Today’s guest was Collin Bailey, Senior Director for Strategic Procurement Contracts at CVS Health Corporation.  Today’s Life Skills class host was Djovan Davega who welcomed Collin to Hope and introduced him to our Life Skills class.

Collin (right) is welcomed to Hope by Djovan Davega before the start of today’s Life Skills class.

Djovan introduces Collin to his Life Skills classmates.

Collin shares his story with the Life Skills class.

Collin’s story began on the Caribbean island of Jamaica and then onto the United States, New Jersey specifically, when he was five years old.   Collin’s life seemingly revolved around sports, mainly football and basketball.  He played high school and AAU ball with athletes who went on to play Division 1.  “Eventually,

I realized I wasn’t going to play professional basketball and academics had to be taken seriously if I was going to be successful. 

So, I started studying harder than I ever had.  Got my undergraduate degree and then went on to Roger Williams University Law School to become an attorney” he said.   He also took risks, measured risk, by moving away from his New Jersey home for school at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and then later for a consultant job at CVS Health, at their corporate office in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.  “The CVS job was initially not expected to be a permanent job.  But I took the job seriously. 

1.  Hard work.  Fulfilling responsibilities.  Getting out of one’s comfort zone.  Never Giving Up.  A network of positive people. Optimum brand!  These characteristics rest upon a foundation of ‘attitude’, a mindset,

which creates the focus for all the aforementioned qualities.  These traits are consistent themes from the personal stories of our Life Skills guests first semester.  The common denominator from all our guests has been their positive, ‘growth mindset’ attitude which enables them to focus on goals, give respect to others, push themselves out of their comfort zones, work hard, never give up, find lessons in their failure and mistakes, attract a network of positive, successful people and a belief in themselves!     Please watch this video.

If there is one celebrity today who epitomizes these traits and the ‘attitude’ to sustain them, it’s Stephen Curry.   Coming out of high school, no one believed tiny, skinny Stephen was good enough to play Division 1 college basketball.   Despite the fact that Stephen worked extremely hard and never gave up after no Division 1 coach recruited him with a scholarship is a testament to Stephen’s ‘attitude’ which kept him focused and positive. When no coach believed in him, he found one, Bob McKillop, from Davidson College.  McKillop believed in Stephen which reinforced Stephen’s belief in himself.  “I saw brilliance…..”  McKillop said of Steph.  In other words, McKillop recognized Steph’s powerful belief in himself, his growth mindset, an ‘attitude’ which pushed him to work harder than most, an ‘attitude’ to put failure in its proper perspective, a never give up ‘attitude’ and a network of positive people.  This is the recipe that has enabled Steph Curry to be the successful man he is today. “He’s going to make a lot of money in this game some day”  Coach McKillop once told Stephen’s incredulous parents.  Please watch this short video about the longshot, the player only 1 Division One college coach believed in and a person who always believed in himself, Stephen Curry.

2. Describe, in a well written paragraph, your present day ‘growth set attitude’ or ‘fixed set mindset’.   In this description, please explain what sustains this attitude;  in other words, are their people in your life who provide you with feedback which maintains this sustain attitude?  Does your ‘attitude’ help you go out of your comfort zone to try new things and meet new people and push you to work harder than most?  Are there other things you do to sustain your attitude like a network of people, exercising, meditation or prayer?

3.  Read the profile of Abraham Lincoln in your textbook, ‘A Study of Change‘ from pages 87 to 99.  Please describe a quality of Mr Lincoln which enabled him to become the successful person he eventually became.  Please express your opinion in well written, short sentences sentences with perfect spelling and punctuation.  Thank you.

4.  Please state the name of a person you’ve connected to on LinkedIn.  Please add the company this person works for and his or her title at this company.

Please send your well thought, well written homework to me electronically no later than December 27th, 2015.

I hope you and your loved ones have a happy holiday!  Hope this video puts a smile on your face.

Stjepan Hauser (left) and Luka Sulic

1. Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser are two, classically trained cellists. As young boys training in the best European music schools, they dreamed of one day playing in a symphony orchestra. The young men first met in the city of Pula in the European country of Croatia.  One day, one of Hauser’s friends proposed that

Luka and Stjepan step out of their comfort zones.  Instead of playing traditional classical, symphonic music, he suggested playing a pop music song with their cellos!!!

The director specifically suggested Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal.” So Luka and Stjepan produced a music video of their cello rendition of Jackson’s song and posted it on You Tube on January 20th, 2011.  The response went viral.   Watch Luka and Stjepan’s extending themselves out of their comfort zone with their cello interpretation of Michael Jackson’s classic song.

This response to this You Tube video was overwhelming.   There were over three million views in the first two weeks and over ten million views as of April 2011.  As a result, the young cellists transitioned their careers to playing more pop music with their cellos.  Today, they’ve produced three albums and played live performances all over the world.   Here’s another of their popular performances played before a live audience.

2.  If you feel comfortable, please let me know if there is anything you have tried or hoping to try outside of your comfort zone like learning a different skill, joining a new club or activity, traveling to a new place to see something you haven’t seen before, meeting people different from you to experience a different life perspective or do anything else that seems interesting from afar but to this point in your life you’ve been too nervous to try.

• If there is nothing you’ve been interested in trying out of your comfort zone, then please state in a well written sentence that there is nothing you’ve been interested in trying outside of your comfort zone and state the reason why you do not want to do so.
• If there is something you’ve been interested in trying out of your comfort zone, please tell me in well written sentences what the new experience is and your how you feel about yourself and the new experience as you try this new experience.

3.  Read the article I distributed in class today entitled “Why Attitude Is More Important Than Intelligence“.  After reading the article, identify yourself as either “fixed mindset” or “growth mindset” and give examples of your actions that indicate you are in this category.   As always, please express your ideas in well written, grammatically correct with perfect spelling sentences.  Thank you.

4. This assignment must be sent to me electronically NO LATER than Wednesday, December 16.   Thank you.

1. Read pages 1 through 33 in your textbook, “The Study of Change“. Then, in well written sentences, share the most important thought you took from these pages you read. In other words, was their something specific you read that made you think about ‘change’ in your life?

2. Watch BOTH videos about a remarkable young high school girl, named Kayla Montgomery, who has had to deal with a sudden and grave misfortune in her life. Kayla’s lesson to anyone willing to listen is the importance of ‘attitude’ when dealing with any ‘change’ in one’s life. Tell me

• if you agree with Kayla’s perspective that a person’s attitude is critical to effectively managing changes in our lives (answer “yes, I agree” or “no, I don’t agree”).
• If you “agree” with Kayla about the importance of attitude, tell me, in a well written paragraph, why you agree with Kayla and if you have had to manage with your attitude during personal changes while either extending yourself out of your comfort zone or during other challenges, misfortune or tragedy.
• If you “disagree” with Kayla about the importance of attitude, tell me, in a well written paragraph, why you disagree with Kayla and why your attitude wasn’t important as you were dealing with personal changes while either extending yourself out of your comfort zone or during other challenges, misfortune or tragedy.

3. Explain, in well written sentences, why the author of “A Study of Change” would use this specific photo of Bristol Harbor on the cover of this book.  This photo apparently is a metaphor for the topic of the book.   Please explain why you believe the author chose this specific Richard Benjamin photograph to be on the cover of this book.

4.  Please submit your answers for all the previous questions to Stephen Cronin’s email no later than Wednesday, December 9th.

1. Imagine yourself as the owner and CEO of a trucking company.  You learn one day that one of your trucks has had an accident that is explained below.   Please keep in mind, Presidents, CEOs,  supervisors, Principals, managers and people in general are not always expected to solve problems alone.  Good managers collaborate with other smart people within their organizations and sometimes outside their organizations to solve problems.  If you feel inclined to collaborate with any other person to solve this problem, it’s ok and frankly encouraged.   Just tell me me following the well written sentences explaining the solution to the problem the names of the people you collaborated with for the solution.     Here’s the trucking problem:

“A truck driver was driving your delivery truck under an overpass when suddenly he came to a screeching halt.  He wasn’t paying attention and inadvertently drove under an overpass that was just barely as high as the truck.  The truck got stuck; it became wedged so tightly that he could not go forward or backwards.  He called you in your office to say he didn’t know what to do!  He was panicking.  Without damaging either the top of the truck or the overpass in any way, what can you suggest to the driver for him to do to get the company truck unstuck all by himself so he can drive away?”

2. Read the newspaper article I distributed in class today titled “5 Ways Introverts Can Take Networking To The Next Level“.  Check the section I highlighted in yellow.  Please explain in a few well written sentences why this suggestion can be beneficial in building an effective network that can create life time opportunities for you. Delvany is already practicing this suggestion.  Good job Delvany!

3. Change in our Schedule!!  I was informed that our visit to the Langevin Center for Design, Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing on the campus of Rhode Island College has been changed to December 9th.  We’ll leave Hope High around 1:15pm and finish the tour and leave the RIC campus around 4:15pm.   Please let me know in an email if you’re still interested and can attend on December 9th.  I will pass out permission forms next class.

4.  BTW – you were great today in class.  Anna was impressed with your curiosity, your courage to ask questions and the respect and courtesy you extended her.  You continue to make me proud.  Thank you.  By representing yourself, our Life Skills class, Hope High, your families and me so well, your personal brand and the brand of Hope High continues to be stronger creating new and better opportunities for both.