Summer Reading List

In Progress:
The Social Animal by David Brooks

Yet to Start:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Marketing War-Fare by Al Reis and Jack Trout
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman 
The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz
The First Billion is the Hardest by T. Boone Pickens

Completed:

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss 

The Truth about Search Engine Optimization by Rebecca Lieb
Organizing Genius by Warren Bennis
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Music Videos

How My Brain Operates

A while back I took a Skills Assessment test which is supposed to tell you what type of person you are. My result: competitor.

Yes, I live for competition. I live for the moment when you know you have beaten everyone around you, when you know you are superior. I live to prove people wrong. Tell me I can't do something and I will do my very best to prove you wrong. Its a competition. Me verses you.

I used to be a competitive bowler. I started when I was about 14 years old, entering high school. My first season I was horrible. I think I averaged something like 135. My second season I got better and averaged something like 165. During my third year I made some significant strides averaging somewhere between 185 and 190 and during the summer I had my highest average of 208. My time in bowling taught me something, it taught me how to perform under pressure, how to compete, and occasionally how to win.

Bowling is one of those weird sports. Its a solitary sport. When you are on the approach it is just you and the lane, there is no team involved at that moment. Yes, the team can motivate you and encourage you but I noticed their encouragement had nothing to do with my performance. I always seemed to bowl better around better bowlers. Its all because of competition. I remember one summer night after I got done bowling in the sport league I went down to the higher end of the house to bowl with Dustin, Chris McSwain, Chris Postell, and a few other of the better bowlers in the house. I was on a sport shot. Given my average I shouldn't have shot over 170-190ish.  I ended up bowling 280.  It was all because of competition.

Back in May our SIFE team went to the SIFE USA National Exposition. We put in countless hours into our presentation and were sure this would be our year to make it out of the first round at Nationals and onto the stage. I recall the moment the announcement was made that we didn't advance. The whole team was speechless. The SIFE USA National Exposition is all about competition and we lost. As a business major I believe that competition spurs innovation. And that is what will happen, we will strive to do better, and remember the bitter taste of defeat.

Our SIFE team consists of about 55-60 members. I see myself as competing against not only other SIFE teams but against different people in SIFE. I want to come out on top. I want to be one of those people 20 years from now you admire because they did something special, they achieved greatness.

On campus all the time I see these rich kids walking around with their preppy clothes and the finest girls. It seems like the prettiest girls are only attracted to the richest boys, even if they are asses. These always seem to be the boys who have the nice, new sports cars and live in the nice suburban houses that my family couldn't dream of affording.

Now I'm not going to try and make myself sound poor, because I know firsthand that there are millions upon millions of people who simply can't make ends meet. However, my family still lives off paychecks from week to week. When I graduate college I will be the first person in my family to do so. But to me this doesn't sound good enough. I want more for some reason. I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck. I want to break through class barriers unforeseen by anyone in my family or circle of friends.

Above all I want respect, respect that I am somehow capable of deciding my own future, independent of what others may think. I want to become an expert in something, and I want others to consult me for my expertise.

I believe that a person can't easily control his/her interests. I am normally not a person to enjoy reading, AT ALL. Recently, I began ordering some business books from Amazon.com. Given these are not all stereotypical business books. These are books that talk about how people were able to differentiate themselves, how people interact, and where our ambitions come from. For some reason I am hooked on these books. I believe its because I understand that these books will help me compete, to be the best.

People seem to have such low expectations of themselves. They all say "I want to get a job with such and such company and get paid well." Well what happens after that? Do you see yourself working for "the man" for the rest of your life? Maybe I am destined to start a business for myself, maybe that is where my passion is.

In SIFE I am able to connect my passions with work. I enjoy doing almost everything I do as VP of Marketing. I love trying to make my student organization look better than the countless mobs of Greeks. I want SIFE to stand out to freshmen above other student organizations.

Maybe SIFE is where I help to understand my passions. Maybe it will help me to understand where my life is headed.

I'm reading this book called Organizing Genius. The author says that most "Great Groups" consist of people in their 20s-30s. This is attributed to their being passionate, and not realistic. They don't know what they can't do, and therefore they try to do the impossible and end up somewhere in between.

I live for the fight.

I live to come out on top.

I hate when someone does better than myself.

I hate to lose.

-MGM

Thoughts for the Day; June 23rd

First summer session is almost over and it really wasn't that bad. It was actually easier than I expected. My grades have been much better and I have made an A on every assignment except for one.

The UNC Charlotte SIFE part of Niner Night is going great. So far we have about 105 interested students in only like 7 sessions. I'm on target to hit my goal of 200 contacts.

I really enjoy working at Niner Night. Its great to be able to share a passion of your's with other students. Things are really looking up for SIFE next year. We are doing amazing things and I'm proud to be a part of this group.

I've been reading a lot recently. I'm interested in business books. In particular, ones that talk about entrepreneurship, marketing, sociology, some psychology and leadership. I'm working on three books right now. These books are The Tipping Point, The Social Animal, and Organizing Genius. I've found myself staying up late reading. This is something I NEVER used to do. I ordered about 4-5 books last weekend. I love Amazon used books.

Next week seems like it will be pretty chill. I have an exam on Tuesday and a fairly brief paper due on Monday and that will be it until I work on Sunday night. I do have Niner Night, but thats fun.

Google Analytics are awesome.  

Why You Should Support Your University

One of the big issues at UNC Charlotte among the more school spirited students, like myself, is people that don't support the University as much as they should. Its not an uncommon sight to see UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, ECU, App State and other University's clothing being worn by our students on campus. It really bothers me so I'm going to blog about it and give my reasoning for being as school spirited as I am and reasons not to necessarily support Chapel Hill or Duke.

First off, I love my University. Coming out of high school I could basically go to any college in the state I wanted to except for maybe Duke. The colleges that I applied to were Charlotte, NC State, and App State.

I applied to Charlotte because it has a very good business program, beautiful campus and I enjoyed my time at open house. The proximity to my house (30 minutes) did not play a predominant factor but it also didn't hurt.

My reasoning for applying to NC State was basically because I was nominated for the Park Scholarship. I didn't make it past the first round and I didn't like NC State's campus when I toured because of the size. State ended up being last on my list.

App State was the third school that I applied to. For quite some time I thought I was going to go to App State. The outdoors was a large part of what attracted me. I wanted to take up snowboarding, I thought it would be really fun and it kind of had that cool factor attached to it. Their program was pretty decent and App State was still on a high from their win over Michigan State. It was kind of seen as cool to go to App.

My decision essentially came down to App and Charlotte. Charlotte separated itself because their business program was better, it is located in Charlotte where I can get better internships (as opposed to Boone), and I had a better chance of getting a job during college if I needed it because there are naturally more jobs in Charlotte. I made a decision for my future, I invested in Charlotte. Charlotte invested in me.

So my time began as a Charlotte 49er. I started off going to a few basketball games... and then I experienced Halton Arena. I recall there was one game against UNC-Asheville where Shamarr Bowden hit 4 threes in a row and the roof almost blew off the building. I was of course sitting in the upper section and from that point forward I was determined to sit in section 104. From that point forward my interest in Charlotte grew and grew.

You know, over time I have become much more passionate about Charlotte. I believe that everyone should support their University, no matter which one it is. I look at a Gardner Webb student wearing Chapel Hill clothing  the same way as I look at a Charlotte student wearing Chapel Hill clothing. Chapel Hill students should support Chapel Hill, not NC State or Duke or Charlotte. Its the way things should be. You should be loyal to your University, and set other allegiances aside shortly after attending that University.
**If I ever hear about a Charlotte student staying home to watch a Carolina or Duke game over coming to a game in Halton then I will slap you, honest to God.**


Here are some points:

1. I invest so much time and energy into my institution and my degree will reflect upon that time when graduation comes. It should be my personal responsibility to make my degree worth as much as possible and being school spirited does that in an indirect manner.
2. I pay somewhere around $12,000-14,000 a year to attend UNC Charlotte. I don't pay that money to attend Chapel Hill, or NC State or App State. If you pay it to Chapel Hill, NC State or App State then you should support your respective institution.
3. I have no relationship with Chapel Hill, or Duke. Why should I support them? I do not have an immediate family member who has attended either institution, I don't know any faculty, or athletes. I've never been on the campus of either institution. Why would I have any reason to support them? I don't like the bandwagon if you can't tell.
4. "I'm from North Carolina, I should pull for UNC-Chapel Hill." WRONG!!! Just because I am from somewhere doesn't mean I have any reason to pull for the team that people historically pull for.
5. "I'm live in North Carolina. I pay taxes to UNC-Chapel Hill." You pay taxes to all 17 institutions, 16 public Universities and the NC school of Math and Science. Why not pull for Elizabeth City State? You pay taxes to them as well. It comes from the same pot.
6. "I was raised supporting UNC-Chapel Hill or Duke". The Hitler Youth were raised to hate the Jews, gypsies, etc. but that doesn't make it right. Some people are raised atheist or believing a certain religion but that doesn't make that religion right. Just because you were raised one way doesn't mean you should grow up supporting it blindly, without questioning why. Too many people blindly follow people around themselves.
**I'm not comparing Chapel Hill or Duke to Nazi beliefs, if you're somewhat intelligent you should get my point. I will not argue about this.**
7. People complain about their Universities, fair enough. Some people will complain to the point that they hate their University. At this point you can no longer blame the University, you should blame yourself. Get involved, be active, voice your opinion. Its the same concept as your responsibility in being a citizen.


At UNC Charlotte we have some issues with school spirit. I blame part of this on the students we accept. Last year we took in something like 3,500 freshmen. We also took in about 2,700 transfers. These transfers come from local community colleges such as CPCC or RCCC but others come from other Universities like App State, NC State and so forth. I think this might have something to do with it. Students come in here with allegiances to another institution. Its like trying to mix the Indians with the white people. Well we know how that turned out.

Another issue might be that we are a young institution and we have grown a lot since our inception. We have grown faster than our reputation has. We are still viewed as a commuter school when in reality we are just as much of a commuter school as NC State. We have a student body of 25,000 students. About 18,000 being undergrad with the other 7,000 being graduate students. There are 5,000 students on campus with another 5,000 within a 5 minute drive. A lot of students also move to houses in Harrisburg because there is no property tax there. Others just move into a house with roommates in a nearby suburb. Nevertheless, we are viewed as a commuter school, an over sized community college, which we really aren't. Our admission standards aren't the highest in the state but they are rising. Our business program is the best in the state except for Duke. We have one of the two engineering schools in the state and one of the two architecture programs in the state. Charlotte has a lot to offer.

There is generally a lack of known traditions and this spurs from us being such a young institution. We have traditions and a lot of unique history if the students only knew about it. I'm currently working on this with a group of other students. Stay tuned!!!

As I wrap this up I believe it is important for people to step up and be leaders. Leaders for the institution, leaders for athletics, leaders for academics. I am willing to be a leader in a few different aspects, athletics being one of those. Take a look at the following video:



I'm willing to be the first leader, are you willing to be the first follower, second follower? What we need to create here is a mob mentality. If you have ever been in the bottom half of 104 during a basketball game then you know what I'm talking about. Its a mob mentality, its soooo easy to get pumped up, to love being a Niner. As leaders we have to ask ourselves, how can I be a leader and how can I make it so that others can follow me easily? You have to embrace the followers as equals, you have to be inclusive. Exclusivity at this point accomplishes just the opposite effect and will backfire in the short run and the long run. I urge everyone reading this that is a member of Niner Nation to think of a way to get others excited. And then embrace them, and get them to invite more people. This is supposed to be fun, it is your chance to stand out from the crowd, to make a name for yourself.

Be like the Uh-Huh guy, don't be afraid to be known as "that guy"!!!

Bleed Green and Go Niners, 

-Matthew Gordon Murrow

P.S.Oh and UNC-Chapel Hill still has it's hypen. Charlotte lost it's a long time ago. **words for thought**