The business is moving forward, but we are adjusting to the different changes and failures we might face. As we divide into the different management departments: CEO, CFO, CMO, etc. I find myself in the group with the CMO's. Happily with that decision, I knew I wanted to focus on advertising our business to everyone. I wanted to spread our business like a prophet, in the most persuasive way possible. However, not only was I excited to advertise, but I was ready to face the design of the logo like if it were my destiny to do so.
As I am very passionate for art, I was so happy to be able to incorporate my skills in creating the logo for the business. Having made numerous different examples over the past week I have definitely noticed growth. Although, it wasn't easy; it was rather frustrating and depressing. I began to draw several ideas out on a peace of paper of how I can incorporate different elements in the logo of our smoothie business. For example, I tried incorporating a blender because the name of our business ended up being "BLENDZ". However, that idea didn't turn out so well because a blender isn't a very cool or fun symbol. I also tried incorporating fruits in the name "BLENDZ". For example I substituted the L for a banana and I substituted the E for a sliced orange. However, this idea was seemingly complex and not basic so it was another failure. Then I tried to incorporate a basic element, the cup. However, the cup I drew wasn't the type of cup we were going to sell. Nevertheless, my peer found a cup that might be more appropriate, so we decide as a group to go forth with that one. Realizing that my sketches were a failure, honestly had me frustrated and sad at first. But I knew that because I was so passionate about the design for the logo, it would only push me forward to creating an even better design, without making the same mistakes as before. Beyond all this frustration and realization I learned several things. Even though someone might not agree with my sketch I can still present it or expand on the ones presented to me. Plus during the process I learned how to draw on the computer using something called a Wacom. A Wacom is basically a device connected to the computer, but used to draw on. IT IS AMAZING! However it took awhile to get used to because it is a little more complex to use at first than grabbing a pencil and drawing on a piece of paper. Take a look at the progression -->
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In the IA right now our focus is business; however, this time we will be starting one of our own. We will be investing an amount of money to the business we create in order recuperate it back from the revenue we produce. In starting to do so we have to generate business ideas that we later have to pitch to the class. As I have never pitched anything before I was pretty inexperienced and nervous. My teacher presented his vision of a business for the class to start, it was an incredibly thought out idea. Corey present his pitch first, as an example for us to be inspired by and to generate new ideas from. His idea was to create a place on the FDR campus named Creative Coffee. It would be a mimic of Starbucks, but in school. The vision for his pitch was to create a place on campus where students, faculty, and parents could all go to relax and purchase snacks and beverages —mainly coffee. The idea he had sought through for the location of Creative Coffee would to be to buy an old used shipping container and use it as a pop-up store. After hearing his pitch I was shocked, but with a growth mindset I wasn’t going to let competition threaten me, I was gonna let it help me generate new ideas for my 5 minute pitch the following class. As soon as I got home that day, I was excited to start my pitch, I began researching examples of student led school business and pop-up stores. My information led me to what I decided to name “The Spot”. Catchy name right? Have you ever had an idea of a dream business, or a dream place you see can happen at your school? One of those ideas that you just can't wait to share and see what people think? Well let me pitch you mine, similarly to when I had to pitch it to my entire class. However, first I am going to paint you a canvas-- a little scenario in which you go to a school where recently it has become all healthy. By this I mean that no more sodas are sold, no more candy, and no more junk food. Slowly the school food system is being over run by a horrendously evil monopoly named Charlotte, mwahaha! Where the food and the beverages just become endlessly repetitive and your desperate for a hero to your daily meals at school. Therefore, I present to you The SPoT. A new hero in town for your daily scholarly meals. Imagine your out and about at school with your friends and one of them asks, " Hey Stefan where do you want to go?" All you have to respond is, "Let's go to The SPOT!" Now what is the spot? Well I would be delighted to inform you. It is essentially a space on campus where students, faculty, and parents can come relax and purchase some delightfully seasonal beverages. However, the year-round golden beverage would be the all natural and healthy smoothie. And where would this smoothie stand be located? Hold up right there speedy Gonzalez, after numerous amounts of research I found out three important places where you might find a pop-up stores. Below are some intriguing pop-store examples--> Narrowing my research I came down to three possible setting for possible places where the spot could be held. 1) Vacant space in malls or other commercial storefronts. This gave me the idea of: what if the spot could be in an unused classroom on campus which the IA could remodel and use for THE SPOT? This might be something interesting to investigate and talk to the school board about.
When starting the spot every IA member would have to break up in to teams/roles. These roles vary through out the project. These are the roles--> Ending with three key components do you find this pitch: Desirable? Feasible? Viable?
Today marks the end of the first week of school. With that in mind, I thought of a question in relation to my goal for the year.
¿Did I challenge myself? did I apply the growth mindset that I learned and am still learning by experience? Never have I ever been so glad to say YES! While we were assigning roles during iWeek, I remembered hearing one of my colleagues say, "Who wants to present?" Immediately, I froze. I felt every inch of my body tighten and shy away. I felt like a squeezed sponge, now small and hidden. At first I rejected the Idea of presenting, like the water squeezed from the sponge. Nevertheless, I quickly remembered --> WWAGMD (What would a growth mindset do) In the midst of shying away I shot up like a rocket and the words came out of me; I knew it was my growth mindset speaking, "I would be willing to try". All my peers that had been with me the year before knew how much I got nervous while presenting. However, I knew this time I had to step up for the challenge. The only way I could ever become a better presenter was to keep trying, not caring if I failed but knowing that I gave it my best effort. Stepping up for the challenge to present resulted with me being in charge of the presentation. Filling in these big shoes, I had to act like a leader. "A leader is a dealer in hope." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte Dealing hope to those who believed in the presentation itself and in me presenting it. Also to those who were presenting beside me, I had to step it up! I practiced and practiced, the night before, the night before that, and even right before the presentation. Although some may say to practice to much a presentation before might confused you, I know myself. There's never a limit to practicing, at least I have noticed this in myself and that practice paid off. I felt like a natural! SABES! iWeekTo start of the new year, the IA family has increased. Now having around 50 students or more in total between the three grade groups: 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade. Seemingly chaotic, the three grade groups got together to be put into 3 mixed groups. With the focus of solving a problem that new teachers, high school students, and incoming middle school students might face. The goal was to, by the end of the week, come up with a disable, feasible, and viable solution to each of the problems. The group that I was put in faced this problem: Like in any company, everyone has there specific tasks or roles to follow. Therefore, we tackled our problem by assigning specific roles. Surprisingly, we all broke up into these roles pretty naturally; as if we were an actual business.
I learned a little something about taking leadership during iWeek -->
❝Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.❞ ~ Robin S. Sharma Towards the end of my summer I faced myself in a tough decision. A decision which marked a mindset of growth in myself. It was a turning point for the way I faced challenges. While having been in Chile I took the chance to learn how to snowboard. Having had no experience on a snowboard whatsoever, I was told that if you could skateboard that it would make snowboarding a walk in the park. I was wrong to believe this. I was wrong because I kept believing in these fixed thoughts. For example: if I could already skateboard, snowboard is going to take less effort. This might be true in some cases but this fixed mentality made me less open to embrace challenges on the snowboard. Not only that but it also had me thinking in an ignorant manner. Therefore on the first day, as soon as I got onto the snowboard I lost complete control and fell face first into the snow. I spent the entire class doing the same thing. At that moment I realized wow this isn’t as easy as I thought. Quickly I was haunted by numerous fixed thoughts. I was beginning to give up. Asking myself questions like why am i going to keep doing this if I could just ski where I felt better at? I went home that day feeling like failure had just replaced my name. As I mentally reflected on the entire day, I realized that the book Mindset was speaking to me. I began to continue reading from where I left off at. “When people— couples, coaches, coaches and athletes, managers and workers, parents and children, teachers and students— change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. … Everyday presents you with ways to grow and to help the people you care about grow. " ~ Carol S. Dweck This quote struck because it made me think deeper into what I learned that day. I began to realize that I actually learned a lot even though I failed. I learned by helping family friends to learn. They asked me how I dealt with the snowboarding class that day, if I learned any tips that I could share with them. At first, the fixed mindset spoke and began to say no today was a complete mess I didn’t learn anything. Then it happened, I remembered reading the book and this quote and I spoke: "Our teacher taught us today that for a snowboarder the only way to stop or slow down was to turn, position your body, slightly put pressure on you heels or toes , and shave the snow with the metallic side of the board to reduce your speed. " However, now with the correct mindset I wasn't going to let this failure torment me instead it would be the gasoline to my car. It would fuel me up and keep me up and running for the next day to come. The rest of the next day was spent with a powerful effort to test myself in snowboarding down the easy mountain in the shape of an S, trying to master the movement that I could quickly stop forward with my toes and backwards with my heels. The cost to this effort was an entire morning spent falling, tumbling, and crashing into sides of the mountain or trees and sometimes even other people. By the end of that day I was snowboarding at the top of the mountain doing medium level runs. Nonetheless, I was still practicing the correct movement but this time with more of a challenging run. Here is a short clip of me already comfortable on the snowboard. "With the right mindset and the right teaching people are capable of a lot more than we think." What does your mindset have to with art? Its either you have artistic talent or you don't right? Believe it or not but despite the debate between art being a birth given ability or not Carol Dweck explains that yes some people are born with exceptional natural artistic talent, others can form astonishing artistic talents too, but with the correct mindset. Carol Dweck mentions how in the book Drawing on the right side of the Brain by Betty Edwards it gives the perfect instruction of how the brain deals with art. Moreover, how to interpret components of art using the right side of the brain. Neuroscience + Art "Actually she informs us, they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills. They are the ability to perceive edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and the whole. Drawing requires us to learn each component skill and then combine them into one process." As an artist this part of the book especially spoke out to me because even in art it takes a lot of effort to create what you perceive in your mind. In order to create that though you definitely need be persistent and have that sense of a growth mindset because from first hand experience you can get frustrated with your artwork. Now let's take a look at what Betty Edwards can teach us about art... As a wise man once told me, "There is nothing more embarrassing than to show your failures on the internet. Therefore, be determined to fix and change them because everyone can see." This summer I realized something and it is something I really wanted to change throughout. While reading the fascinating book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, I learned the many different occurrences of a fixed mindset and of a growth mindset might face in their daily lives. I learned how those two mindsets can change your beliefs in things such as sports, business and leadership, anger, relationships, etc. What I realized was that I do face a fixed mindset at numerous occasions but there are others where I can face a growth mindset. However it is always hardest to admit your failures and to take action upon them. Here is how I failed over the summer and decided to start the new year with action. Dear Corey Topf, I am going to be brutally honest with you and with myself, no excuses. I have been a fixed mindset. For you have been my teacher this past year you are well aware of my weaknesses, we both are. As my habit this summer was to try and focus and complete my work, I have failed. By completing only one blog entry, two articles, and only read two books. Moreover, I am ready to face my consequences as a challenge. To change my meaning of effort and to continue learning to the best of my abilities. Therefore, I am not going to let my failures be my label anymore! I am sick and tired of being looked upon as unfocused. So I am here today, starting it off, with a changed mindset and a promise that I want to uphold. To become a more persistently focused and motivated learner in the classroom and in my work. However, as my teacher, mentor, and role-model I ask for your help on this promise. I have brainstormed on a couple of solutions that I think might just work.
To find out wether you have a fixed mindset, growth mindset or mixed, take the the quiz at: Mindset QUIZ http://www.teachingprofessor.com/wp-content/uploads/Mindset-quiz.pdf |
BloggerMy name is Stefan Stangl and I am originally from San Francisco, California. Currently, I am senior at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosvelt in Lima, Peru. My passions are sports and art. Personal: @Stefan6 School: @fdrinnovationacademy ♫Tweet me ♫
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June 2015
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