You Know What Happens When You Assume..

After watching the TED Talk in class, my eyes were opened to the whole idea of a single story, which I had never heard before. I knew people made bold assumptions and made choices based on irrational preconceived notions. I had just never thought of how dangerous it can be to not take the time and look at more than one angle or aspect of someones life or experience. I see this idea of "The Danger of a Single Story" play out in my life all the time. Being a member of a fraternity, this hits really close to home with me. They say any press is good press, but that's not the case for fraternity men in the United States. It seems like every other day, you hear about a fraternity bing put in the spotlight for something, and most of the time it is negative. You never hear about a fraternity participating in community service or hosting a great philanthropy event. Its always "fraternity X got caught hazing" and "fraternity Y got caught with drugs and alcohol". There's a lot more to fraternity men than American society has allowed and it's unfortunate that we take the heat thanks to the poor decisions of very few. More specially on campus at Ohio State, hazing has been a huge issue lately and I only hope that changes are made for the better of our entire community.

One example of this idea of a single story being put into action in my life actually happened last year at Ohio State. I was out on an average weekend and met another member of the greek community at Ohio State who told me he was in a specific fraternity. Based on what I knew about this particular organizations, I swiftly made a generalization about this individual before I had even learned anything about him. It turns out that he was not only the nicest person i'd ever met in this organization, but he was one of the nicest people I had met ever. I felt terrible for having made such bold assumptions about him and I vowed to never do that again. Still today, he is one of my best friends at Ohio State and I'm just glad I gave him a chance based on how rude and judgmental I originally was. I've definitely gotten better about not making assumptions and I only hope to continue to improve in the future.

You See There's Leaders and There's Followers...

Kanye West said it best but i'll let you look up the rest of the lyric on your own. When I think of a leader, its hard to decide on the concrete characteristics that go into one. It seems like such a subjective decision and as we realized in class, what it takes to be a good leader is very much up for debate. Additionally, good leaders and bad leaders may possess many of the same characteristics but may exhibit different behavioral patterns. I guess my ideal leader is someone who isn't afraid to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work. I think of a retail CEO who goes into stores and works the cash register. It takes a special person to take a company from the ground level and make it a success. It takes a leader to be humble enough to look at the business from every angle. Someone who I have recently learned much more about that I would consider the ideal leader is Steve Ells, the founder and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Steve thought of the idea for Chipotle while living in Denver Colorado and turned a vision for fresher "fast food" options into a company today that has over 1600 locations with revenue streams upwards of $3 Billion. You're probably thinking to yourself "yea the guy can make a lot of money. Big deal. What makes him a leader?". It's the attention to detail that makes Steve more than just a guy that had a revolutionary idea. He has taken the time to go into almost every single one of his stores in order to talk to him employees and ask for feedback on the way he runs his company. Rather than waiting for issues to arise with his business, he's been proactive with approaching potential problems and fixing them before they are insurmountable. This aspect of his business approach struck me as extremely innovative and fresh in terms of what companies are doing today. Between his ability to delegate, his honesty, and his never ending commitment to improving his product, Steve Ells is in my eyes, one of the biggest up-and-coming leaders that the world has ever seen. I only expect greater things out of him in the near future and hope to model my leadership strategy after the one he has adopted and used over the past several years.

My Life Be Like

I can't say I've ever had a blog before so this is a first for myself but I guess I should start with the basics. My name is Matthew York and I am currently a senior at the greatest university in the nation. I grew up in a very small town east of Cincinnati called Mariemont where everyone knows everyone, so Ohio State was definitely a change of scenery for me. I am studying accounting and hope to one day be the head accountant of a professional sports team. Between here and my end goal, I plan on getting my CPA as well as my MBA (hopefully not personally paying for either of them). My dream path would be to get a job in public accounting for a few years and hopefully pursue an MBA somewhere along the way. I am a sports fanatic so after deciding on accounting, I figured I would wrap my real passion into it and kinda shoot for the moon. I was born and raised in Cincinnati so I hope to stay close to home but I'm up for anything as long as it's something I really enjoy doing. I have a younger sister still in high school as well as an older brother living in Cincinnati so that would be a great place to start my career if possible. I've never really taken a formal leadership class, although I like to consider myself versed in leadership and equipped with the skills to do so. All in all, I hope to learn a little more about the ins-and-outs of what a leader truly is, while hopefully making a few friends along the way. I decided to take this class after hearing about it through greek life here at Ohio State and I am very excited to see what types of changes I will make throughout this experience. I look forward to meeting each and every one of you and as always, go bucks. Thanks for reading my inaugural blog post and as a reward, here's a picture of my golden retriever, Reece.