This week was a big week for us as a class. Obviously the Chamber dinner was our only focus for the week, and trying to make it as successful as possible was our goal. At the beginning of the week I felt very unprepared and I felt like I didn’t really know what was going on. It also seemed like no one really knew how the event was going to go as far as the organization and the order of everything. My main focus was on Jeopardy, and I was so nervous being the host for it and getting prepared. The main thing I struggled with was the intro and how I would explain all the categories to everyone. At the event before the game show started, I wasn’t nervous at all. But of course as soon as I got called up, my stomach dropped, and I thought everything was going to go downhill. However, I ran up there, greeted everybody and explained the categories. I messed up a little bit but it didn’t even seem to matter because it made it kind of humorous in a way. I thought that it went really well and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Also, Mitch and Isaacs intro was absolutely FLAWLESS. I think this event really brought our class together as a team and we were able to make it a huge success.

Side note: As I was driving through Rockford from my friends house to my game, I spotted a T-Rex mobile screen from Astec in what looked like a construction site.

02/25/2018

On Friday when Jim Prombo spoke to us he really made me think about the endless opportunities we have in life and how many different things we can accomplish and how many different paths we are able to take throughout our lives. He started to tell us that he was an entrepreneur, so immediatley I wondered what kind of business he was a part of or owned. Then he proceeded to tell us that he was a "life entrepreneur" which I had absolutley no idea what he meant by that. Jim told us that he always wanted to go into the mairne corps, which he ended up accomplishing. He also accomplished getting his masters degree in psychology as well as becoming a teacher, and even a principal. Jim told us so many stories that it made me think about grandpa who lives in Florida. Everytime I see my grandpa he manages to tell me a different story of his life everytime. He's told me everything from how he drag raced cars back in the 50s or 60s when he was only 13, all the way to stories about how he was in the service and was a champion ping pong player at whatever base he was at. After he got out of active duty he owned a bar with my great grandpa and then went on to the restaurant business and owned about 3 restaurants throughout his life. Jim really made me think about how my grandpa is actually a life entrepreneur and even a "regular entrepreneur" making the most out of every opportunity he was given throughout his whole life. If there's anything one thing that I took from Friday's presentation it was that there are endless opportunities that we are able to capitalize throughout our life no matter how old or how young we are.

12/10/2017

This week really gave me insight about how the whole mentoring process works and what kind of people are involved with this program.  The variety of occupations the mentors had was astonishing to me.  It seemed like they had occupations from bankers or investors all the way to the engineering field.  One question I asked every mentor was “Would you like your mentee to be actively engaged with you or would you like them to touch base with you just every now and then.”  Almost every mentor I asked said they would like their mentee to be actively engaged with because they really are here to help.  The mentors that said their past mentees didn’t really speak to them said that they wish they would have engaged more because they really did want to help them.  I feel like sometimes, us students, feel like we’re going to bother them because they have more important things to do than help us with our problems that we face with starting are business that might not even go anywhere.  One of my goals is to actively engage with my mentor to get out of my comfort zone and try to build some type of relationship with them.

I really hope the mentor program will help me get out of my comfort zone and help me work on skills that I’m lacking

11/12/2017

Something I did want to mention is what we did in my Social Entrepreneurship class this week. On Monday our teacher told us that we were going to hold this event on Friday that would be about happiness and success. He wanted us to get a place to hold the event, contact people to come speak for us, and a schedule for how the event would go. We thought this was going to be a train wreck because we had less than a week to somehow put this together. We got to work immediately, and were able to get a place for the event (for free), we made a time block for the event, and then we ended up getting refreshments for the speakers. On Thursday we had a total of four speakers that confirmed they were coming, and then that day we somehow got five more to confirm they were coming.

This event was so inspiring to me because it was amazing to see the diversity of people we had and see all their points of view on success and happiness. We actually had Niki Hunt come to speak for us and she said that in life, we are always trying to fill a hole, whether it is through a hobby or religion. Essentially, we want to fill this whole to make us feel better about ourselves or just for our well-being. For her, she fills this hole by seeking god. I haven’t really thought about what I try to fill this whole with, but I think that if we are able to fill it we will be happier throughout our life.

09/17/2017