It is amazing how themes can carry on throughout an entire weekend. For me, the theme of this weekend was establishing your swagger. As Katt Williams would say, "tuning into your star player."
This weekend wasn't about me establishing my swag because I already know me but it was about helping others to discover there swag. On Friday, I was out with some friends and this guy whom I have never met walked up and kept complaining how he wasn't getting any girls because he had just got out of a relationship. From my assessment, that girl screwed up his mind and crushed his swag. He carried an air of timidness and for a man by my best guess was about 6 ft tall, 235 lbs, that is no small feat. So a friend and I gave him a quick lesson about swag, Needless to say, the next time I saw him, he was walking out of the bar with a smiling woman on his arm.
This is the power of swag, it takes everything about you and makes them desirable but turning your faults and insecurities into charming characteristics that draws people to you takes an inner understanding and satisfaction with yourself that is unflinching and never wavers. At this point, I have told you what swag is and what it can do for you but where does it come from?
Swag is not a tangible object. It's more of an abstract conception that you enrich the lives of everyone you meet regardless of how trivial the interaction because you are just that awesome. Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to teach you how to grow your swag . I also do not believe that no one can tell you how to do it. If someone tries to tell you different, watch out because they might also be a snake oil salesman. At its core, Swag is confidence. The kind of confidence that permeates all aspects of your life and radiates to everyone around you. It's like you have a golden aura of attractability around you.
Do you know the feeling that you get when you are the best at something? Like when you get a A on a test and no one else does or when you are the best player on the court or when you have the hottest girlfriend in the room? That is swag at its infancy. In maturity, that feeling permeates through all aspects of your life regardless of your actual ability. You feel that you can do anything and even when you fail you can still shrug it off and not let it bring you down. There are also some down sides to having too much swag. Sometimes you can be too brash or too arrogant, which turns people off. You could also mistake your confidence for competence and make some really bad decisions.
So, fully maximized swag is really about being confident in your abilities but also being secure enough to know that you can't know everything and sometimes you need some help. In light of full disclosure, I firmly believe that I have a long way to go to reach full swag, on a 1 to 10 scale where 10 is full swag, I believe I am at a 6.5 however I recognize that being swag-alicious takes time and i'm gonna do me until I reach the top.
I've got to go now. Stay up, do you and happy swagging!
Showing posts with label Swag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swag. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Holiday Happenings and general Tom-Foolery
I was told last night that I need to post more frequently to appease the 1-3 people that actually read this blog. So for you who read this, I apologize.
Thinking over the past month since I have last posted, I guess a lot has been going on from trying to make holiday plans, getting notification of a friends wedding, my godbrother releasing his first single, the strengthening of the realization that I have to go back to school, and my swag coming back. I am going to try and string all of these together, if I can do it, I deserve some type of medal (if only blogger was like facebook). This is going to be a marathon post so get your popcorn ready!
I got the "Save-the-date" notice for Luke's wedding. For those who don't know who Luke is, he is my best friend from high school who is a Marine and is currently on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Anyways, I got the note on Saturday, Even though I have known the date and location of the wedding for almost six months, I was still sent a notice. The pleasantries of wedding proceedings are an interesting notion which I may tackle in a post as the wedding gets closer. As the "Co-Best Man." The notice along with other things going on (thanks Chris) got me thinking about the idea of managing friendships through transition. The one question that continues to come up is how do you merge your previous life to your current? I am still work on that one. I will keep you posted when i get some answers.
One effort to consolidate the lives is attaching to similarities in all situations. One thing I think that I am pretty good at is making friends quickly and being comfortable in most situations. However, Midland threw me off my game for a bit. I got here and the people were incredibly nice but I just wasn't making the right connections which came so easily to me in college. When I finally made a good friend, he moved away (sounds like a plot for a bad made for TV movie). I was really distraught. I began thinking, what has happened to me? Midland was changing me. I was no longer the relaxed, charismatic and mildly aloof gentleman that I have grown accustomed to being. In the past, when I have had serious problems, I dig down deep and do some serious introspection. During this time I thought of many things that could be wrong. Questions that ran through my head were, Is Midland changing me? Are the people here just fake? Do they not like black people? Or, Is it me? The hypothesis that I landed on was that it was me. The first piece of advice that is always given to someone entering into a new situation is to relax and be yourself. I have given this piece of advice countless times but in this situation, I forgot it. Sure enough, things began to click. the way I judge if a successful connection was made is if after you have met a person, they remember your name and want to talk to you again. I walked into Oscar's (local Midland Bar) and for the first time in Midland people recognized me (other than bartenders, I think I drink too much), I had good conversation (which in non-existent in most bars), and I left feeling good (not drunk). I feel confident in proclaiming that My Swag is b=Back! So, the moral of this story is to really be your self and rely on the lessons learned from your past experiences.
I attribute much of the development of my swag to my godbrother, Justin. He is about 4 years older than I am and I always looked to him for guidance growing up. Everyone has the person that they believe to be the epitome of cool, for me that was Justin. Well, he has been a professional singer since I was in middle school and now he has finally released his first solo single. For those interested, his website is http://justinclay.net/. I am proud of everything that he has done and this single is a monument to the achievement of dreams.
(only two more topics to go, don't give up)
Justin's accomplishment along with awareness of what it takes to succeed in the corporate world has only solidified my resolve to go to a top 30 MBA school (I am considering the Ivies as my top choices). I am also pretty certain that I do not want to get an MBA specializing in Supply Chain. The concepts of supply chain seem intuitive and and the skills that you gain from studying other subjects can be applied to developing Supply Chain solutions. Last week, a young (35) Dow employee told us about his experiences and how going to Harvard Business School really helped to develop his career and to really understand who he was professionally and how that relates to his personal world view. I think insight like that, is something that i can gain while working but can gain more rapidly from a full-time top tier MBA program. I have some time before I need to make the decision of where but I do know that in 5 five years I will be enrolled at a school somewhere.
The answer to the question of why do I want to be successful is answered simply saying because my mom said so. My mother did not lay down the plan for my life explicitly but I know I try to do my best because I am representative of her and for that matter, my entire family and anyone that chose to support me. Holidays are very special to me for that reason. The holiday that really means the most to me is Easter. My senior year of high school, I was celebrating Easter with a lot of family friends that we went to church with. Myself, Greg, Little Brian, and Mr. Henry were on the basketball court following dinner. While we were playing, Mr. Henry collapsed face first while trying to defend Greg from driving the lane. At first, we thought that he was joking and then we realized that he wasn't moving. It was the one time that I didn't have my cell phone with me and for that reason I will never be without someone wit ha phone handy. So I sent Greg running to get the adults from the house. Meanwhile a young woman was walking buy and she let us use her cell phone to call 9-1-1. After it was all said and done, Mr. Henry was pronounced dead at the scene from a hereditary heart condition that has caused deaths in the same way for many years. The one thing I really remember from the funeral was that Mrs. Henry came up to the three of us and told us not to blame ourselves and that she was glad that we were there to be with her husband in his last moments and she told us that we were blessed and destined for great things. From then on, everything I do is never for me, it is for those who support and believe in me. Holidays are a time when I renew my focus on those individuals.
This holiday season will be a little tough. It is the first thanksgiving where I won't be spending it will my parents. I am very thankful however that there are people in Midland looking out for me and really becoming my surrogate family and inviting me to events like watching Barack Obama speeches, celebrating birthdays, and thanksgiving dinner. As it is right now, my Christmas/new years plans are up in the air. I will probably fly home for Christmas and then for new year's I hope to be in Dayton. I just have to find a place to sleep for the weekend.
Now that I have spent nearly two hours writing this post, I am going back to work.
Thinking over the past month since I have last posted, I guess a lot has been going on from trying to make holiday plans, getting notification of a friends wedding, my godbrother releasing his first single, the strengthening of the realization that I have to go back to school, and my swag coming back. I am going to try and string all of these together, if I can do it, I deserve some type of medal (if only blogger was like facebook). This is going to be a marathon post so get your popcorn ready!
I got the "Save-the-date" notice for Luke's wedding. For those who don't know who Luke is, he is my best friend from high school who is a Marine and is currently on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Anyways, I got the note on Saturday, Even though I have known the date and location of the wedding for almost six months, I was still sent a notice. The pleasantries of wedding proceedings are an interesting notion which I may tackle in a post as the wedding gets closer. As the "Co-Best Man." The notice along with other things going on (thanks Chris) got me thinking about the idea of managing friendships through transition. The one question that continues to come up is how do you merge your previous life to your current? I am still work on that one. I will keep you posted when i get some answers.
One effort to consolidate the lives is attaching to similarities in all situations. One thing I think that I am pretty good at is making friends quickly and being comfortable in most situations. However, Midland threw me off my game for a bit. I got here and the people were incredibly nice but I just wasn't making the right connections which came so easily to me in college. When I finally made a good friend, he moved away (sounds like a plot for a bad made for TV movie). I was really distraught. I began thinking, what has happened to me? Midland was changing me. I was no longer the relaxed, charismatic and mildly aloof gentleman that I have grown accustomed to being. In the past, when I have had serious problems, I dig down deep and do some serious introspection. During this time I thought of many things that could be wrong. Questions that ran through my head were, Is Midland changing me? Are the people here just fake? Do they not like black people? Or, Is it me? The hypothesis that I landed on was that it was me. The first piece of advice that is always given to someone entering into a new situation is to relax and be yourself. I have given this piece of advice countless times but in this situation, I forgot it. Sure enough, things began to click. the way I judge if a successful connection was made is if after you have met a person, they remember your name and want to talk to you again. I walked into Oscar's (local Midland Bar) and for the first time in Midland people recognized me (other than bartenders, I think I drink too much), I had good conversation (which in non-existent in most bars), and I left feeling good (not drunk). I feel confident in proclaiming that My Swag is b=Back! So, the moral of this story is to really be your self and rely on the lessons learned from your past experiences.
I attribute much of the development of my swag to my godbrother, Justin. He is about 4 years older than I am and I always looked to him for guidance growing up. Everyone has the person that they believe to be the epitome of cool, for me that was Justin. Well, he has been a professional singer since I was in middle school and now he has finally released his first solo single. For those interested, his website is http://justinclay.net/. I am proud of everything that he has done and this single is a monument to the achievement of dreams.
(only two more topics to go, don't give up)
Justin's accomplishment along with awareness of what it takes to succeed in the corporate world has only solidified my resolve to go to a top 30 MBA school (I am considering the Ivies as my top choices). I am also pretty certain that I do not want to get an MBA specializing in Supply Chain. The concepts of supply chain seem intuitive and and the skills that you gain from studying other subjects can be applied to developing Supply Chain solutions. Last week, a young (35) Dow employee told us about his experiences and how going to Harvard Business School really helped to develop his career and to really understand who he was professionally and how that relates to his personal world view. I think insight like that, is something that i can gain while working but can gain more rapidly from a full-time top tier MBA program. I have some time before I need to make the decision of where but I do know that in 5 five years I will be enrolled at a school somewhere.
The answer to the question of why do I want to be successful is answered simply saying because my mom said so. My mother did not lay down the plan for my life explicitly but I know I try to do my best because I am representative of her and for that matter, my entire family and anyone that chose to support me. Holidays are very special to me for that reason. The holiday that really means the most to me is Easter. My senior year of high school, I was celebrating Easter with a lot of family friends that we went to church with. Myself, Greg, Little Brian, and Mr. Henry were on the basketball court following dinner. While we were playing, Mr. Henry collapsed face first while trying to defend Greg from driving the lane. At first, we thought that he was joking and then we realized that he wasn't moving. It was the one time that I didn't have my cell phone with me and for that reason I will never be without someone wit ha phone handy. So I sent Greg running to get the adults from the house. Meanwhile a young woman was walking buy and she let us use her cell phone to call 9-1-1. After it was all said and done, Mr. Henry was pronounced dead at the scene from a hereditary heart condition that has caused deaths in the same way for many years. The one thing I really remember from the funeral was that Mrs. Henry came up to the three of us and told us not to blame ourselves and that she was glad that we were there to be with her husband in his last moments and she told us that we were blessed and destined for great things. From then on, everything I do is never for me, it is for those who support and believe in me. Holidays are a time when I renew my focus on those individuals.
This holiday season will be a little tough. It is the first thanksgiving where I won't be spending it will my parents. I am very thankful however that there are people in Midland looking out for me and really becoming my surrogate family and inviting me to events like watching Barack Obama speeches, celebrating birthdays, and thanksgiving dinner. As it is right now, my Christmas/new years plans are up in the air. I will probably fly home for Christmas and then for new year's I hope to be in Dayton. I just have to find a place to sleep for the weekend.
Now that I have spent nearly two hours writing this post, I am going back to work.
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