This past Tuesday marked another milestone for my charity, The Complete Player (TCP), and one that I am very proud of. This past September TCP started conducting our Business & Leadership program at MacArthur Middle School for the second straight year, with this years program being much improved and bringing students even greater opportunities.
Included in these new opportunities is Field Trips to local businesses. In our pursuit to educate our students in different areas of business as well as giving them access to interact with business professionals during the work day, Tuesday we visited The Stone Store/Aggtrans and Keller Williams Flagship MD.
While at The Stone Store/Aggtrans our students learned about Corporate Sales, Dispatching, Operations, and the “Yard” (the outdoor operations) by listening to a short presentation from the manager of each division. Our students also had the chance to tour the business and learn about how Aggtrans reuses materials to manufacture their own Topsoil.
In these short presentations, the speakers outlined what their jobs entailed, the skills needed to succeed at those jobs, and how their jobs aligned with other parts (divisions) of the business. Included in these presentations was leadership skills that each manager felt were an intricate part of their job. All four speakers all touched on different leadership skills, however all four mentioned that the most important were communication, listening, and being able to work as a team (team player).
At one point DJ said, “You have to have grit! Grit is a must! If you have grit you will be able to succeed at anything you do”. Boom! That hit it out of the park for me, because in mentioning grit, DJ touched on dedication, perseverance, persistence, initiative and looking to serve others. All these traits or qualities is exactly what we have been teaching our students up to this point. BOOM!
After leaving The Stone Store/Aggtrans we headed over to Keller Williams where the students met Stuart Schmidt, the lead of Keller Williams Flagship MD and the owner of Schmidt Home Consultants.
For the 60 minutes we were with Stu, nothing but jewels were getting dropped. Not only did Stu talk about his job and the skills that one needs to possess to succeed as a Realtor, Stu kept it real and talked to them about life. In his conversation Stu emphasized the importance of finding a mentor and how impactful his mentors are in his life. To top it off Stu talked to the students about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, and if necessary, removing the wrong people from your life.
Looking back on my life I wish I had people around me who encouraged me to find a mentor, especially when I was in high school and in my early years of professional baseball. When it comes to friends, I was stoked that Stu mentioned this because I see it so many times and have experienced it myself, how hanging with the wrong people limits your growth and inhibits you from reaching your full potential.
The first ever field trip for the TCP Business & Leadership program set a very high bar for the many to come. The knowledge and wisdom that was dropped on our students was phenomenal. I am so thankful for The Stone Store/Aggtrans and Keller Williams Flagship MD for taking time out of their day to give back to our students, who I know left Tuesday’s programs with a memory they will never forget.
Andy Schindling 