sure we had the best flattened chicken there.

Thinking back, I don't think our group actually had a defined vision- which made it really exciting, fun, and  then of course stressful at the end when we had to throw everything together on a plate. I think we were a little worried at first because none of us in the group claimed to be excellent cooks (Joe was clearly lying). So starting off we tried to think of what we knew rather than really thinking outside of the box. I think it would have been more beneficial for our team to have taken a step back and create a vision for our meal rather than diving right into it.

In my perspective I really didn't find this too much different from when we work with just the fellows. I guess the only thing would be was I saw us kind of relying on our parents because we knew they had more experience so we were looking to them for guidance. Whereas when we just work together none of us noticeably the others when it comes to experience in a particular topic. I didn't feel as pressured to make things perfect either just because I knew if I messed up on something, my mom or one of the other parents in my group could help me out. It felt a little more relaxed than when working with the other fellows.

The most challenging part of this challenge would definitely have to be my lack of creative thinking when it comes to cooking. I have no idea what would go well together when it comes to food so I couldn't add much  to that conversation. I am someone who doesn't really branch out when it comes to flavor so it was really a challenge trying to imagine how pretzel breaded shrimp would taste. (Ended up being really good!) The easiest part was letting loose and just having fun with it. No offense to my team, but I really didn't think we would win... We were going against Meaghan the chef for petes sake. So I guess I didn't get extremely competitive from the get go and just wanted to make sure everyone had fun- and that was super easy!

Time Management- Yeah it was difficult but I was always making sure cooking times and such were all taken into account before doing anything.
Communication- After working at Sloopys I completed understand how important communication is in a kitchen. I was always updating people on what I was doing and getting updates in return to make sure we were all on the same page.
Decision Making - I really don't like making decisions. but I think for this challenge I was fine with it. And when we had no idea what we were going to put on what plate, Joe Shelby and I all made quick decisions and while potatoes and rice on the same plate isn't the best decision we've ever made... at least we tried? and, it definitely could have been worse....

 is anyone else confused?

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I would most definitely recommend this challenge again. I had so much fun and I know my mom did too! It was great to incorporate new people into the group. I feel like the fellows, for the most part, are very comfortable with each other  by now and to throw in someone else spices things up a bit. (No pun intended).  Although I do feel like we were all pretty much miniatures of our parents!

Our food, made with lots of love, I actually really enjoyed!

Special thanks to Eddie, Sarah and Ryan for putting this together!

hopefully I'm not violating any copyright policies by using that picture at the top.... (property of ohio union) ?

This weeks blog prompt may have come at just the perfect time. I need to reflect in my life, but I have been putting it off.. why you ask? 1. because I am the best procrastinator. 2. I have so many things running through my mind I can't find the perfect place to start. Maybe this prompt will help.

Lets see. I wake up, play all my scramble games (for all you scramble addicts you know where I'm coming from/ get at me- jnorton36) think of everything I have going on that day, head to class, do some homework, go to meetings, find time to talk to my ma and pa, eat, procrastinate on the things that don't seem interesting and aren't do for a few more days (Kelsey, I told you discipline was NOT one of my strengths).. and yeah that is about the extent of my day. Nothing that the average person doesn't experience. 

But why have I chosen all these activities as a part of my daily routine though? Well scramble is boss <Ernest>  and class is mandatory, meetings are... well.. meetings and also mandatory and the rest is self explanatory. The unique thing about all of this, is I actually really thrive on the things I do every day. Lucky for me, I had some weird epiphany Freshmen and I was able to find my passion. So since changing my major I enjoy all the classes because I know its pretty much exactly what I want to do. Knowing what my passion when coming to OSU, I was able to strategically pick the groups I wanted to be involved in. MCEC- provides me with experience and insight for my career path, BLF- One of the reasons I joined was because it sounded awesome and the fact we were the inaugural class, but also because I can tell this is preparing me for my future in ways I never imagined.   AKPsi- Networking, friends, opportunities, etc. Rent The Runway- Again, experience for my career path as co-event planner.

I must say, I am pretty proud of where I am and what how I have chosen to spend my days.


Looking back on this past year it's hard to think about what my crucible moment has been. I guess I would have to say it actually happened fairly recently. It was when I was turned down from the Hershey Internship. While interviewing I was almost positive I was going to get the job, maybe I was over confident. Unfortunately I was unable to receive feedback so Ill never know why but what I do remember is how I felt during the interviews. I wasn't interested. I came to Ohio State because of my major, and now I was looking for a job outside of my major just because it was good pay? Yeah, as a broke college student that sounds extremely appealing, but isn't that kinda defeating the purpose of changing my major and following my passion? So I was pretending to be way too interested in this job when being interviewed and to be honest, I think I even convinced myself. If offered the job, I would have taken it. When the lady called to inform me of not getting the position I was a little upset. I guess it just hurt my confidence because I was so certain they would offer it to me; but in addition to being upset, I was so relieved. It reminded me of my purpose of being here. I think it happened for a reason, and a good reason that I didnt get it. Sometimes it takes something to reopen your eyes and remind you of your goals and mission; and thats exactly what Hershey did for me.


Something I haven't considered in a while- my future.
 why? Well because I use to do that a lot in high school. I wanted to think about my future all the time. Once I came to college that changed completely. I think I was scared to think about what my future will consist of; I didn't want to have any expectations and end up disappointed so I have just been taking it day by day and thus far I've been happy. Sometimes I want to think about the future but I stop myself and I'm not sure of the reason. But I am going to take this time to ponder about about my future and hopefully in a blog to come I will write about my thoughts and if I am going to stick to not thinking about it or if I ended up liking it and will continue to do it.