My Dad approached me this morning and asked about how I was doing, he said I always seemed busy. In the moment it couldn’t’ve felt further from the truth. I’m not where I thought I’d be right now, but because I consistently do work for my Praxis program, swing dance, and volunteer at youth group among other things, my family sees business. I want to be busier. Kinda. I want to be doing everything I can. I want to be working out to become healthier, I want to be hanging out with those I care about more, creating more, learning more, and exploring the world. I wish I didn’t like…

As I page through my Entrepreneur magazine I’m reminded of how many new businesses are starting up all the time. I’m also reminded of a point in Niche Down that notes that we are at one of the lowest levels of entrepreneurship in American history. What a contrast to what I had thought! Prior to reading these resources, I was under the impression that everybody and their brother was trying to start a company. I thought it wouldn’t work because so many new businesses were starting up and how could they all have new ideas, but that’s just not the case! There are so many people and so many great ideas,…

Marketers do what they do to make products, services and people famous. I should know, I’m one of them. Oh my goodness though does this ever have to be a balance though. I want to do a great job wherever I work, and I think the balance can be most easily found in praising God through doing a good job at what we do here on Earth. If I can make a brand famous, I’ll be doing a good job for my boss, and using the gifts and talents God has given me. This is true for any job, but marketing is special in that your goal is to make…

“So who are you rooting for?” The commercials. Why not? This is a common conversation I’ve had with people since, my favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings, has not been in the superbowl lately. I still usually enjoy the football game too, but the ads are fun to analyze because everyone has their mind focused on marketing for the time being, plus they’re so anticipated I know it’s kind of silly, but it’s truly a “battle” of the best. Top brands compete for viewers attention, not to mention money. It’s interesting to hear which commercials get remembered by any given attendee of a super bowl party. Even years down the road…

Often as part of getting to know someone I ask them what their favorite decade is, I enjoy hearing about what they like, and have learned from history. I also have an answer for the question so it makes for good back and forth conversation. I love mid-century things, from music to fashion, to interior design and much of culture in general. While I’ll admit there has been a lot of wrongdoing in the past, I feel that we need to glean more from the good, as we’ve likewise, hopefully, learned from the bad. You see I wish we had some of the culture from 70-80 years ago. I appreciate…

“Wait, you’re like 19 right?” Nope. I’m a few years older than that, but I’ll leave it there. I get this a lot and I’ve learned to take it in stride – I know I look young for my age. The one thing I have to remember is to make sure I act my real age, and conduct myself as an adult. I want to be responsible, trustworthy, and smart. I’ve learned to not let it affect me, whether I’m working with high schoolers, hanging out with people my age, or working at a place where the majority of staff are over 45. I’ve realized I bring my own uniqueness…

Learning foreign languages has always been a goal and struggle of mine In elementary school I started taking Spanish classes, at that point it was mostly just vocabulary. So when I had to take Spanish in middle school, I thought I was ready, but I hardly understood any of it because I didn’t realize, or know what I was learning while I was learning it. Fast forward to high school where Spanish seemed like the obvious language choice, but I didn’t want to be in over my head, so Spanish 1plus it was again. Oh and I never did do very good at remembering accent marks. Again in college, I…

There are so many brands that have low quality but there are also a ton that claim to have high quality. What’s interesting is the amount of brands that claim to have the highest quality, obviously, this has a lot to do with marketing, but some brands to go above and beyond. Plus not everyone can have the highest quality unless they’ve found their niche. Value. It’s something I’ve learned a lot about creating myself at Praxis. What’s interesting to consider is how other businesses view and create value. Any business can say they have high quality stuff, but only a few prove it, either by having genuine reasons and/or…

Good old Minnesota got dumped in numerous inches of white fluffy stuff this morning. Oddly enough my morning commute to work wasn’t absolutely atrocious. It also reminded me of other snow storms and how much grace, and kindness is poured out on days like today. I remember back in college my first year driving to school, my car was having trouble getting up the hill, suddenly one of my neighbors had walked from his driveway to my car, and just gave it a push, while I was on the gas. I got going within 30 seconds, and I made it to school fine that day. On other snowy mornings, my…

I was recently talking to one of my senior high students, and we got talking about prioritizing church. He mentioned that he wanted to go on the youth group trip happening soon here but also wanted to make his sports match. He then confessed that he had realized he wasn’t prioritizing church enough, and I told him I was happy that he was able to process all of that for himself and tell me about it. He then said something to the effect of: the order of operations goes church(Christ that is), family, school, sports. We talked through it some more and I told him the group would be glad…