Top 10

...And now it's tomorrow and nope, I did not get any real work done (at least none that I have physical proof of). 

I hung out with some high school friends today. It was a refreshing experience because they see me in such a different way than people at Berkeley see me. It's probably because we've known each other since we were 8 and let's just say I went through many awkward/embarrassing/immature phases as a child/adolescent. But alas, here I am at 22, a little more mature, wiser, and probably nerdier than ever.

This brings me to my next point. I spent the end of my mostly-unproductive day creating the material for my President's workshop at District Convention. There's just volumes of advice I could give for Presidents of this coming Circle K year and if I were to cover all the major topics, my workshop would probably be weeks long. To compensate for the limited time I do have, I decided to conclude my workshop with the "Top 10 things I learned as President".

Creating my list, admittedly, was difficult at first. But as soon as I got going, all these pieces of advice started spilling out. Years of experience taught me things (some specific to myself) like "don't forget to show appreciation for others" or "write stuff down as soon as you think of them!" I realized how much I had learned about myself, about working with others, and about making things happen. 

I was reading an article about "how to give constructive criticism" and "how to inspire others" the other day and I realized all the tips that were mentioned in the articles were things that I do naturally. Moreover, I realized these were skills that I did not possess going into college (I was horrible at giving criticism) and that somewhere on my journey to now I had developed these skills through trial and error. For me, that was a pleasant surprise. I guess it's always good to know that you're on the right track. 

I ended my list with #10: "Most of the time, you're not going to know the right answer". I think learning that was probably my biggest step toward becoming a good President. Getting over myself and not having that pressure to make the correct decision all the time helped me discover an ability that's much more important than knowing the right answer: knowing how to find the right answer. 

Of course, I could be wrong.