Business Advice - GO TO CONFERENCES!

This past week was full of new things that I learned and experienced that I feel that I should share with other aspiring professionals. I weaseled my way into attending two conferences with my company. Normally, they don’t like to send such young “inexperienced” people to represent their company and brand, but I got student level prices, so it was hard to argue against it. That’s the first thing I learned, push the issue if you really think that you attending a function can be beneficial for the company and for you as a professional. Now, I don’t mean stomp your feet and demand it. Create an argument that they simply cannot say no to.

So anyway, I was able to attend these conferences! One was HR Southwest (#HRSW) whose primary function is to highlight current and emerging trends and explain how they have changed in the past year. I learned a ton about many varied aspects of HR. As a vendor (I do mostly selection and development consulting), sometimes it is hard to see the struggles that internal HR professionals face and how my tools can help to alleviate some of those struggles. I will go over a few things I learned, just because I find them so cool!

The coolest thing I learned concerned flexible competency modeling. Typically, competency modeling is done while only examining the job itself and maybe bringing in some of the organizational culture. Flexible competency modeling also takes the overall business strategy into consideration for competency model development. While the culture hits on the strategy a bit, understanding the positioning of the business is integral to selecting individuals who can realize the vision. I digress a little bit, but I did learn at least one thing that is not only super cool, but can be applied to my company’s best practices to make them even more competitive. This brings me to my second piece of advice: make sure that if you do attend a function on behalf of your company that you can demonstrate that you learned something (s) that they can use in the future.

The other conference I attended was the People Report Best Practices Conference. People Report is an organization powered by Black Box Intelligence who offers various data trends to organizations that sign up as members. They typically focus on the restaurant/service industry, but the attendees varied across industries. I got to go to that conference for a few reasons. One, I helped the marketing director to come up with an awesome “theme” for our presence. Two, my company hosts a dinner at the closing of the conference and is known for dancing or putting on some type of show. Right up my alley, right?! 

I used my talents (haha) and outside work experience to head up teaching my coworkers a series of dances that tied into our overall “theme.” It was a huge success, and really fun for me to do, as I will always have a passion for dance, even if it is cutesy and fun. In addition, my sorority recruitment days helped me to work a booth, design buttons and T-Shirts, organize an event and keep an outward positive attitude. That is my last piece of advice: understand your talents and strengths and apply them to something that will not only help you succeed as an individual, but that will also benefit the business. 

I’d love to hear any other stories of anyone doing those three pieces of advice or simply some suggestions on conferences or events that are awesome! Have a great week!

Rejection

We all have experienced rejection in some form or fashion. Whether it was by a significant other or friend or by an institution or team, it has happened sometime. Everyone says that the way you deal with the rejection is the most important component of it; “It shows your character” etc. I think sometimes we get lost in showing how much we don’t care about the rejection that we never really deal with it or understand how to effectively move forward.

Last week, I auditioned for a small, new, semi-professional dance team. The team cheered for and supported the North Texas Longhorns, who are a member of the Texas United Football League. I was so excited to have the opportunity to try out for a team this year (as most auditions have passed). I found out about it about a week before the audition, but decided to go ahead and try anyway. As I’m sure you’ve guessed; I didn’t make the team. 

I was SO SAD, but not completely devastated. I tried to push it from my mind the past couple of days, but then I decided that that was just plain stupid. If you try and don’t succeed, don’t blindly try again! Really understand why you didn’t succeed. While I can’t get the judges notes or even what they were looking for, I can evaluate as an individual things that I could have done differently. I could have attended all of the prep classes even though my circumstances prevented me from doing so. I could have practiced more. I could have researched more about the team. I could have done many things differently. 

While I won’t “beat myself up” about it, I think really evaluating what I did wrong is important if I plan on pursuing things like this in the future. This technique can and should be applied to most situations. While my failure could be attributed to things out of my control (the way I look, what they were looking for, etc.) it’s important to focus on the things I can control and try to do things differently. If it something we truly cannot control, why think about that one aspect of the situation?

Sometimes I think we get into the mindset that we couldn’t have done anything differently and if the school, person or dance team didn’t want me, they don’t know what they are missing! While that may be true, why did they not know how awesome you were?! Honestly, were you really that good? Maybe you didn’t portray yourself well, etc. Diving into those things without developing a complex about yourself is an important step to getting to the goals you want.

Don't EVER tell me NO!

Have you ever been in a situation where someone has told you that you absolutely cannot do something? This is what happened to me recently, and I just, point-blank, find that type of assessment unacceptable. Dealing with an internal (yours) or an external (other people’s) lack of confidence is necessary in all areas of life. My experience, I think, can help me in the future when dealing with individuals who think that I can’t accomplish something. I’ll go back to one of the first experiences when I was told I couldn’t do something and draw some coping habits from that. 

When I was in 5^th grade, everyone that wanted to learn a musical instrument for 6^th grade band was mouthpiece tested to be sure that you could play the instrument you wanted. I REALLY wanted to play the flute. I mean, this was going to be my instrument, no if ands or buts. So I get tested and the instructor told me that “I don’t have the mouth to play the flute.” My reaction was WHAT?! I mean I got that we were being tested for a reason, but that I don’t have the mouth for it?! It sounded like a modeling audition to me! 

Well, I told my mom and was SO UPSET about it. I told her that I didn’t want to be in band anymore because that’s all I wanted to learn. And she said this: You can learn to play the flute; you may just have to work harder because of this mouth thing that your instructor highlighted. I was dumbfounded. I felt like the end of the world had come but my mom made it sound so simple. So my mom ordered a flute over the summer and I took some lessons beforehand to help me catch on. Well guess what? My instructor was wrong. I could play fine! The first day of class, my instructor saw that I was sitting in the flute section and I was pulled aside after class just to discuss my decision. She wasn’t upset or anything, she just wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I showed her that I could play and had made the effort to learn ahead of time. From then on, this instructor and I had a very close relationship and she helped me learn and do as well as I possibly could. I even won medals at our State Solo and Ensemble competitions! Granted, I wasn’t the best flute player of all time; but I made it a point to be the best I could be. 

So from this experience, I learned how to deal with the dissenters of the world. Rather than get angry or upset about their lack of faith in you, PROVE to them that you can do it. There is that old adage that “you can do anything you set your mind to” and I firmly believe it. I understand that more work may be involved and that there may be a ceiling that you will probably hit, but that doesn’t mean to give up altogether at the beginning because of someone else’s assessment. My mom gave me that lesson rather early in life and I continue to use it even up to these past few weeks. 

So in light of this recent situation, I’m going for it. It helps that I already know that I can do it. I love challenges, so I challenge all of my readers to be sure to not let the “haters” get to you. I’ve actually found that the better you are at something, the more dissenters you will encounter. Rather paradoxical, huh? But leave them to “hatin’” and know that you can accomplish what you want and how you want. I leave you with this: HATERZ GONNA HATE!

Remember Your Loved Ones

While the title may evoke some negative connotations, this post is meant to be very positive and multi-faceted. Firstly, I’ll go into what sparked this post. This past weekend, on Saturday, I went to the fair and watched the Texas game and Rangers game with my family and my boyfriend. On Sunday, I spent it watching movies, cooking and lounging around the apartment with my boyfriend. On Monday, I had a good day at work actually learning a few new things, finishing up stuff that I was tired of dealing with and being creative (one of my favorite things to do). Monday evening, I went to a beginner ballet class (if you know me, I’ve been dancing for over 20 years, but I wanted to do a basic class) and then watched TV and hung out with my roommate. 

So far, my week has been amazing, and here is why. I did things with people that I love and care about (loved ones). I also did things that I LOVE to do; the fair, relaxing, football, baseball, ballet, etc. (more loved ones). Now I know that a lot of my previous posts talk about not losing yourself and doing things that make you happy. Another caveat to that advice is to keep those who you love and care about close by (even if it is just over the phone). This definitely aids in the charge of not losing yourself in your daily routines. My family really knows and “gets” me (which does say a lot). They know when I am having problems or are sad or upset without me telling them or them even seeing me. They know when we talk on the phone! My boyfriend and roommate are the same way. They can tell exactly why I’m irritated or why I’m happy.  

Keeping the things you love to do close to you definitely changes your outlook on things. Keeping the people you care about close further enhances that positive outlook. I didn’t mind getting up early and going to work to get a flu shot this morning because I am still in a mood created over a period of a couple of days. I rather like to end my posts with a challenge, so here is this weeks: If you haven’t seen someone you care about in a while, either call or make plans to visit. If you haven’t done something that you absolutely love to do, try and do it sometime this month. 

Those two challenges definitely involve some changes to your routine. I like routine, but I also like that excitement of seeing someone I’ve missed or doing something that I’ve missed. I hope all of you have the same result!