Having completed a full month of classes given by Prof. Grutman, it has inspired me in
my personal and professional life. After the last class, the bar was set very high due to
the level of quality speakers brought in. However, Prof. Grutman has once again
surpassed my expectations. This week’s class was full of inspirational words from our
incredible speakers. Starting with the amazing story from John Summit and how he was
able to chase his dreams even when things did not look promising. He was able to
make himself a better performer, after going through hard times. He showed us the
importance of investing in yourself and surrounding yourself with a good team. That led
us to David showing us his team and the backstage of what it takes to succeed in the
hospitality industry. Then, Loren Ridinger came with a low profile to the class and left all
of us shocked. She inspired all of us with her amazing story and motivated us to avoid
wasting our time and to shoot for our goals. How she was able to strive for her future
alongside her late husband, and how she kept herself motivated through hard times.
Not to forget the amazing performance by the mentalist Oz Pearlman. His act was not
just a matter of showing us his tricks, but also he was transmitting a message during his
plays, that everyone can get to anything as long as he or she believes in himself. By the
end of the class, the multi grand slam champion, Serena Williams walked into the class
to leave us an important message for our future generations.
Serena spoke about her beginnings and her story of overcoming adversities. Back when
she started playing tennis, female players' respect was not what it is right now. She was
one of the first to start practicing with male players. This, as she said, helped her
become a better player. In a sport where the mind plays a very big role, surrounding
yourself with “better” or “smarter” allowed her to mentally push herself to be a better
player. This concept not only applies to tennis but also can be applied to our regular
lives and businesses. We want to always strive to be a better person or businessman,
and there is no better way to learn from people who have already experienced similar
situations as ours and teach us their takeaways. When you are around people smarter
than you, you can actually learn from them and use that to your advantage. One must
not feel diminished when he is encountered in a situation like that; one must make the
best of that situation and learn from everyone. That is why it is so important to always
strive to surround yourself with better people than yourself so you can learn from their
experiences and apply it to your life.
Coming up from the topic of the importance of surrounding yourself with the right
people, it is only right to speak about what Loren said about “Surveying your
environment”. She mentioned that analyzing carefully how her environment looks is key
to success. Yourself, your family, and your relationships/friends come first, and they
need to be all in sync to work towards what your goal is. But once you have all that lined
up, there comes the most important part, to use your time wisely, to know what your
goal is and work towards that. I opened my own travel business almost two years ago. I
learned a lot during these two years, and I realized there is still a lot to be learned.
However, the most important thing is to be honest with myself and recognize my
weaknesses. That is the reason I decided to go back to college to be able to set myself
up for my future. I understood that in order to succeed I needed to learn how to be
professional in an industry where the personal touch is almost everything. From my
teaching at the master's program at FIU, I believe it will give me the tools to be a
successful businessman in the hospitality industry. Success, in my opinion, is defined by
what one wants for their future, as Serena mentioned. I define success as being happy
and having a fulfilling life, and that can be achieved by forming a family and putting
them as your main priority. By doing so, everything else will have a greater reason and
things will work out in the end.
In order to succeed, it is very important to know your weaknesses and strengths. It can
be hard sometimes to recognize our own mistakes and being humble to oneself will
allow us to work towards those weaknesses to become a better self. That is why it is
very important to avoid pushing your goals and keep them always in mind and consider
how you can achieve them. I am not letting laziness take over my life because I
understand that in order to succeed, one must work hard and smart. I decided to
continue my education because I understood that it was the right step in order to
continue growing my company. I will be able to look back at my life and say to myself
that I tried my best, and with go-d help, everything will look amazing in the future, but if
it does not look as one imagined it, I will have to keep pushing myself to never regret
anything.
We spoke about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. But
everything we mentioned has no value when the most important variable of the equation
is not all in for the main goal. You as the main player are the one that has to push
yourself to work for your main goal. If you want to be the next John Summit, Loren
Ridinger, Oz Pearlman, or Serena Williams, you have to invest and believe in yourself.
They only were able to make it because they believed in themselves. You should work
with all the tools that you have around you but use them to your advantage. One should
be disciplined with himself because there is always the mindset of procrastinating, and
Serena did not become Serena by pushing everything off, she worked hard towards her
goal, she disciplined herself to be a good athlete. Loren gave us an insight that I really
appreciate and was able to utilize myself during this past week and really helped me a
lot. You have to do the thing because “You have to do it,” and that should be the biggest
motivation. By doing the hardest task first, it frees your mind from that laziness and
allows you to be more efficient and create better ideas.
This class was a very special one because it had an immediate impact on my daily life. I
was able to apply some of the concepts that I learned in this lecture into my day-to-day
life. I am looking forward to seeing what David has to bring us in the last class. I will
miss the amazing guest speakers from this class, but I will never forget the amazing
lessons learned.