First Friday is here again San Antonio! Everyone is gearing up to celebrate and marvel at the art and culture displayed once a month during this event. One event in particular that we here at Reaching Neighbors love to take advantage of is the Lunch Workshop put on every First Friday by Firecat Studio. During this event, Firecat hosts a lunch that includes a presentation from a guest speaker on the topic for that month. This month, that speaker was Liza Wisner, most popularly known from her appearance as a top 3 finalist on the hit show “The Apprentice”.
Liza Wisner
Liza was born in Kenya and didn’t move to the United States until after graduating high school. During her childhood, she developed a love for Golf and played for the Kenyan national golf team throughout high school. Once graduated, she received a scholarship to play golf for Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. After graduating from Texas A&M, Liza went on to create a business named Texas Techies, an educational technologies company that later helped land her a spot on The Apprentice with Donald trump. Everyone suffered from the Recession, and Liza was no different. After losing funding for Texas Techies, Liza responded to a late night ad looking for contestants for The Apprentice. Two months after sending a letter that she did not expect to be seen by anyone, Liza was called to interview for the show. The rest is history. Although not making it to the end, so many doors have been opened for Liza as a result of the show that have allowed her to not only work for an excellent company now, but also to continue working on the things she loves.
What Feeds Your Heart?
The biggest message to be taken away from Liza’s words is to find what feeds your heart. Life is too short to not pursue the things that touch your heart. We all face adversity, but Liza pulls from the adversities in her life to get inspiration for everything she does. While explaining this concept she said, “When something bad happens I literally start cheering. When something negative happens, you know something great is coming”. This is the secret to her success. The only way to be truly successful in whatever it is you are doing, is to make the best of every situation. Rather than dwell on the bad, look forward to the good that can follow. Whether it be some sort of monetary gain or simply personal lesson that lead to growth within yourself, realize what there was to be gained from that negative in your life.
Focus, Planning, and Perfection
Liza concluded the presentation by leaving us with three words to think about always; Focus, Planning, and Perfection. It’s not what you think though. When it comes to Focus, we all tend to try and multitask in everything we are doing. Rather than scattering our brains with the twelve million things I’m sure we all have to do everyday, take the time to just focus your efforts and attention on one thing per day. By doing so, you are able to remain efficient in that one thing and give it 100%, rather than a limited amount of attention because it your efforts were scattered between several things. Next was Planning. When thinking of new ideas and innovations, we all tend to over plan. We plan the execution, the dates of execution, the time of execution, and even plan the time to make the plan for the plan for execution. As ridiculous as that sounds, it is the reality for most of us. If you spend all of your time planning, you never get to start. Don’t be afraid to jump into your project and take action. Finally, she spoke about Perfection. So many of us hinder our own success because we set ridiculous expectations for ourselves and don’t meet them. We all strive for perfection, and many times aren’t able to recognize the value of our work because it isn’t “perfect”. Why do we do this to ourselves? As Liza so sweetly put it, “If you wait until it’s perfect, you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life”.
Having the opportunity to hear Liza speak and present was one that was truly inspiring and unforgettable. These words of wisdom with absolutely help to shape the way we do things in the future.
For more information about Liza and what she does, visit her site Here.
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For more information about Firecat Studio and when their next brown Bag special is, visit their site Here.
Reaching Neighbors 