Adventures in Ethics

Alexander the Great. Plato. Martin Luther King Jr. Mahatma Gandhi. Obi Wan Kenobi. Can you tell me what all these individuals have in common? A mentor.

As a young professional, I am constantly having a inner debate about what I actually want to do with my career. What am I really passionate about in business? Should I go back to the Kelley School and get a entrepreneurship MBA or a marketing degree?  How is my graduate experience going to translate into future professional opportunities? Should I wear the blue or red tie?

While I'm sure I will always have some form of these debates, its good to know that we were given two ears and one mouth. What do I mean? Its quite simple and yet complex at the same time: you were meant to listen more than speak.

Listening and mentorship go hand in hand like, "peanut butter and ladies" says Ricky Bobby. Faculty insights, professional wisdom, and past experiences of a mentor can help answer those tough questions about where you wind up in the future. Human beings are social creatures, we were not made to go through life alone. Picking an mentor that is invested in your success can make all the difference in your personal and professional life.

For me, I tend to have different mentors for different areas of my life. Dave Ramsey and more recently, Pete the Planner, generally have a stronghold on how I behave financially. Kris Gethin, trainer and nutritional expert, controls my eating and exercising habits. Ed Foreman, Jim Rohn, and Napoleon Hill have a fairly tight grip on my mental health and well-being. While this approach works for me, maybe you know someone you respect personally and professional who you feel would be a great mentor. If you don't, make it a mission to find someone. As a matter of fact, I know several Kelley School of Business professors who would serve as excellent mentors.

Alexander the Great had Aristotle. Plato had Socrates. Gandhi had Dadabhai Naoroji. Obi Wan Kenobi had Yoda. Who have you sought out to help you get to where you want to be?

 

-Nate 

 

@NCanadaWeTrust

@PetethePlanner

@KelleyIndy

While I wish I had an attention grabbing, thought provoking, and mind blowing first sentence to my introductory blog career, I am ashamed to admit that I am suffering from something quite common in my department: stress. 

First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nate Canada and I am the latest of bloggers for the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis. I graduated from the Kelley School with a Human Resources Management Degree and will most likely be pursuing an Entrepreneurship MBA in the future. I'm quite excited to interact with you, my reader, in the upcoming months of blog posts by yours truly.

A little bit more about myself, I am currently the youngest member of the Compliance and Ethics department of a local, Hoosier owned and operated corporation. While I realize this has nothing to do with my degree in Human Resources, I've come to understand that great personal and professional insight can be gleaned from any and all work experience in business.

One such experience relates to my earlier problem of stress. Anytime a company espouses and emphasizes ethics in the workplace, stress is bound to be nearby. The right way is not always the easiest and every person can relate to that truth. To make my job a little bit more difficult, I am a detail-oriented, perfectionist who struggles with beating myself up mentally when I make any sort of error.

Thankfully, I've been blessed to have picked up a few tips on dealing with stress from someone much wiser than myself: my boss. (In unrelated news, I am hoping to get a raise soon.) Seeing as we all deal with stress on a daily basis in some way or another, I thought I would share three suggestions that our team uses to deal with stress.

1. Prioritization - Each morning, our team huddles up and explains the top three tasks we will be working on for the day. I've found this to be incredibly helpful, especially when unexpected work gets piled on. Keeping your focus on the big picture makes filling in the details much easier.
2. Exercise - Nothing helps me blow off steam like an intense workout at the gym. I know this may seem cliche or even unexpected from a business related  blog but I consider all areas of my life to be business related. The company I work for emphasizes the idea that an employee should work harder on yourself than you do on your job. I would agree wholeheartedly that we become better employees as we become better people. My work team shares insight on diet, nutrition, and makes sure each team member does not have any photos displaying our physique. Feeling the strain at work? Hit the gym.
3. "The Little Things" - One of the favorite movies among my co-workers is Zombieland, which reminds us about, "Rule 32: Enjoy the little things." One of these "little things" that our work team uses to relax is basketball. Several of us have mini-basketball hoops from Dave and Busters that are often used after an intense phone call, an unexpected email, or worrisome letter. I can't tell you how good it feels pull off a 360 slam dunk after a rough day at the office.

While I'm sure stress will always be a part of life, hopefully these tips and helpful reminders on dealing with the strain can be of use in both the personal and professional arenas of life.

Do you have any ways to keep stress at bay during the work day or at home? Feel free to share what works for you!

If you'd like to keep up with me outside of my blog posts, I can be followed at NCanadaWeTrust on Twitter. [Warning:Topics range from how great Kelley Indianapolis is to how much I despise Katherine Heigl films.] I am incredibly excited about this blogging journey and hope you'll stick around to see where it leads.

-Nate