Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2017

"Smile." -wisdom from my 18-year-old self

"Smile." As a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling, one of my favorite theories is Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. According to Erikson, there are 8 psychosocial stages of development that each person goes through over the course of his/her life. As I have seen personally and for other people, being optimistic, thinking positively, and thinking big can feel more difficult with each psychosocial stage as we face many challenges and obstacles. Putting it bluntly: failure hurts. Failure isn't fun. It stinks. In struggling and failing, we often lose optimism, positive thinking, and big thinking. How can we thrive if we cannot survive? My transition from predominantly business work to predominantly counseling work began during my days as an MBA graduate student 9 years ago. One of my organizational development (OD) professors told us the story of her deciding to pursue a doctorate and become a professor. For her, she turned to a

Seek What Is Within

My high school graduation took place at John Carroll University. Several years ago, I had the honor of being one of the speakers at my high school graduation.  I spoke about my high school experiences--good ones and bad ones--and different emotions felt. I concluded my speech with the following words: From day one, they told us to remember to always "seek what is above".  As we head in different directions and move on with our lives, may I add:  Let us remember to always seek what is within. Since then, I have graduated with a couple business degrees, worked in the business world, and returned to school to become a career counselor and EAP (employee assistance program) counselor. Over time, I have learned that to 'seek what is within' is the start of a bigger process. In one of my first counseling classes, a professor showed us a YouTube video featuring comedian Michael Jr. In the video, Michael discusses the difference between ‘what’ and ‘why’.

Writing your life story with perseverance

"Dream, dream your way through Your dreams are elastic Your dreams are the keys to the future Write your life story, a best-selling classic Dream, dream your way through The highs, the lows, the dramatic Your dreams are the true path of least resistance See all the possibilities when you let yourself imagine" -Excerpt from the poem " Dream Your Way Through "  (c) 2011 Richard A. Fajardo. I submitted this poem to Helium.com in 2011 for the poetry topic "The path of least resistance". In life, we are taught to be realistic. We are taught to be practical. We are taught to be rational. Of course, there are times when this is absolutely necessary and true. But, is this always the case? In the above video, Arthur Boorman dealt with the aftermath of serving in the military during the Gulf War.  The physical deterioration left him in poor physical condition--he was considered physically disabled. Medical doctors were convinced that h

Past Blog Posts from "Welcome, International Students!"

Recently, we retired the team blog "Welcome, International Students!" that was created by a few of us colleagues who had met through the BGSU MBA program. In turn, I have carried over seven of my blog posts from there over to Motivated Innovation. These past posts include: Stand Tall and Feel Welcome 12/16/15 A Kid's Perspective 1/9/14 US News Provides 6 Good Tips for New International Grad Students 7/30/12 Remembering 4 Years Ago... 6/26/12 Understanding (A Follow-up to "U.S. University Classes") 5/31/12 U.S. University Classes: Interactive, Not Just Lectures 4/13/12 Searching for a Job in Today's U.S. 3/11/12 Topics include culture and diversity, education, and international students. Please feel free to check out each of these posts!

The Conversations We Have With Strangers While Traveling

On Monday night, Clemson University won its second football national championship. They avenged their loss in the championship game last year by winning a rematch with the University of Alabama. Aside from enjoying the postgame comments from coach Dabo Swinney, quarterback Deshaun Watson, and linebacker Ben Boulware, I remembered a long, pleasant conversation I had while flying from Salt Lake City to Detroit back in November 2015. On this flight, I was sitting next to an older gentleman--Tom--who was traveling with his wife and another couple. In talking with Tom, I learned that he was a big Clemson fan. As we watched multiple games of college football simultaneously on the airplane monitors, I found out that he had played years ago with a Division II program. In fact, Tom was the starting quarterback and his friend across the aisle was one of the starting wide receivers. Tom also met his wife at this college. He did mention that his wife was a fan of another university's