Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...well kind of

The trip to Goodwill Columbus was probably one of my favorite outings with BLF thus far. You might be surprised to hear that, but I really loved visiting their facilities and hearing how they operate. As a sibling of a special needs individual, what they did really amazed me. My sister participates in an adult day program back home that's similar to what Goodwill has setup, but it's no where near varied in terms of the activities or support they provide...I mean they have a workout gym and art studio for their clients, how cool is that! I realize places like that are rare, so I definitely valued being able to visit and get a behind the scenes look at what they do. Also, I just started becoming interested in social entrepreneurship, or ways in which non-profits benefit society while also being self-sustaining themselves. Instead of just handouts and waiting for monetary donations to come in, Goodwill is able to (mainly) support themselves while also providing services so the clients can help themselves. On top of all that, the real kicker was that I didn't even know Goodwill did any of this. I, like thousands of others, just thought they sold donated clothes and goods and assumed that the money went directly to charity in some form of handouts. I had no idea that they were a top, mutli-million dollar service company!

Goodwill model of social entrepreneurship

Now to the even more fun part: the BLF Challenge. Disbelief was probably the one word to describe my reaction to the challenge announcement. On the one hand I knew I shouldn't have been that surprised that we were to get vehicle donations for this semester's challenge because it's BLF and what they do is always out of the box, but regardless I was surprised. "How are we supposed to get actual cars donated to a bunch of college kids?!" was what was running through my head that day. But, since then it's been about a week and I can say that that surprise is slowly turning into excitement. This will no doubt an experience that will bring us all together (even if we have a couple of rough patches along the way). We'll definitely be telling the next BLF class, "...oh I remember our first challenge! Man what a challenge that was..." And even though the real-life aspect of the challenge, which is probably what scares me most, also what excites me. In no other leadership program have I been given a task and said, "There, now go for it." We've had the theories of leadership taught to us over and over, but no practical experience which took us out of class, out of extracurricular clubs, or even out of the OSU college bubble. This is the real-world, kid. Get working.

But I am VERY relived that we at least have some contacts from Goodwill that will help us along the way, and our POD leaders to mentor and calm us down when we begin freaking out. Now, I'm just hopeful that our working as a group for the first time goes well!

I think my most helpful strengths for this particular challenge will definitely be input, discipline, and harmony. The other strengths I had were achiever and context. The only reason I didn't list them as being as helpful was because I realize that there are quite a few other BLF juniors who are high achievers, so we won't be lacking in that department, and context because that is more helpful in analyzing what factors were at play in a given challenge and how to improve them next time (which I think will definitely be helpful later on in the year). As an 'inputer', I collect information..a lot. I'm good at research and looking at things in depth, which for a project of this scale will be crucial. Along with that, discipline will be the thing that helps me get through the long nights and many hours leading up to December 31st, which I'm definitely anticipating. Finally...harmony. Harmony, harmony, harmony. With 5 strong, yet distinctively different leaders in each group you can bet that we will butt heads occasionally. And when that happens, I'll be the one trying to get people to look from each other's points of view, compromise, and get along. Conflict ain't the way to go, yo.

What I don't quite have under my belt is the art of influencing. You can be sure that I'm a logical and strategic thinker, but often times you need to appeal to more than logic when trying to get people to do what you want (the irony, huh?). I do understand that fact and I know it's a skill that needs a little more honing. So, I will definitely let the "Wooers" in my group do their thing, convince people to give us their cars, but I'll also be watching and learning from them so in the future I have a better idea of how to get what I want!

Wish us luck...
Mariam