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Friends and mentors are vital for success

As I ponder at what I have read during this week, I am reminded of how important it is to be able to work as a team and also to have a mentor. I have had a few mentors over my adult life. One of those mentors helped me get a job working for a copy machine sales and service shop when I got off of my mission. It was a decent job, but I didn't enjoy the work environment on occasion. However, I did gain valuable custom service and interpersonal skills, and how to work as a team. It was good for me even though at the time, I really was biding my time just to make money. Another mentor introduced me to the physical therapy industry. My friend is a physician assistant. I think highly of him. So I decided that I should come by and spot some physical therapists at work. What they do everyday is hard work, but very rewarding. In the end, I decided not to go into physical therapy. Overall I have had a hard time pinning down what exactly it is that I want to do. This is the mindset that has made me realize I need to keep good friends for the influence as a good mentor. In David A Nitz Launching Leaders I was reading in Chapter 3 when he was talking about how he and his wife and family ran a farm. On this farm they had honey bees. He spoke of how efficient a bee works and how many pounds of honey per year that a hive can produce, even though an individual bee can produce very little on its own. It made me think of how crucial it is to work in a team. To be honest, I really don't like working in teams because of negative experiences in the past where the work is not equally shared among group members. It is also difficult working in group to nail down times for completing assignments oftentimes. However, It is possible to make teamwork successful. For the most park it takes a natural leader to stand up and persuade the entire time to take responsibility for their parts. Something that has just occurred to me recently is that I am generally more positive than I used to be. I think that is largely because I am back in school and becoming more educated again. It creates a sense of self worth. I am also using my stepping stones of self improvement to reach my future stars by being more positive, staying on top of my homework early, and by setting the proper amount of time aside for school.


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