Grad 701 Assignment 2-4

In order to be successful in today's world, individuals must know how to network and expand social capital. If not, one would become complacent and have a narrow view of society, and not receive the knowledge and exposure needed to stay ahead. However, nobody is perfect at networking and staying in contact with all relationships built over the years.
The readings from "Achieving Success through Social Capital" made me think long and hard about the multiple interactions that I have day after day. The book referenced my line of business a couple of times, and made me think about how often I see customers come and go from my branch day-in and day-out. This made me realize that many times I make little or no attempt to built rapport or talk to them unless they talk to me first. Even if we have a conversation, many times we never stay in contact or talk again, and the interaction is disregarded for eternity. After the assigned readings, I am going to make a conscious effort to change this and improve relationship building with others that I interact with. Bank customers come in all shapes and sizes, and finding people that are quite different from me should not be a problem. I just need to make a conscious effort to build relationships with these people in order to expand my social network. In doing so, it will allow me to see other viewpoints other than my own, and to expand my mind to different human-channels that I have never explored in the past. The saying "you can never have too many friends" has never made more sense than it does after this weeks assignments.
Not only did the assignments open my eyes to social capital, but it also forced me to reflect on my overall life as a whole in the Lifecycle Plot diagram assignment. I found that over the last half-decade, my life is at a stage of constant improvement. My roughest times were the adolescent and teenage years when life never seemed to go my way. While studying my graph, I began to see a pattern emerge: The more that education played a high role on my priority list, the more positive my overall patterns became.
As for my learning styles, I didn't always take on a visual approach that I do now. Back in my elementary, junior high, and high school years, I maintained decent grades by listening in class and taking average notes. Not until college when I started to use flash-cards and highlight the majority of my readings did I become a studious student. Audio learning stimulants give me little to no benefit, and usually requires me to listen to it multiple times to have the same impact of reading the material once. Also, reading what I write out-loud usually improves my work as well.
As for the legacy I plan to leave on this planet, it is to bestow my knowledge to others in the form of teaching, public speaking, and being a good father and husband. I plan to take my career to the public someday in the form of politics and would like to be remembered as an "honest politician" (many find humor in this statement). To get to this level, I am constantly exposed to public speaking and interaction in my job, and hope to receive more exposure in my graduate program. As for the family aspect, I have great parents that I admire and look up to, and I aspire to be as good as them when I have my own family. Not to sound cliche, but my central reason to wanting this life for myself is so I can leave it better-off than before I got here. The world needs more people to make positive changes, and I believe I can do just that.