New York City was one of the most fast-paced, dynamic, and lively cities I’ve had the privilege of visiting. I’m grateful to have experienced it, but by the end of the week I was desperate for some solitude. I needed to slow down, get back into a routine, go for a hike. Having been back in Eugene for three days now, I’ve had time to reflect on what I experienced and learned this past week. Here are a few of those thoughts:

1. Don’t forget about your values and passions when you enter into a new job. I could spend hours talking about my passion for the environment and the outdoors, or how I value empathy and kind people. Who’s to say that these cannot align with our work? These are the qualities that can add value to your work. They can add value to the culture of your work environment. Hold onto what makes you, you. 

2. At the end of the day, being authentic and emotionally intelligent is more valuable than how proficient you are in a work-related skill. Of course, being competent in hard skills is necessary for you to perform your job well. But having empathy, challenging and encouraging others, and having an emotional awareness for the people around you, these are the true markers of success. Be a good person, or the person you’d want to work with.

3. Do good work, and don’t be deterred by failure. Educated misses, as I like to call things that have failed, are a central part of the process of creating strong work. There would be no value in this industry if everything went perfectly. There’s no lesson to be learned, no challenge in that. Embrace the fact that failure will indeed happen, probably more often than we’d like. But embracing this allows us to be more daring with our work. How neat is that. 

These are my most valuable takeaways from the trip. 

Laurel Martin #5 | 5.14.19