Global Visions

Throughout the last week of 2011, I was reflecting on the past year and how much has changed – as well as what has remained the same. Much in the same vein as my thoughts on 2010, I decided to chronicle the highs, lows, and various notable points of 2011. Memories change over time, so I want to preserve these while they’re still fresh in my mind. This is a stream-of-consciousness journey through the past year, with a destination yet to be determined. Here goes.

The past year, I have continued to attend Concordia University here in Austin, and am on track to graduate with a double major in Business Management and Marketing in the spring of 2013. International business remains my focus, so I always strive to put what I learn in the classroom into a global perspective before filtering it back into my own life. I worked hard in my studies and was blessed to maintain a 4.0 GPA. Even more exciting is the clarity that all of my studies have given me what I want to do with my life. This is a process that seems to compound year over year, and it far transcends what any grade or quantitative metric can indicate. I wince when people ask me what I want to do after college, because I am painfully aware of how life can drastically change beyond our control in a short period of time. I know where I would like to be in 5 years, however, I cannot assure that I will be there with any degree of certainty. I cannot predict the future; I can only project it. Nonetheless, overall I am relatively satisfied with where I am academically. God is good.

On the travel front, I was able to get around a decent amount this year, and was fortunate enough to go at least somewhere every month of the year. One of the highlights this year was travelling down to Belize and Guatemala in March to study tropical biology and marine ecosystems with a collaborative class of students and faculty from Austin and Portland, Oregon. It was an incredible experience – not only did I learn a lot about tropical science and history, but I made some great friends and memories. Hiking around the Mayan ruins, diving on the world’s second-largest coral reef, and relaxing on isolated islands are all experiences I will never forget. In July, I traveled up to Washington DC for a week, followed by another week of visiting family in Ohio and Kentucky. It was fascinating seeing the historical center of America as we know it today, and I learned a lot. In early October, I went to Louisiana for an international relations conference – this was a precursor to a competition I helped out with on behalf of Concordia in San Antonio in November. Immediately following that trip, it was off to a business leadership conference in Atlanta as part of the Thrivent Scholars Program. It was a memorable trip with some great friends, and the diverse range of speakers we heard there were fantastic! The next day, I flew up to the Pacific Northwest for a week and visited my uncle and his family in Washington, as well as some friends at Concordia Portland, in Oregon. This was followed by a trip to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, and a relatively quiet month of December. Hopefully there will be more adventures to come in 2012!

Detouring back to school for a moment, it was a good year for extracurricular activities as well. We had another great semester with Concordia’s business club, The Executives, with some fun events and many good conversations. Here’s to another great semester, guys! I continued to co-host Not.fm, a weekly internet radio show with three of my friends at school. It’s shaping up to be an exciting year for music, so I’m sure our show will be as well! Another fun project has been helping to start up Storm Chasers, an on-campus bike-sharing program for Concordia students and faculty. It’s been an exciting process, and I’m excited to see where things will head in the year ahead!

As is the case in all of our lives, a unique set of challenges presented itself this year. It was stressful at times balancing a full class load, 35+ hours a week, and whatever else I was involved in at a given time. I’m incredibly thankful to still be working in real estate management and property preservation, as it provides a degree of flexibility for scheduling during the school year. In the latter part of the year, I broke my right wrist and had surgery on it, from which I’m still healing. While not the optimal way to end the year, it’s taught me to slow down (at least a little) to relax from time to time. As an added bonus, I even got a little extra sleep! It’s also given me an increased amount of gratitude for the otherwise outstanding health I do have.

Every challenge is a blessing in disguise.

To recognize the light within darkness is sometimes the most difficult thing to do in life, and it’s something I’ve been working on for years. Currently, I liken it to trying to take a step back and survey the landscape of life while on a speeding train. You can do it, but it’s pretty difficult. Nonetheless, the faster life forges ahead, the easier this gets. Not because I have an ever-expanding canvas to look at, but because I can so much better see how all of the pieces fit together, and this gives me peace. As my mom once told me, “Now I can see some joy through the clouds.” It’s so true. There’s so many little lessons I learned while she was alive that are turning out to be big lessons now, and I’m so thankful for the time that I did get with her on earth. There’s so much I have to improve on personally in life, and I am thankful for the fact that I have had good guidance to direct me along the way. Life has been full of difficult experiences, but I try to use them as catalysts to positively influence others, directly or otherwise. For better or for worse, I’ve been endowed with what sometimes appears to be a slightly different perspective than others, and this brings me to my next thought.

This year has been yet another exercise in patience, and it remains something I need to work on in the year ahead. Too often I try to explain things to people who sound overly judgmental and forget to remember that they don’t know any better. In an ironic twist, the judged becomes the judger. I now realize that no matter how eloquent or concise I may make my words, sometimes the message just isn’t going to get across. There could be any number of barriers to this, and I now know that sometimes it’s impossible to make someone “get the point”. They haven’t lived my life, and I haven’t lived theirs. I am okay with this, for I try to make my words as impactful as possible. Control is retained up the point of dictation, and I will be at peace with whatever reactions may follow.

But at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words, so I am going to focus simultaneously on being even more mindful of my actions and discretionary in my wording, both in speech and in text. Actions are important, but words are immortal – and if your actions are indeed significant enough to be immortalized, then words will be the vehicle for doing that. So yes, words are powerful indeed. Shoot for more than just an epitaph on a tombstone.

I’d like to say thank you to everyone in my life this year. Our paths all intersect for different reasons; I’m not sure what all of the reasons are but I do know that the composite of the story arcs of all of our lives will be a sight to behold when all is said and done. To my family and friends, I’m endlessly thankful for your encouragement, unconditional support, prayers, and friendship. You all are valued more than you know.

One last note to those readers who are detractors of retrospectives. People say to live in the present and look towards the future rather than dwelling on the past, but you know what? Sometimes the past bleeds into the present, which helps to shape our future. Without a proper mental context of where you’ve been, how are you to know where you will go?

Alright, that’s all I have to say for now. I hope you all have a blessed 2012, here’s to another incredible chapter in our life as we know it!

There’s this poem I keep coming back to lately. I ran across it one day in a book and
have found the words pretty hard to forget. It goes something like this:

 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

What an incredible piece of poetry, right? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I have to say, Frost hit the nail on the head when it comes to this feeling. I’ve found that especially since graduating high school, I’ve made more of these fork-in-the-road decisions than I can remember. In fact, purely in terms of my own decision making, these past three years have been the most transformative of my life. The ten before that were even more so, but that was not of my own doing. We all have the power to choose which path to take, and though the road less travelled is a difficult journey at times, ultimately it is rewarding - indeed, when looked at with the right mindset, the journey itself can be the biggest reward. However, as the wistful voice of Frost might indicate, the one downside to this notion is that every journey comes to an end.

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Something that’s been on my mind recently is the over-saturation of unnecessary professionalism in the workplace. I realize this may seem like a shocking statement, but allow me to expound upon this notion.

It seems like the two should go together hand-in-hand, right? Business and professionalism have always been linked, and rightly so. Every person deserves respect within the corporate world, regardless of rank or pay. However, there comes a point when professionalism becomes the redundant, and I believe this has the potential to hurt any organization. In this context, what is “professionalism”? I define it as, in short, business formalities. Dress code, syntactical guidelines for corporate email, and any number of human resources mandated policies are all included under this umbrella. This argument comes into play in regards particularly to communication. Want an example of how vague and indifferent communication can actually hurt business? Look no further than the infamous catchphrase of the faceless corporate behemoth, “Please advise”. From my experience in the business world, I’ve seen that the usage of this phrase is a pretty standard phenomenon. However, not only is it grammatically incorrect (‘advise’ is a transitive verb that requires an object), but it comes off as demanding, pretentious, and needlessly vague. Inexplicably, it’s become a staple of corporate emails and inter-office communication. 

This is but one example of a corporate universe that is quickly losing its identity. Instead of encouraging individuality, businesses prefer to squelch it with inane guidelines, perhaps in hopes of being “kosher” and fitting in with every other 9 to 5 employer out there. Unfortunately, this does more harm than good. As I’ve seen firsthand, it is the rare business that can scale without losing its unique culture (one notable exception is Google). I look around the current business landscape and see rolling hills of cube farms that serve their utmost master; the ever-venerable employee handbook. There is hope for the future though, and times are changing. The recent startup boom in the technology sector has spawned a rash of companies that are eager to promote their passions through their businesses, remaining unencumbered by unnecessary formality. Want a great example? Check out the blog of 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Hansson. These guys know what it means to do business their way, while still remaining a powerful force in the industry.

The corporate landscape is changing, but that doesn’t mean change will happen overnight. It truly makes me sad when I see companies that are successful, but have no real culture. So many founders create inspiring ideological foundations for their companies, only to have them negated by the gradual invasion of what I like to call “prim and proper syndrome”. Overtly formal and indifferent communication will only lead to the breeding of workers who will carry these same habits over into their personal lives outside of work - and what an awful thing that would be! At the end of the day, I believe that the facts are as follows. Faceless formality is not necessary. Respect is. I think it’s time more companies embrace this philosophy, in hopes of bringing eclecticism back to the workplace.