Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Colin Powell Response - Due October 15

Read the quote from General Colin Powell at the bottom of page 79 in your textbook. Do you agree with him or not? Why or why not? If he is correct does that mean that anyone can succeed at anything they choose to tackle? Think of these points and others and write a one-page reflection (refer to the requirements in Chapter One). Paste your reflection in the class blog. Read what your classmates have to say (20 pts.).

22 comments:

  1. General Colin Powell stated “There is no success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” I totally agree with what he has said. Your success is determined by you. Anyone can do anything that they put their minds to. You just have to be motivated and determined. You can’t let anything or anyone stop you from achieving your goals. Lots of people have stereotyped people today and many think that if you are not from a wealthy family, you can’t make it today in this harsh world. I was taught as a child that I could do anything that I put my mind to. If I set high goals for myself I just work even harder to accomplish them. I know that no is perfect and everyone is going to make mistakes. You just have to be a bigger person and admit to your wrongs. Learn from them and do whatever you have to not to make the same mistakes ever again. I think that being able to admit to when you are wrong is the first step to moving on and learning from it. Embrace every moment as a learning experience, take the bad out of it and make something good. Many people overload their selves and have too much going on life. Being able to balance your time is also an important factor. Take time to schedule your days, weeks, even months. Knowing what you have to do ahead of time will help you remember easily. Assigning special times for school, work, hobbies, and even vacations will all help better your time. Me personally, I like stay ahead so I plan ahead. I also make sure I put thing like school projects, studying, and even homework assignment first on my list of things to do. I think that if try to identify all your distractions in life and do your best to eliminate them as quickly as you can, then nothing can stop you. You have to choose who you hang around wisely and all. Negative people will give off negative effects. Have around people who encourage you to do positive thing and reach for the stars. As a student I also know that it could help me in the future by joining other activities, groups, etc. at school. You just have to be willing to push yourself and do the unthinkable. It’s all up to you, find yourself within and anything is possible. Set goal and give yourself time to accomplish them you will see. You really have to want it and go get it. Don’t let nothing stop you, be your own motivation.

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    1. I agree with everything that you have said. And I also like to stay ahead in my work and do my school work first. Another thing I agree with is when you said that negative people will give off negative effects. I used to hang around people who were often negative and it used to give off on to me.

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    2. I also agree with what he said and I would like to stay ahead also. But I work fifty hours a week so, staying ahead is a challenge but falling behind is not an option.

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  3. General Colin Powell states “There is no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” I believe Powell hit this one on the spot. Anything you set your mind to, you can succeed. I think you only need three things to accomplish this, which are being prepared, working hard, and learning from mistakes. How do you do this?
    First of all, I believe being prepared is essential to succeeding in anything. If someone knows how to use the recourses available to them and use them to their benefit, being successful becomes a lot easier. We as humans do not realize all the opportunities we have world-wide where people want to help you succeed in life. If you can take full advantage of these things then you definitely will have guidance into accomplishing anything you set your mind to.
    Secondly, I believe working hard and never giving up is a key factor in being successful. You need persistence and dedication. If you have the “I will never fail” attitude you can achieve anything your mind can dream of. Your attitude, your motivation, and your goals are tied into one. If you have a positive attitude, have motivation, and stick to your goals you will be succeeding in no time.
    Thirdly, I believe you should learn from your failure. Dwelling on a mistake will only bring you down and set you farther away from you desires. You should take your past failures learn from them and know what doesn’t work so you can find what does. You will experience failures before you reach your goals. You need to remember your failures are opportunities to redirect yourself so you may find success.
    I believe anyone can succeed at anything he/she set his/her mind to. It doesn’t matter what others think, you can do it. Following three simple steps can help you. You need to be prepared, work hard, and learn from past failures. If you do that, you will succeed every time.

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  5. General Colin Powell said, “There is no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” I agree with what he says in this statement. I agree because the only way you are going to succeed at doing something is by working for it. Throughout life you will have to work for what you want, people are not going to just hand it to you every time. Even if you fail at doing something a few times you still can learn from it and keep trying until you succeed. In order to succeed at doing something you also need to prepare for it. If you were planning on succeeding in this course but you don’t prepare or study for the exam then you may not succeed. If you fail, then you would learn from your mistake that you need to prepare for the exam and not just jump into it unprepared. You cannot give up on what you are trying to succeed at either. If you give up every time you fail then you will never succeed. An example would be when you go to take your driving test. If you never prepare and take time to practice driving, then you will never pass the test. But if another person were to prepare and practice driving then they would have a better chance at passing. Even if they did not pass, they could learn from that mistake and practice what they missed more and go back and try again until they pass. Within reason, I agree that anyone can succeed at anything they try to tackle. An example would be if you are trying to build a ramp on your front porch you have a better chance at succeeding at this if you look at directions and understand what you are doing. But if someone never looks at directions and does not know what they are doing then they will probably not succeed at building a ramp on their front porch. If you prepare and put enough hard work towards something you try to tackle you will succeed at one point or another. If you do not succeed on the first try that does not mean that you will never succeed. You just have to keep trying until you do succeed. Personally for me if I do not succeed on the first try I look back on what I did and see if there is any room for improvement before I try again. I plan on succeeding in my classes so in order for me to do that I need to keep up with my school work, study and turn assignments in on time. In order for me to do all of that I have to make time and stay motivated to do it. If I never make time for it then I never will succeed at it. In order to succeed at something you need to put your mind to it and really want it. A few years ago I used to want to be a professional dancer but I let people talk me out of it and I gave up on it and decided to go down a different career path. But if I had put my mind to it and ignored what others were telling me then I would be working towards becoming a dancer right now. Succeeding at something is all about making time for it and really wanting it. If you don’t want it then you will have a very slim chance of succeeding at it.

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  6. I agree with Colin Powell’s quote. I believe that success comes from hard work and from learning from failure. If success was so easy to obtain then wouldn’t everyone be rich and famous? Life is about making mistakes and learning from them so that you won’t make them again later on in life. I also agree that success comes from preparation. A good example of this would be taking a test. If you knew about the text a week before hand and you studied and well prepared yourself for it then you probably made a decent grade. I fully believe preparation is huge to having success because everywhere you look successful people prepare for things constantly. Even players in certain sports practice to get ready for the games so that they can be successful and beat the other opponent. I honestly don’t believe that there is a secret to success, I believe the problem is that people are just to lazy to put the time and effort into things to be successful later on down the road. If you put your effort and heart into things now then later on it may pay off to help you reach your goal of being successful at whatever your heart desires. In conclusion, I agree with this quote and I hope more people try to be successful not only in life, but in everything that they do.

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    1. I agree with you because some people are lazy and do not put forth much effort.

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  7. Colin Powell Response
    I don’t agree with Mr. Powell because I know people that work hard at their dreams, and still don’t accomplish them. There can be many reasons why this happens even with hard work and preparation. I have a cousin that wanted to be a basketball player. He worked very hard at perfecting his skills and right before he went to college he had an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. You can work hard and still don’t be as successful as you want to be. I know that hard work and preparation is important, but it is not a guarantee for success. I wanted to be an actress ever since I can remember. My mother put me in the Barbizon acting school I would do great until I had to perform no matter how much I prepared I would freeze up on the performance night. No matter how many extra classes my mother enrolled me in the same thing would happen. Therefore no you can’t tackle evI don’t agree with Mr. Powell because I know people that work hard at their dreams, and still don’t accomplish them. There can be many reasons why this happens even with hard work and preparation. I have a cousin that wanted to be a basketball player. He worked very hard at perfecting his skills and right before he went to college he had an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. You can work hard and still don’t be as successful as you want to be. I know that hard work and preparation is important, but it is not a guarantee for success. I wanted to be an actress ever since I can remember. My mother put me in the Barbizon acting school I would do great until I had to perform no matter how much I prepared I would freeze up on the performance night. No matter how many extra classes my mother enrolled me in the same thing would happen. Therefore no you can’t tackle everything and win it is a nice concept though. I have experienced this first hand in my own life. My son was 18 and had just graduated from high school all his life as far back as I could remember he wanted to be a marine, he worked hard at training to be a marine one month before he was to enlist he went to the catfish festival. My son was shot multiple times with a 45 his hard work and dreams came to an end .The Doctor told him that he would never be able to be a marine before he got shot he was bench pressing 350lbs.After having most of his stomach removed and kidney and liver problems I watched a totally different person come home with me. The person that did this to my son was only 16 years old. He had never seen my son he shot a gun into a crowd of people ending a life long dream for one.

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  8. I strongly agree with General Colin Powell. Success is rarely giving away for doing nothing, the rare few that it does is most likely passed down to them. Even the if they continue to not do anything they will not have it for long. Success isn’t giving it is earned exactly like Powell said. If you go out and give something your all there is no goal that cannot be accomplished. I believe that anyone can set a goal then go out and if they work hard enough for what they want, they can and will achieve great things. There is one thing I will always remember from childhood, “If you do your best then you can do anything you wanted.” Preparation is very important, you never know what’s ahead and it is always a good idea to prepare. Knowing what is ahead could be the most important part of succeeding. If hard work was not necessary I am sure that everyone would be successful, but many people don’t want to put in the time and the work and that gets in the way of their goals. Farmers are the back bone of this country for a reason, they put in hours of hard work to feed this country and in return they are rewarded and have a beautiful landscape to call their own. My father has always told me you can never learn if you don’t fail first. To fail is important whether people think so or not, but it’s only important if you learn from your mistakes and correct them the next time. I fully agree with his quote and know that anyone can be successful with preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

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  9. I do agree and also disagree with General C. Powell. I agree in the fact that there is no secret to success. Everyone’s definition of success is different. My definition of success is to obtain what you want, but yours might be something totally different. One person could think they are successful if they are a stay at home parent, and teaching their child good values and morals. While another may think that their success lies in having a good job, and bringing home the money that allows the other parent to be a stay at home parent. Neither of these is wrong. It is just what they perceive as success. I do agree that hard work and learning from failure are a part of the way that we learn to succeed. If we don’t have the passion, or drive to succeed, then we never will. As long as you are accomplishing goals towards the end result, then you are succeeding. I, however, disagree because I don’t necessarily believe that success comes from just “the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” I feel that it also comes from our attitudes, our upbringing, the way we view life in general. You can strive to be something, but there could be several things that get in the way. You could have physical, mental, or emotional limitation that stops you from obtaining your success. You could also have financial matters that get in the way of this. Many people can prepare all of their life to be something, and then life takes them down a different path. You could set out wanting to be a doctor, a lawyer, or even a teacher; but then life happens and you end up wanting to be a social worker, a therapist, or even a counselor. So does that mean that we didn’t succeed? No, it doesn’t mean that. It means that we grew as a person. We changed our want out of life. We were still successful, just in a different way. So many people in today's society look at success as being rich or famous. Just because they are rich and/or famous doesn’t mean they are successful they are just good at what they do, or very lucky. So even though I am not totally in agreement or disagreement, I do like what General C. Powell had to say.

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    1. I wanted to tell you that your paper is great and it is built on constructive critism.

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  10. General Colin Powell’s quote that states that there is no secret to success that it is the result of work, preparation and learning from your mistakes is wonderful. I think it is an anthem of our lives. I also feel we all would not be here, or be here long, if we did not believe that. Doing nothing leads to nothing. We are all going to school, which we have all done since we were five years old, seems to me to be a great example of General Powell’s quote. I learned early on that if I did my homework, I was rewarded with a grade. Maybe then a sticker or smiley face was the reward at first. This was a motivator to do it again. If I did not, I was not allowed to play when I got home. Not a hard choice for a kindergartener. Sitting inside helped me learn from my mistake. Sticker or stay inside. Life changes and I grew up. The concept stays the same. I work I get a paycheck. I go to college, I work hard for knowledge or the framework to build more knowledge, and I now have the ability to make significantly more money. I really appreciate General Powell. He has a lot of practical sense.

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  11. “There is no secret for success, is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” We are all different, and we all don’t learn the same ways. Some people learn and success faster than others, but it’s all about how much we want it. Success come from how bad you want it how much you desire something, success can only been accomplish by ourselves. Success is one of those things that just about everybody wants, but not nearly as many people do what it takes to achieve. It’s the expensive sports car, island home, or supermodel body that never goes any further than the thought that originated the idea. It’s the reason why so many people search for a “secret to success”; they want it, but they’re afraid of what it might take to get there. They’re looking for an easy path; a magic pill that will solve all their problems along the way and give them what they want with minimal effort. I agree with him, because everything in life is not handled to us. Hard work is always the better way to go, through the process we might cry, we might second chance ourselves, but at the end it will pay for everything. If I had one person come to me and tell me they can’t do something they want I will look at them and laugh; because we are all capable of achieve anything in life as long as we want it very much and we are working ourselves to get to our goal. Also it’s okay to fail; failure will help us to try to be perfect to want to be perfect to make us stronger and to be a better human being.

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  12. I believe in this quote tremendously by Colin Powell. It is very important that we strive to achieve in our well being for our future. The harder we push ourselves and go for what we want we will find pleasure and amplitude in doing that. It is self rewarding being able to achieve something you have always wanted. Hard work is not always easy but most of the times a certain task we want to achieve is not just handed to us. Go out and get what you want and work hard to do it right. I believe and agree with the words from this quote of Colin Powell. We can only accomplish success ourselves.

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    1. I agree 100% with what you've stated. It is very self reawarding when you achieve a goal, especially if you have people in your ear saying you can't.

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  13. I agree with the quote from Colin Powell, I believe that any one can do anything they set their mind to do. There may be some trials and tribulations, but they will only help them value their accomplishments in the long run.
    In order to reach success you have to prepare yourself for all kinds of obstacles that may come along the way, but don’t them detour you from your path. Use those obstacles as stepping stones, to get to where you want to be. You also have to work hard, things just don’t come easily, and they shouldn’t. Hard work makes people see the value of what they have/want. I believe that if things were just handed to you on a silver platter, those things wouldn’t be appreciated as much as they would be if hard work and effort was put forth. Also, learning from failure can contribute to success. You shouldn’t necessarily expect to fail, but if you do fail, then use that as motivation to try harder to succeed. Once a person gets a taste of failure, and how bitter it is, then they will know that’s not what their looking for and I think will strive harder for greatness.

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  14. I can for the most part agree with General Colin Powell, but at the same time there are facts of life that keep some of us from attaining our dreams. I don’t mean that you have to let obstacles completely keep you from your dreams but you have to be realistic. Sometimes no matter how hard you try to overcome. There are things that will keep you from your dreams. The first step to success is making realistic goals and realizing where you are in life and what must be done to attain your goals. This time in our country is a perfect example of how even if you’ve planned everything out to a tee and prepared for the worse sometimes it’s just not in the stars. You need more than hard work and determination; you also need faith and a backup plan. Earlier yesterday I was supposed to attend a job interview. I had prepared my resume’, my dress, examples of my work, and also lunch plans for afterwards. At 4:30 a.m. I dislocated my shoulder and spent most of my day in the hospital. The unknown is the 400 pound gorilla in the room. I quickly called and rescheduled the interview, but so much worse stuff could’ve happened. Yes hard-work, planning, determination, and education are cornerstones to success, but the human resources manager at that job you applied for feels more comfortable hiring a friend rather than you no matter how qualified you are. The unknown and other obstacles are not a defeat they are reality checks for us. Faith, resilience, determination, tact, and control of oneself and emotions are those secrets that make up the aura of the super successful. Inner strength, courage, zeal, and a whole host of other things lie deep within that quote from the good General. Andrew explained it very well part of my success will come from paying more attention as well as learning to type with one hand.

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    1. I really agree with General Colin Powell. "There is no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from our failure." Success does not just come to you easy you have to work towards it. You have to give everything your all and put your heart into it ro reach your goals in life. There are many obstacles that get in our way that holds us back from reaching our goals, but we have to overcome those obstacles that get in our way. I found out I was pregnant two years ago and I finished that school year semester out, but then later decided to just sit out for a while. I did not know how my pregnancy was going to be being that it was my first child so I did not want to take chance. I wanted to be focus and I knew at that time I would not be focused the way I wanted to be. I started back going to school this year and I am so happy and grateful. I have taken all of my prerequistions and all I have to take do now is take the Hobet test to get accepted into the nursing program. I thought about giving up several times, but when I lookk at my son he motivated me to keep working towards my goal. I accomplished going back to school and now I am pushing myself even harder so I can become the nurse I always wanted to be. I have learned in life that nothing comes easy and we have to work towards our goals to succeed in life. In order to succeed in life we have to prepare ourselves, work hard, never give up, motivate and dedicate ourselves.

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  15. I do agree with General Colin Powell. Right now, I am the lead singer in a pretty successful band called Dixieland Crossroads that I started about a year and a half ago. We all came together to do a benefit concert for a local charity because we wanted to give back to the community. We started practicing three nights a week and worked hard coming up to our benefit concert we were holding.
    Luckily some other kind people asked us to play for a private birthday party on the lake. We played there and did great but we did have mistakes and we learned from them. Finally the benefit concert rolled around and we had a huge success. Just like Colin said, preparation, hard work, and learning from your mistakes will bring success. Now, in just a short 1 and a half years we have played numerous times on the radio and we have our own professional music video.
    I also believe that anyone can conquer anything they put their minds too. Any person in the world could pick a dream out and work hard to pursue their dream and be successful at it. Will trying to succeed in that dream there will be times when you get knocked down and you may feel like you don’t want to get back up. If it is something that you truly want to do, then you will get back up. Let the haters be your motivators. Let them be the reason that you succeeded at your dream.
    I have learned from the music business that you can’t always rely on people to help get to where you want to go. This applies to all other situations. Take matters into your own hands and work hard at your dream. As long as you put yourself into good situations good things will come out. Always learn from your mistakes, work hard, and prepare for whatever life may through at you.

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