A Talent Search
By: Olivia Xiao and Catalina Zuo
On November 13th, 2021, YES had another fruitful meeting at the University Park Public Library. We started out with our guest speaker George Brooks, then had a Frisco Arts Walk and Run awards ceremony, and ended with a Thanksgiving card making activity.
Mr. Brooks became very successful as the Senior Vice President in CommScope, a Fortune 500 Company. Mr. Brooks started out as an engineer, but later realized a passion for business. To transition from engineering to business, Mr. Brooks volunteered to gain experience. Even after changing pathways, he still applies his knowledge of engineering to business, and finds it to be very helpful in his career. Brooks then went on to fulfill his ultimate aspiration, building a company. Mr. Brooks is the CEO and Co-founder of NFLEXON, with a business model that empowers customers by allowing them to find the products they want at affordable prices. The leaders at NFLEXON built a business model that changed the path of the cabling industry.
Mr. Brooks shared his advice on how to be successful by knowing your talents and strengthening them. He highlighted that one’s Emotional Quotient (EQ) and one’s Intelligence Quotient are both important to success, but Emotional Quotient determines 80% of a person’s success while Intelligence Quotient is only 20%. The most important skill to improve EQ is self awareness, which is knowing your strengths, weaknesses, values, and impact on others. Knowing your talents can help you find your passion and guide you through college and career choices. For example, Mr. Brooks’s talents are responsibility, achiever, competition, strategic, and relator. These traits help him be a good leader for his business, and he encourages us to maximize our talents and spend less time on the things that we do not have talent for. He concluded with three main takeaways: patiently learn multiple functional areas, identify your passion, and develop self-awareness.
After this, we had a Frisco Arts Walk and Run awards ceremony organized by Amy Tian, Andy Xu, and Selina Wang. Ethan Wu made a video of the run and YES members’ art and music activities. Andy Xu, the third place runner overall, gave a speech about his experience leading up to the run and encouraged everyone to participate in next year’s run. Thank you to everyone who participated!
The meeting closed with making Thanksgiving cards, led by Kathy Mei, Allison Zhang, and Olivia Xiao. The cards were dedicated to elders living in senior homes. Due to COVID-19, an increasing number of people have been isolated and felt lonely. COVID has been tough for everyone, so we wanted to show love and thanks towards the elders in our community. With the enthusiasm and spirit of our YES members, almost 200 cards were designed to bring smiles this Thanksgiving! Go YES!
