148 “She learned that the organization was founded eight years before women could vote in the united states and that the founder had reminded girls that they could be “a doctor, a lawyer, an aviatrix, or a hot-air balloonist.”” This quote resonated with me because I genuinely always forget that women had to fight for the right to vote. Nowadays, I would say men and women are treated fairly equally when it comes to things like that.
Quote: “She explained that she just did whatever seemed like it would teach her something and allow her to be of service at each moment, and somehow that added up to training” (Epstein 152).
Comment: This quote stuck out to me because we are always taught in a certain way. One must attend high school receive a degree and do the same with college. One is put on a path in order to learn things to fit their career. There is a set way, and everything leads to the next specific goal. One has to have extra curriculars and leadership and good grades to get into college. Then in college one has to have job experience in order to then get a job in the real world. We are so focused on getting the job or degree that we lose focus on the actual learning part that will benefit us the most in life. There is a set way we have to learn completing assignment after assignment. However, does this way of learning actually stick with a person or do they learn the material, take the test and then do a brain dump because they find the material is no longer useful to them? I feel as though this is the mindset of a lot of people. We are learning but it doesn’t have to do with the profession we want to achieve.
Question: Do you believe that a structured learning is better suited for gaining a profession or a learning as one sees fit?
Quote: “Career goals that once felt safe and certain can appear ludicrous, to use Darwin’s adjective, when examined in the light of more self-knowledge. Our work preferences and our life preferences do not stay the same, because we do not stay the same” (Epstein 156).
Comment: This an interesting quote as it shows that what we might love to do now might be something completely different than what we will end up doing. Ones career path is not set from the start. There are going to be a multitude of twists and turns that not even you can predict. 5 years from now you may be at a job you love and in 10 years you might have switched your whole profession. There is no way to tell one just has to hop along for the journey and figure out what they love to do. We are constantly changing as people and consequently our choice in profession might also change. However, rather than curdle in fear we must trudge along and find our way because we will find ourselves in the process as well.
Question: Why are we so afraid of the unknown?
Quote: “Six weeks after leaving the helm of the world’s largest organization for girls and women, she was CEO of a foundation with no money or assets, but a free office, which was enough for her to get started. She built a staff, and today is busy running the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.”
Pg. 152
Comment: Hesselbein is an absolute boss lady in the career industry. She has always had a passion for volunteering and being involved in the community and setting a positive role model for other girls and women. Her biggest role was being involved in Girl Scouts, claiming she only loved to volunteer but soon going on trips around the world for Girl Scout meetings, then she was given the opportunity to be CEO. She turned it down, but then said she would fill it in for 6 months. 13 years later, she was still CEO, and, in those years, she added a quarter million members, more than 130,000 volunteers, and the cookie sales became more than $300 million a year. When she retired, she created an entire foundation at her fingertips now known as Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.
Question: Why did she retire from girl scouts?
Quote: “’I did not intend to become a leader, I just learned by doing what was needed at the time.’ In retrospect, Hesselbein can guess at lessons she never recognized when she was going through them. She saw both the power of inclusion and exclusion in diverse Johnstown. She learned resourcefulness..”
Pg. 153
Comment: On her 101st birthday, she was visited and her office Is filled with amazing awards from all of her success, and the visitor asked about how she did it all. Her response showed a lot about who she was and how she saw life. She adjusted to the current circumstances, and did her absolute best to fix and restore the current issues and problems. And by doing that, she made multiple companies thrive, earning double to triple to amount of money they had been before. This woman is 101 years old and can still give that good of a response to such a loaded question that digs so deep into her whole life is just amazing.
Question: How much is her net worth? How is she still alive?
Quote: “Career goals that once felt safe and certain. can appear ludicrous, to use Darwin’s adjective, when examined in the light of more self knowledge. Our work preferences and our life preferences do not stay the same, because we do not stay the same.”
Comment: This quote is interesting because about 30% of people switch jobs within 12 months of having them and go on to choose a completely different career path from what they had.
Question: what causes people to have such sudden changes in work and life preferences?
Quote:”It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs. . . . Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school . . . In such a world it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans”
Comment: It’s interesting to think that people who were born in the early 1900’s could have never though that there would be as many different career paths there is now then there was back then.
Question: Would would it take for someone to have a successful full career path change?
Quote:
“They had been told that getting off their initial path was too risky. But actually, we should all understand, this is not weird, this is the norm”
Comment:
The large majority of people interviewed expressed career paths that were “abnormal” Most, even felt a bit of embarrassment describing how they got to where they are now. People are often told from the beginning of their working careers that you should know what you want to do, and do whatever it takes to get there. They often portray a career path as linear, with no changes in interests, or breaks for something new. However, this seems to be uncommon in today’s world. Most people have a certain degree of uncertainty when it comes to choosing a career. Those who don’t, often find that what they had originally been interested in, isn’t a good fit for them. Many people take breaks from the career they intend to pursue, for exploratory jobs or additional schooling.
Questions:
If this is typically the norm, why did these people feel embarrassed about it applying to them? Where does this stigma come from? Is either way more effective than the other?
Quote:
“I had teammates whose drive and determination seemed almost boundless on the track, and nearly absent in the classroom, and vice versa. Instead of asking whether someone is gritty, we should ask when they are”
Comment:
This quote explains that hard work and the ability to lead others is not always dependent on the person, just the situation. If people are put in an environment that “suits them” then they are more likely to work harder, and enjoy doing so. Each person is made up of their individual experiences, and all have unique strengths. Its unfair to test every persons ability to work in only one scenario, as often times people may struggle to find motivation or the drive to work hard in one place, but will exceed expectations in another. The constant change of people can lead to the development of new strengths, hence looking to the past for someones current abilities is ineffective.
Questions: Why are people able to succeed in areas of interest significantly more than those that don’t interest them? Is a persons individual strengths something that can be pre-determined? Or is it truly a result of their individual experiences?
Quote: “Knight wrote that he ‘wasnt much for setting goals,’ and that his main goal for his new nascent shoe company was to fail fast enough that he could apply what he was learning to his next venture. He made one short-term pivot after another, applying the lessons as he went.” (Epstein 155)
Comment: I thought this was a very interesting quote because I would have never thought that one of the most successful companies was made to actually fail. I do think this is a very different way of thinking that maybe shouldn’t always be taught. Sure, this worked out for him, but I feel you should never go into something looking to fail.
Question: What do you think would happen if we had this mindset when it came to our education?
Quote: “‘They had been told that getting off their initial path was so risky. But actually we should all understand, this is not weird, its the norm’ Thus the research found a name, the Dark Horse Project, because even as more subjects were added, most perceived themselves as dark houses who followed what seemed like an unlikely path.”’ (Epstein 156)
Comment: I think this quote is interesting because it kind of sums up what society thinks as a whole when it comes to trying out different things and not actually knowing what you really want to do in life. We have been so subjected to the thought that what we are actually doing is not the way to go about life and this way of thinking can at times bring us down and stop us from trying to achieve our end goals. Which at least for me is to have a job that brings joy to my life.
Question: How can we combat the perceived norm that we should have our lives all put together at such a young age?
“ In retrospect, Hesslebein can guess at lessons she never recognized when she went through them. She saw both the power of inclusion and exclusion in diverse Jamestown. She learned resourcefulness as a jack-of-all-trade in the photography business. A new troop leader with less experience than her charges, she relied on shared leadership. She united stakeholders normally at loggerheads for the United Way campaign. Having never been out of the country until she traveled to international Girl Scout meetings, she learned to quickly find common ground with peers from all over the world.” (153)
Comment: Hesslebien was able to put into perspective lessons she has learned from past experiences. She wasn’t able to connect these experiences to lessons while she was experiencing them since there is no way of telling what is going to happen in the future. Going through a common group of individuals, like the Girl Scout troops, she learned they have experienced similar things since they have a common ground.
Question: Would Hesslebien be able to learn from different experiences if she didn’t have these common ground?
“Michael Crichton started with medicine too, after learning how few writers make a living. With medicine, “ I would never have to wonder if the work was worthwhile,” he wrote. Except, a few years in he became disenchanted with the medical practice. He graduated from Harvard Medical School, but decided to become a writer. His medical education was not remotely wasted. He used it to craft some of the most popular stories in the world-the novel Jurassic Park, and the TV series ER, with its record-setting 124 Emmy nomination” (156)
Comment: After Michael Crichton learned that writers didn’t make a living he moved to Medical practices. He then decided to take the two and learned that was what suited him the best. Once he combined the two things he was good at he was able to find a good medium that created a lot of good in his life. He found a way to be successful in a way that combined two things he was good at.
Question: If he didn’t find out that writing did not make a good living would he of continued with writing?
Quote – One extreme suggests that personality traits are entirely a function of one’s nature, and the other that personality is entirely a function of the environment.
Comment – To me this quote is very interesting. I wonder how my nature affects my personality and I wonder if there is a way to find out. Or, the other way around, how has my environment shaped my personality? I find these concepts to be very cool, because I think both play a role in making someone who they are. The quote talks about extremes, but why are they necessary when you can say both of these aspects had a role in making someone who they are and affecting their personality. This concept really makes me think about if it was a 50/50 split between these 2 ideas or if one played more of a role in shaping me than the other. I’d like to talk about this more and really understand if something like this is measurable or is it all just in theory?
Question – How does each concept play a role in who I am? How can I find out what has affected me the most?
Quote – Because personality changes more than we expect with time, experience, and different contexts, we are ill-equipped to make ironclad long-term goals when our past consists of little time, few experiences, and a narrow range of contexts.
Comment – This to me is very interesting. Earlier in the year we made a list of goals which I believe included long term goals so I am interested to see this contradiction between a book where we have taken a lot of information from and the actual class and goals we set. Why would we make these long term goals if there’s not really any reason to create these long term goals because our goals will always be changing. I truly believe that the long term goals are important and helpful when it comes to growing as a person and realizing what you want, but I am confused as to why the book contradicts that fact and sort of dismisses some of the work we have done in this class. I don’t think it is that much of an issue overall, but it is weird to see something like this.
Question – Why would the book contradict what we have been doing in class? Which is right?
Quote: “Rather than expecting an ironclad a priori answer to ‘Who do I really want to become?,’ their work indicated that it is better to be a scientist of yourself, asking smaller questions that can actually be tested– ‘Which among my various possible selves should I start to explore now? How can I do that?’ Be a flirt with your possible selves. Rather than a grand plan, find experiments that can be undertaken quickly” (Epstein 163).
Comment: I think this quote goes really well with this course’s message of exploring the things we enjoy and not necessarily deciding what we want to do with the rest of our lives, but focus on what we want to do now and what kinds of things we are interested in. While this idea does resonate with me, sometimes it is hard to just be in the moment without worrying about the future. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what you even want to do in the moment, or figuring out what it is you really enjoy doing. But you won’t know what you enjoy until you try, so the idea of experimenting with courses and other hobbies and activities can help you figure out what you enjoy doing.
Question: How can I decipher between the things I like to do and what I will actually want to do as a career?
Quote: “Naifeh argues that, as with Van Gogh, Pollock’s lack of traditional drawing skill was what led him to invent his own rules for making art. As schools offering standardized paths in art have proliferated, ‘one of the problems is that artists tend to be products of those schools,’ said Naifeh, an artist himself. Maybe that has helped fuel an explosion of interest in so-called outsider art, by practitioners who began without a standard path in sight” (Epstein 167).
Comment: I think that this idea also relates to a lot of other subjects in academia besides art. Much of secondary education relies on very specific procedures to solve problems in the classroom, and students who may have found other ways to solve problems won’t be given the opportunity to. In my opinion, schools don’t teach critical thinking skills as much as they should, because most assignments would have strict guidelines that you had to follow or you’d fail, which wouldn’t give kids much wiggle room to be creative or to think about how else they could do an assignment or solve a problem.
Question: Why do schools focus so much on specific processes without giving students the opportunity to be more creative?
Quote: “She never did graduate from college, but her office is festooned with twenty three honorary doctorates, plus a glistening saber given to her by the US Military Acendy for teaching leadership courses… ‘I was unaware that I was being prepared,’ she told me. ‘I did not intend to become a leader, I just learned by doing what was needed at the time.’ (152).
Comment: I found this quote very interesting because the author brings up the important point of how people can get to the same point from different starting points. Hesselbein was a “jack of all trades” in her area and excelled in the military through learning by doing. I thought this was interesting because most people in the military have a similar background: they might do ROTC in high school, go to military academy and either pass or fail out, and then go on to enter a branch of the military and work their way up through the ranks. Hesselbein did exactly the opposite: the author writes “she had no long term plan,” she lived in the moment and just rolled with the punches. What’s also interesting is her career started after the age of 50, instead of right out of high school like most.
Question: I’m curious how one becomes a jack of all trades? Hesselbein makes it sounds so easy…
———————
Quote: “He bounced around classes… Darwin began perhaps the most impactful post-college gap year in history. His father’s wishes eventually ‘died a natural death.’ Decades later, Darwin reflected on the process of self-discovery. ‘It seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman,’ he wrote. His father, a doctor for more than sixty years, detested the sight of blood.” (155)
Comment: I thought this quote was very interesting because it was very ironic. Darwin started out not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. He bounced around between classes and took a gap year which many people look down upon despite it being a smart choice for some. Darwin is one of the most well known names in the scientific community, yet did not start out his career like most. What is also interesting in this section of the chapter is the role that parents play in their children’s decision making. Darwin almost followed in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, and did not change his mind until after his father’s death. This shows the importance of letting kids make their own decisions instead of laying out their life path for them.
Question: How did Darwin enter evolutionary biology?
Quote
“Hesselbein remained CEO for thirteen years. Under her leadership, minority membership tripled; Girl Scouts added a quarter million members and more than 130,000 new volunteers. The cookie business grew to more than $300 million a year.”
Comment
This quote shows the impact and the legacy that Hesselbein left behind with the Girl Scouts. She made the famous Girl Scout cookies a household name and turned the Girl Scouts into an empire. She made the Girl Scouts more racially inclusive. This was important at that time because America was still having racial issues in the 1970s. There was still some segregation in certain parts of the country. Hesselbein is an inspiration and she changed the entire face of the Girl Scouts. Before Hesselbein became the CEO, Diversity was one of the Girl Scouts biggest problems but it was not acknowledged. Hesselbein made it her top priority and assembled a leadership team. Hesselbein modernized the Girl Scouts. Before, the Girl Scouts were known for holding traditions and not changing much about how their program worked. Hesselbein changing this and modernizing them was probably the greatest thing to ever happen to the Girl Scouts.
Question
What would the Girl Scouts look like today without Hesselbein’s leadership?
Quote
“Six weeks after leaving the helm of the world’s largest organization for girls and women, she was CEO of a foundation with no money or assets, but a free office, which was enough for her to get started. She built a staff and today is busy running the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.”
Comment
This quote shows the genius of Frances Hesselbein. She is an amazing businesswoman who changed the face of the Girl Scouts and turned them into a household name. When she retired in 1990 she decided to start a new company of her own from scratch and made it very successful. She is an inspiration and she has proven that having a leadership trait is probably the most important trait that a person can have. She never got a degree in anything because she never finished college but by using her leadership skills she was able to become one of the most successful women in the business world to ever live. For her incredible achievements, she was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She received no training for what she accomplished. All she did was trust herself and she did whatever she thought was necessary and could teach her.
Question
What motivated her to retire from the Girl Scouts and start a company from scratch?
QUOTE 1
“Hesselbein mentioned it to a dress-factory worker who was also volunteering, and the woman told her, ‘You have to carry a big basket to bring something home.’ She repeats the phrase today, to mean that a mind kept wide open will take something from every new experience.” –Page 153
COMMENT
I liked this quote quite a bit. I know a lot of people who go about their lives feeling like if they don’t directly benefit from a situation or relationship, they feel as though their time was wasted. Someone who is open-minded knows that if something doesn’t work out, whether it be a failed project, or perhaps a relationship gone sour, they can reflect on what happened and learn from it. It’s always a good idea to be grateful for the things that come into your life– I’ve found that having the ‘everything happens for a reason’ sort of mentality generates much more happiness and positivity, I’ve been able to bounce back from my misfortunes with much more ease than someone who dwells on negative experiences.
QUESTION
If everyone were able to be more open-minded about the experiences they have, would the world be different? Would we see an increase in overall happiness/positivity?
QUOTE 2
“It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs… Most of the work I’ve done in the last 10 years didn’t exist when I was in high school… In such a world, it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans.” –Page 163
COMMENT
I chose this quote because this is something I encountered when I interviewed the professor for my exploration. He mentioned that a lot of students try to make a very fixed-plan for their futures. I agree that this is not a good plan, because absolutely nobody can predict exactly how their lives are going to go. Dr. Frederich told me that he moved to the US from Germany with the plan to only stay for 2-3 years. Having been here for 23 years, obviously that’s not how things played out for him. You never know who you will meet or what opportunities might present themselves to you– rarely in life do things play out exactly how we want them to.
QUESTION
What might happen if school systems taught kids to embrace new opportunities, to have them grow up more freely, and less fearful of failure/things not working out?
12 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 13”
148 “She learned that the organization was founded eight years before women could vote in the united states and that the founder had reminded girls that they could be “a doctor, a lawyer, an aviatrix, or a hot-air balloonist.”” This quote resonated with me because I genuinely always forget that women had to fight for the right to vote. Nowadays, I would say men and women are treated fairly equally when it comes to things like that.
Quote: “She explained that she just did whatever seemed like it would teach her something and allow her to be of service at each moment, and somehow that added up to training” (Epstein 152).
Comment: This quote stuck out to me because we are always taught in a certain way. One must attend high school receive a degree and do the same with college. One is put on a path in order to learn things to fit their career. There is a set way, and everything leads to the next specific goal. One has to have extra curriculars and leadership and good grades to get into college. Then in college one has to have job experience in order to then get a job in the real world. We are so focused on getting the job or degree that we lose focus on the actual learning part that will benefit us the most in life. There is a set way we have to learn completing assignment after assignment. However, does this way of learning actually stick with a person or do they learn the material, take the test and then do a brain dump because they find the material is no longer useful to them? I feel as though this is the mindset of a lot of people. We are learning but it doesn’t have to do with the profession we want to achieve.
Question: Do you believe that a structured learning is better suited for gaining a profession or a learning as one sees fit?
Quote: “Career goals that once felt safe and certain can appear ludicrous, to use Darwin’s adjective, when examined in the light of more self-knowledge. Our work preferences and our life preferences do not stay the same, because we do not stay the same” (Epstein 156).
Comment: This an interesting quote as it shows that what we might love to do now might be something completely different than what we will end up doing. Ones career path is not set from the start. There are going to be a multitude of twists and turns that not even you can predict. 5 years from now you may be at a job you love and in 10 years you might have switched your whole profession. There is no way to tell one just has to hop along for the journey and figure out what they love to do. We are constantly changing as people and consequently our choice in profession might also change. However, rather than curdle in fear we must trudge along and find our way because we will find ourselves in the process as well.
Question: Why are we so afraid of the unknown?
Quote: “Six weeks after leaving the helm of the world’s largest organization for girls and women, she was CEO of a foundation with no money or assets, but a free office, which was enough for her to get started. She built a staff, and today is busy running the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.”
Pg. 152
Comment: Hesselbein is an absolute boss lady in the career industry. She has always had a passion for volunteering and being involved in the community and setting a positive role model for other girls and women. Her biggest role was being involved in Girl Scouts, claiming she only loved to volunteer but soon going on trips around the world for Girl Scout meetings, then she was given the opportunity to be CEO. She turned it down, but then said she would fill it in for 6 months. 13 years later, she was still CEO, and, in those years, she added a quarter million members, more than 130,000 volunteers, and the cookie sales became more than $300 million a year. When she retired, she created an entire foundation at her fingertips now known as Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.
Question: Why did she retire from girl scouts?
Quote: “’I did not intend to become a leader, I just learned by doing what was needed at the time.’ In retrospect, Hesselbein can guess at lessons she never recognized when she was going through them. She saw both the power of inclusion and exclusion in diverse Johnstown. She learned resourcefulness..”
Pg. 153
Comment: On her 101st birthday, she was visited and her office Is filled with amazing awards from all of her success, and the visitor asked about how she did it all. Her response showed a lot about who she was and how she saw life. She adjusted to the current circumstances, and did her absolute best to fix and restore the current issues and problems. And by doing that, she made multiple companies thrive, earning double to triple to amount of money they had been before. This woman is 101 years old and can still give that good of a response to such a loaded question that digs so deep into her whole life is just amazing.
Question: How much is her net worth? How is she still alive?
Quote: “Career goals that once felt safe and certain. can appear ludicrous, to use Darwin’s adjective, when examined in the light of more self knowledge. Our work preferences and our life preferences do not stay the same, because we do not stay the same.”
Comment: This quote is interesting because about 30% of people switch jobs within 12 months of having them and go on to choose a completely different career path from what they had.
Question: what causes people to have such sudden changes in work and life preferences?
Quote:”It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs. . . . Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school . . . In such a world it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans”
Comment: It’s interesting to think that people who were born in the early 1900’s could have never though that there would be as many different career paths there is now then there was back then.
Question: Would would it take for someone to have a successful full career path change?
Quote:
“They had been told that getting off their initial path was too risky. But actually, we should all understand, this is not weird, this is the norm”
Comment:
The large majority of people interviewed expressed career paths that were “abnormal” Most, even felt a bit of embarrassment describing how they got to where they are now. People are often told from the beginning of their working careers that you should know what you want to do, and do whatever it takes to get there. They often portray a career path as linear, with no changes in interests, or breaks for something new. However, this seems to be uncommon in today’s world. Most people have a certain degree of uncertainty when it comes to choosing a career. Those who don’t, often find that what they had originally been interested in, isn’t a good fit for them. Many people take breaks from the career they intend to pursue, for exploratory jobs or additional schooling.
Questions:
If this is typically the norm, why did these people feel embarrassed about it applying to them? Where does this stigma come from? Is either way more effective than the other?
Quote:
“I had teammates whose drive and determination seemed almost boundless on the track, and nearly absent in the classroom, and vice versa. Instead of asking whether someone is gritty, we should ask when they are”
Comment:
This quote explains that hard work and the ability to lead others is not always dependent on the person, just the situation. If people are put in an environment that “suits them” then they are more likely to work harder, and enjoy doing so. Each person is made up of their individual experiences, and all have unique strengths. Its unfair to test every persons ability to work in only one scenario, as often times people may struggle to find motivation or the drive to work hard in one place, but will exceed expectations in another. The constant change of people can lead to the development of new strengths, hence looking to the past for someones current abilities is ineffective.
Questions: Why are people able to succeed in areas of interest significantly more than those that don’t interest them? Is a persons individual strengths something that can be pre-determined? Or is it truly a result of their individual experiences?
Quote: “Knight wrote that he ‘wasnt much for setting goals,’ and that his main goal for his new nascent shoe company was to fail fast enough that he could apply what he was learning to his next venture. He made one short-term pivot after another, applying the lessons as he went.” (Epstein 155)
Comment: I thought this was a very interesting quote because I would have never thought that one of the most successful companies was made to actually fail. I do think this is a very different way of thinking that maybe shouldn’t always be taught. Sure, this worked out for him, but I feel you should never go into something looking to fail.
Question: What do you think would happen if we had this mindset when it came to our education?
Quote: “‘They had been told that getting off their initial path was so risky. But actually we should all understand, this is not weird, its the norm’ Thus the research found a name, the Dark Horse Project, because even as more subjects were added, most perceived themselves as dark houses who followed what seemed like an unlikely path.”’ (Epstein 156)
Comment: I think this quote is interesting because it kind of sums up what society thinks as a whole when it comes to trying out different things and not actually knowing what you really want to do in life. We have been so subjected to the thought that what we are actually doing is not the way to go about life and this way of thinking can at times bring us down and stop us from trying to achieve our end goals. Which at least for me is to have a job that brings joy to my life.
Question: How can we combat the perceived norm that we should have our lives all put together at such a young age?
“ In retrospect, Hesslebein can guess at lessons she never recognized when she went through them. She saw both the power of inclusion and exclusion in diverse Jamestown. She learned resourcefulness as a jack-of-all-trade in the photography business. A new troop leader with less experience than her charges, she relied on shared leadership. She united stakeholders normally at loggerheads for the United Way campaign. Having never been out of the country until she traveled to international Girl Scout meetings, she learned to quickly find common ground with peers from all over the world.” (153)
Comment: Hesslebien was able to put into perspective lessons she has learned from past experiences. She wasn’t able to connect these experiences to lessons while she was experiencing them since there is no way of telling what is going to happen in the future. Going through a common group of individuals, like the Girl Scout troops, she learned they have experienced similar things since they have a common ground.
Question: Would Hesslebien be able to learn from different experiences if she didn’t have these common ground?
“Michael Crichton started with medicine too, after learning how few writers make a living. With medicine, “ I would never have to wonder if the work was worthwhile,” he wrote. Except, a few years in he became disenchanted with the medical practice. He graduated from Harvard Medical School, but decided to become a writer. His medical education was not remotely wasted. He used it to craft some of the most popular stories in the world-the novel Jurassic Park, and the TV series ER, with its record-setting 124 Emmy nomination” (156)
Comment: After Michael Crichton learned that writers didn’t make a living he moved to Medical practices. He then decided to take the two and learned that was what suited him the best. Once he combined the two things he was good at he was able to find a good medium that created a lot of good in his life. He found a way to be successful in a way that combined two things he was good at.
Question: If he didn’t find out that writing did not make a good living would he of continued with writing?
Quote – One extreme suggests that personality traits are entirely a function of one’s nature, and the other that personality is entirely a function of the environment.
Comment – To me this quote is very interesting. I wonder how my nature affects my personality and I wonder if there is a way to find out. Or, the other way around, how has my environment shaped my personality? I find these concepts to be very cool, because I think both play a role in making someone who they are. The quote talks about extremes, but why are they necessary when you can say both of these aspects had a role in making someone who they are and affecting their personality. This concept really makes me think about if it was a 50/50 split between these 2 ideas or if one played more of a role in shaping me than the other. I’d like to talk about this more and really understand if something like this is measurable or is it all just in theory?
Question – How does each concept play a role in who I am? How can I find out what has affected me the most?
Quote – Because personality changes more than we expect with time, experience, and different contexts, we are ill-equipped to make ironclad long-term goals when our past consists of little time, few experiences, and a narrow range of contexts.
Comment – This to me is very interesting. Earlier in the year we made a list of goals which I believe included long term goals so I am interested to see this contradiction between a book where we have taken a lot of information from and the actual class and goals we set. Why would we make these long term goals if there’s not really any reason to create these long term goals because our goals will always be changing. I truly believe that the long term goals are important and helpful when it comes to growing as a person and realizing what you want, but I am confused as to why the book contradicts that fact and sort of dismisses some of the work we have done in this class. I don’t think it is that much of an issue overall, but it is weird to see something like this.
Question – Why would the book contradict what we have been doing in class? Which is right?
Quote: “Rather than expecting an ironclad a priori answer to ‘Who do I really want to become?,’ their work indicated that it is better to be a scientist of yourself, asking smaller questions that can actually be tested– ‘Which among my various possible selves should I start to explore now? How can I do that?’ Be a flirt with your possible selves. Rather than a grand plan, find experiments that can be undertaken quickly” (Epstein 163).
Comment: I think this quote goes really well with this course’s message of exploring the things we enjoy and not necessarily deciding what we want to do with the rest of our lives, but focus on what we want to do now and what kinds of things we are interested in. While this idea does resonate with me, sometimes it is hard to just be in the moment without worrying about the future. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what you even want to do in the moment, or figuring out what it is you really enjoy doing. But you won’t know what you enjoy until you try, so the idea of experimenting with courses and other hobbies and activities can help you figure out what you enjoy doing.
Question: How can I decipher between the things I like to do and what I will actually want to do as a career?
Quote: “Naifeh argues that, as with Van Gogh, Pollock’s lack of traditional drawing skill was what led him to invent his own rules for making art. As schools offering standardized paths in art have proliferated, ‘one of the problems is that artists tend to be products of those schools,’ said Naifeh, an artist himself. Maybe that has helped fuel an explosion of interest in so-called outsider art, by practitioners who began without a standard path in sight” (Epstein 167).
Comment: I think that this idea also relates to a lot of other subjects in academia besides art. Much of secondary education relies on very specific procedures to solve problems in the classroom, and students who may have found other ways to solve problems won’t be given the opportunity to. In my opinion, schools don’t teach critical thinking skills as much as they should, because most assignments would have strict guidelines that you had to follow or you’d fail, which wouldn’t give kids much wiggle room to be creative or to think about how else they could do an assignment or solve a problem.
Question: Why do schools focus so much on specific processes without giving students the opportunity to be more creative?
Quote: “She never did graduate from college, but her office is festooned with twenty three honorary doctorates, plus a glistening saber given to her by the US Military Acendy for teaching leadership courses… ‘I was unaware that I was being prepared,’ she told me. ‘I did not intend to become a leader, I just learned by doing what was needed at the time.’ (152).
Comment: I found this quote very interesting because the author brings up the important point of how people can get to the same point from different starting points. Hesselbein was a “jack of all trades” in her area and excelled in the military through learning by doing. I thought this was interesting because most people in the military have a similar background: they might do ROTC in high school, go to military academy and either pass or fail out, and then go on to enter a branch of the military and work their way up through the ranks. Hesselbein did exactly the opposite: the author writes “she had no long term plan,” she lived in the moment and just rolled with the punches. What’s also interesting is her career started after the age of 50, instead of right out of high school like most.
Question: I’m curious how one becomes a jack of all trades? Hesselbein makes it sounds so easy…
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Quote: “He bounced around classes… Darwin began perhaps the most impactful post-college gap year in history. His father’s wishes eventually ‘died a natural death.’ Decades later, Darwin reflected on the process of self-discovery. ‘It seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman,’ he wrote. His father, a doctor for more than sixty years, detested the sight of blood.” (155)
Comment: I thought this quote was very interesting because it was very ironic. Darwin started out not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. He bounced around between classes and took a gap year which many people look down upon despite it being a smart choice for some. Darwin is one of the most well known names in the scientific community, yet did not start out his career like most. What is also interesting in this section of the chapter is the role that parents play in their children’s decision making. Darwin almost followed in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, and did not change his mind until after his father’s death. This shows the importance of letting kids make their own decisions instead of laying out their life path for them.
Question: How did Darwin enter evolutionary biology?
Quote
“Hesselbein remained CEO for thirteen years. Under her leadership, minority membership tripled; Girl Scouts added a quarter million members and more than 130,000 new volunteers. The cookie business grew to more than $300 million a year.”
Comment
This quote shows the impact and the legacy that Hesselbein left behind with the Girl Scouts. She made the famous Girl Scout cookies a household name and turned the Girl Scouts into an empire. She made the Girl Scouts more racially inclusive. This was important at that time because America was still having racial issues in the 1970s. There was still some segregation in certain parts of the country. Hesselbein is an inspiration and she changed the entire face of the Girl Scouts. Before Hesselbein became the CEO, Diversity was one of the Girl Scouts biggest problems but it was not acknowledged. Hesselbein made it her top priority and assembled a leadership team. Hesselbein modernized the Girl Scouts. Before, the Girl Scouts were known for holding traditions and not changing much about how their program worked. Hesselbein changing this and modernizing them was probably the greatest thing to ever happen to the Girl Scouts.
Question
What would the Girl Scouts look like today without Hesselbein’s leadership?
Quote
“Six weeks after leaving the helm of the world’s largest organization for girls and women, she was CEO of a foundation with no money or assets, but a free office, which was enough for her to get started. She built a staff and today is busy running the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.”
Comment
This quote shows the genius of Frances Hesselbein. She is an amazing businesswoman who changed the face of the Girl Scouts and turned them into a household name. When she retired in 1990 she decided to start a new company of her own from scratch and made it very successful. She is an inspiration and she has proven that having a leadership trait is probably the most important trait that a person can have. She never got a degree in anything because she never finished college but by using her leadership skills she was able to become one of the most successful women in the business world to ever live. For her incredible achievements, she was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She received no training for what she accomplished. All she did was trust herself and she did whatever she thought was necessary and could teach her.
Question
What motivated her to retire from the Girl Scouts and start a company from scratch?
QUOTE 1
“Hesselbein mentioned it to a dress-factory worker who was also volunteering, and the woman told her, ‘You have to carry a big basket to bring something home.’ She repeats the phrase today, to mean that a mind kept wide open will take something from every new experience.” –Page 153
COMMENT
I liked this quote quite a bit. I know a lot of people who go about their lives feeling like if they don’t directly benefit from a situation or relationship, they feel as though their time was wasted. Someone who is open-minded knows that if something doesn’t work out, whether it be a failed project, or perhaps a relationship gone sour, they can reflect on what happened and learn from it. It’s always a good idea to be grateful for the things that come into your life– I’ve found that having the ‘everything happens for a reason’ sort of mentality generates much more happiness and positivity, I’ve been able to bounce back from my misfortunes with much more ease than someone who dwells on negative experiences.
QUESTION
If everyone were able to be more open-minded about the experiences they have, would the world be different? Would we see an increase in overall happiness/positivity?
QUOTE 2
“It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs… Most of the work I’ve done in the last 10 years didn’t exist when I was in high school… In such a world, it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans.” –Page 163
COMMENT
I chose this quote because this is something I encountered when I interviewed the professor for my exploration. He mentioned that a lot of students try to make a very fixed-plan for their futures. I agree that this is not a good plan, because absolutely nobody can predict exactly how their lives are going to go. Dr. Frederich told me that he moved to the US from Germany with the plan to only stay for 2-3 years. Having been here for 23 years, obviously that’s not how things played out for him. You never know who you will meet or what opportunities might present themselves to you– rarely in life do things play out exactly how we want them to.
QUESTION
What might happen if school systems taught kids to embrace new opportunities, to have them grow up more freely, and less fearful of failure/things not working out?