Final Blog Post- Book

For my final blog post, I have chosen to write about a strategy that I read a few weeks ago, but it has really stood out to me. It is called, "Always Follow Up."

The author starts off with a story about a friend of his, who is a member of one of the largest and most successful angel investor organizations in the United States. This friend offers advice to Johnson about entrepreneurship and investment strategies. He shares a story with him about a company he was interested in giving a loan to, but the CEO of the company disappeared and could not be reached. Johnson did not understand how someone could ignore such an offer, but he goes on to explain why. He states, "Those who master the art of following up are more successful than those who do not, yet so many entrepreneurs overlook and underestimate this simple rule." He says the number one reason entrepreneurs are afraid to follow up is the fear of rejection. 

I can relate to being afraid of rejection, and I have been afraid of rejection in the past as well. I have learned overtime, that it does not matter what the result of a situation is. Instead, of being concerned about what may happen, it is often better to take action and wonder what will happen. A similar situation happened to me where I was afraid of rejection. Quarter one I worked with the non-profit Organization Hebrew Senior Life. Our job as a team, was to come up with an idea that could help the organization and make things easier for them. After my first meeting with them, it seemed they were a large organization and had everything under control. My team and I were able to come up with an identification system for the residents. At the beginning, I was afraid to share this idea with the staff at Hebrew Senior Life. I thought our idea was not complex enough, and I wasn’t very confident in it. I realized it did not matter. A few days after the meeting, I emailed Laura and told her about the idea my group had come up with. It’s better to follow up and go after success and get negative feedback, then to do nothing at all. In fact, Laura had a lot of positive feedback about our idea. In the end, I was relieved I took the chance and emailed Laura and sharing a rough idea. There is always room for improvement and people feedback is always helpful. We continued to email each other back and forth throughout the time I worked with her, and in the end all worked out well. 

Since this situation, I have followed up with teachers more and just been more proactive about things. I will continue to read The Entrepreneur Mind and apply these strategies to my every day life.