Mini Paper #3

Aaron Rodriguez 

July 16, 2019

Mini Paper #3

Cohort 21S

In Bradberry and Greaves (2009) it states, “Getting to know yourself inside and out is a continuous journey of peeling back the layers of the onion of becoming more and more comfortable with what is in the middle-the true essence of you” (p.61). The authors talk about this because in order to be a leader of others you need to lead yourself and in order to lead yourself you must understand yourself. Life is a continuous journey full of highs and lows that help shape an individual's life and this shaping of your life will determine who you become and how you lead others. Ever since I was a young child, I have been an outsider; my cousins are over 10 years older than me or all girls, and in school, nobody from the same place, or I was the only one who spent time in another country. I was never able to seem to connect with anyone in my life because our lives were nothing similar. It all starts as I was born on August 24, 1997, in Guam. I was born with medical problems (Meconium aspiration) and had to be medically evacuated to Okinawa, Japan. At the age of two, my parents were reassigned to San Diego. I lived there until middle school where we moved to Italy. This started as a low point because I was leaving friends I had made in elementary school and I was afraid I wouldn’t meet anyone. I had pleaded to my parents not to leave but I had no choice, we had to leave. This low point leads to a high point as I started joining sports teams and made new friends. 

Playing sports allowed me to travel all over Europe and meet people all over the world. The most memorable moment was when I had gone to the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Junior League Championship. During this time, I was able to meet up with an old friend from the previous year who won the Italian Championship and meet new people from South Africa. This was the first time that I had seen how global sports was and felt like a superstar because we would travel around for games and some of my older teammates were interviewed to be featured on the Armed Forces Network (AFN). These high points continued through my time in Europe, achieving European Championships and making new connections with people from all over the world. This high came to a low when I moved back to America. When I got back all my old friends had changed, I felt as though my time had disconnected me from the things that we had in common and we grew apart. During this time, I didn’t really hang out with anyone and often ate my lunch alone.  After finishing my lunch, I would just walk around the school and think. This was maybe the lowest point of my life but in this time of thinking, I was able to build a goal for myself, to get into the sports industry. 

To get away from this environment that I had dreaded and felt so disconnected from I went to undergrad at Cal State LA. Since I knew what I wanted to do I knew that I wanted to live in Los Angeles which is one of the largest sports markets in the world. This goal and new start lead me to a high point which drove me through my time in college. The goal of getting to my dream of working in sport pushed me to do a lot of things that I had not done in high school, to lean in to discomfort. This is reflected in Bradberry and Greaves (2009) “Rather than avoiding a feeling, your goal should be to move toward the emotion, into it, and eventually through it” (p.68). Most people tend to avoid their feelings when stressed and don’t overcome it and this will not help you in your leadership. In order to not have your emotions affect your leadership, you must embrace it and overcome it. Once you accept your emotions for what they are (a part of you), you will be able to understand yourself and the most effective way for you to lead. In college I joined an organization on campus (Alpha Phi Omega) and took on leadership positions, I participated more in class and school competitions and also applied to the University of San Francisco to pursue the dream even further. This was a very productive time for me, I was growing emotionally as well as growing my knowledge to be more confident and make more informed decisions. During my time I tried taking on big projects and was not discouraged in trying to produce new ones despite having most members who were not interested in working harder to better the organization. Luckily, I was able to find a group of members who did want things to be better and together we strived to make a healthier organization. Projects that we were able to be successful in was the Forget-Us-Not Benefit Concert, various service projects, as well as developing relationships between new non-profit organizations as well as other organizations on campus. While in these positions I was also in charge of helping make decisions to settle disputes between members as well as between the organization and the school. These times of making decisions showed how I reacted to a stressful situation. Most times in making decisions of punishment I would be on the harsh side and want them to receive the full consequences. Those who wanted to have lower punishments I couldn’t understand why so I went back to my method of thinking. To find this answer I was looking for what (Bradberry and Greaves (2009) is talking about “Knowing why your buttons are what they are opens doors to managing reactions to your triggers”( p.74). It is important to know what your triggers are so you can learn to control them. If your trigger influences your decisions, then you will not think clearly and make a decision that you will regret in the future. In order to combat this, I would walk around campus and would try and see why they thought that way and why this way of thinking made me mad. After a long time of thinking and walking, I understood that my way of thinking may come from my military background which was those who were punished in school or parents by commanding officers was severe. Kids who messed up by drinking or smoking weed were deported back to the United States and those in the military were suspended from their jobs or kicked out of the military. These punishments became the basis for what I feel is an acceptable punishment. So not only was I shaped to think that those who were punished should be punished severely, but the reason for this punishment was justified because it would get them to get away from the bad influences that were around them. When I made decisions on punishment, I thought the same, “We are punishing them to help them”. I began to see the other side that punishing them was hurting their future and diminishing their confidence in the organization. As I grew older, I also made some of these same decisions that I had previously been opposed to, so I understood why these people made decisions that would get them in trouble. 

The highs and lows of my life have shaped the person that I am today and how I handle situations. The lows have developed struggles for me to overcome and test my reaction to pressure to set up my highs in life when I overcome these struggles. Now I react in two ways when I am faced with a situation that requires an action. Most times I am quiet and am observing the environment around me because of my high school experience. I didn’t have anyone to be around and talk to, so I just observed the people around them and studied their interactions with others to gauge an environment. While I was in college, I learned how to use my voice and speak up through leadership positions. I like to have all the information possible to make a good decision which I gather from observing the environment and the people around me. When I gather this information, I speak up about my findings and what I think is the best decision. I am very adamant about my opinion am willing to fight for the conclusion that I have found. This approach to solving problems is from my experience in leadership and with the military. The military caused me to be quiet because those who were in charge were the only ones that could speak. This gave me no choice but to observe. This gave me no choice but to gather information and now I use this information to make decisions with my new-found confidence in my ability to speak up. This has proved to be effective because I study all the factors through observation and am now confident enough to speak up about my conclusions. My highs and lows have made me into the person I am today, all the good and bad I have learned to embrace them all.

Learning to embrace who I am can help me a lot in the future. Since I know it takes time for me to make decisions because I require a lot of information to make decisions and consider a lot of factors.  I also need to account for the time of gathering information, this makes my decision-making process take more time so if a project needs to have a quick decision then I need to develop a new strategy of decision making. Overall, I tend to make decisions of analytical thought as opposed to empathetic thought and am growing to learn that in some cases it may be better to put yourself in other people's shoes before deciding. 

References

Bradberry, Travis and Greaves, Jean. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart: