Grow (v): to become greater over a period of time; increase.
Personal growth has always been and will always be very important to me. I firmly believe that you should never stop growing in any and all aspects of life. When faced with an opportunity that will take you outside your comfort zone, take it! In my experience, I’ve never regretted the opportunities I’ve taken that have led to growth of some sort.
I attribute a significant amount of my growth during college to Southwestern Advantage, the summer internship I participated in beginning the summer after my freshman year. I stepped far outside of my comfort zone and moved to North Carolina (my first time living outside of Michigan) for 13 weeks to sell books, door-to-door, working 80+ hours a week. Sounds crazy, right? It might have been, but it ended up being one of the best experiences I could have asked for as a college student.
Not only did I make money that summer (earning just under $10,000 for the summer, straight commission–not too shabby for a summer job in college), but I won a free trip to Mexico, made lifelong friends & connections, and learned more than I could have imagined about myself. Learning about myself and growing as a person are what intrigued me about this crazy summer internship more than anything else and was arguably the best thing I could have gained.
I had the opportunity to run my own business selling educational products (kids books, homework study guides, and Princeton Review college prep that worked alongside websites/apps). Essentially, I was assigned a school district for the summer (shoutout to North Charlotte), and built a client base of around 200 families throughout that first summer. The basic sales training Southwestern provided was wonderful and definitely essential to my success. I worked incredibly hard and learned to be coachable to my mentors and trust what has worked for the past 150+ years that the company has been around (the internship started in 1868 selling bibles door-to-door).
I went on to sell books for three more summers in Minnesota, back in North Carolina, and finally, Texas. I grew both in production and personally each summer, slowly becoming a more confident and independent version of myself. I worked full-time in the spring before my last summer, recruiting and training a team of students from the University of South Carolina (a whole other growth opportunity in itself) to sell with me as their Organizational Leader (OL) for the summer in Texas.
I am grateful for the growth I experienced during my time with Southwestern Advantage and the foundation that the summer opportunity provided for a lifetime full of growth.