Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
First of all, I would like to state my appreciation of the course. That is such a pleasure to say that it is so much more than it was in my expectations. When you take a business course, you rely on professor’s professionalism and competence. But as we know, so many interesting speakers came to class to share their outstanding experience. It is so much better to view some concepts from different approaches. When hot topics are brought to the table, all opinions are interesting to here, especially from people with years of professional experience in the field. The course changed my view on business ethics and business relationship in terms of professional communication, interpersonal relationships, and conflict solving strategies. The most important influence on me was made by ideas of constructive problem solving and multi-task orientation attitude. One of the main questions I asked myself was if “it’s possible to become a leader or it is an innate ability and can’t be developed”, as well as another important issue of interpersonal relationship of a leader in a team. I have some leadership skills and features that help me in life, but have a problem of building professional relationships and using my skills for time management and goal- orientation. For building these skills I am taking this Leadership course in order to gain necessary knowledge and experience to reach my goals. In that case, invited class- speakers were a great option to gain the most of this class in a short period of time. The most impressive speakers in my opinion, was Norman Schwartz, BC accounting graduate who has held CFO and other positions in financial firms and in the shipping industry. Being a mentor for business students through the Magner Center, he has started in conjunction with Dean Hopkins the student run Biz-e-News School of Business Newsletter. The most important idea that he holds is that all students have the potential to become leaders. With the help of a special tool, it is absolutely possible to achieve all goals. Now I would like to describe the speech and ideas I got from the speech of Norman Schwartz. Norman Schwartz is a great public speaker with a good sense of humor. His ability to catch and keep your attention are outstanding. I was sold right away by his charisma and friendly attitude. In order to better construct my review, I would like to point out three main business features of a speaker that look outstanding to me: goal-orientation, strong character, and competence. Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.
GARY RYAN BLAIR
Let’s start from goal-orientation. It is extremely important to state your goals, to find right tools to achieve them, and to follow your goals till the result is achieved. Henry Ford was saying that “most of the failures happen in one step before the victory”. I absolutely agree that we all like to dream but barely can focus on making them come true, because we are too destructed by every-day problems and self- explanatory why we don’t do something. Most of the time it’s a fear of failure or judgment, sometimes it’s a monetary risk or fear to owe somebody. It can be anything that will give you apology for not doing business. As Charles Noble says, “you must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures”. For me for a long time it was the answer “no”. When I hear “no”, it kills the very little motivation and inspiration I have to the subject. While Norman Schwartz presents a different prospective to this fact: for him, “no” – is just a beginning and not an ending, because if you know your goals, you will find tools to achieve it in a right time and right disposition. It is