Another day, another dollar in the beautiful city of West Palm Beach, Florida. This morning, we are all reporting to company time to talk about our success vs. failures from the previous night. How did our product or service sell? Were we priced too high? Too low? Did we not advertise well enough? Now is the time to break it down and analyze our business. Don't sweat! Amazing companies don't become amazing overnight. Some of our students are a little stressed - and that's okay! That's the goal of the Free Enterprise Leadership Challenge. We push our students to limits they have never reached before...that's when we see the leadership skills come out. That's when we see the light bulbs burn brighter than before! That's when we see the talents, skills and creativity reach it's peak.
We had a wonderful, motivating guest speaker visit FELC today. David Hernandez, co-founder and CEO of Liberty Power, talked with the students about what it takes to succeed as a business and also a little about his company, Liberty Power. Over the last decade, Liberty Power has grown from a small start-up to the largest independent retail electricity provider in the United States!
“Entrepreneurs must learn to see the silver lining. What you lack in resources, you must compensate for by being resourceful,” Hernandez said, one of his most inspiring quotes during his speech.
Hernandez received the 2013 Businessman of the Year Award from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for his success with Liberty Power.
Now it was time to introduce our first assignment for the day, the Laws of Life essay!
- The Laws of Life Essay Contest: This individual contest is an opportunity to express each student's values through writing and reflection. The "laws of life" are the rules, ideals and moral principles by which we live. Each student will write an essay discussing one law of life that means the most to him or her.
The Laws of Life essay has to be 2-pages handwritten or 1-page typed. This assignment is really an opportunity for self-reflection. This is also a private competition. The essays are read by one select member of the FELC team and is not shared with anyone. We really encourage our students to branch out and express a true law of life that they live by and why they chose it. Some students write about "honesty," some write about "courage" Each students has a different reason why their law of life is chosen and sometimes it takes a lot of effort to dig down and realize it. The top three winners of the contest also wins a cash prize along with points for their team to win overall!
Today was had our second round of debates! Again, three DIFFERENT students (who have not gone yet) approached the stage to give their three points of arguments on a specific topic they're given. Then, they're given the chance to rebuttal their opposing team after they have shared their points. The topics today are the following:
- Should the owners of the Clippers, Donald Sterling, be forced to sell his team? Is the action taken against him a violation of free speech?
- Should citizens be forced to pay for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act?
- Should municipalities, public school boards, be allowed to open a meeting if they choose, with a public prayer?
The arguments and rebuttals are graded by a panel of judges who look not only for content, but for presentation. The judges look for confidence, logical arguments, clarity of points, and enthusiasm of presentation.
After lunch and a break for more company time, the students had their second guest speaker of the day. Dawn Fotopulos, founder of Best Small Biz Help, is a successful business woman who has helped several small business thrive! BestSmallBizHelp.com helps "solopreneurs" make their small business more profitable and successful! Fotopulos inspired the students with stories of small, businesses who thrived by determination, hard work and passion.
Fotopulos says she has "rescued more than 400 small businesses and helped them to unlock their true growth potential." She says their are moments in starting a small business where entrepreneurs have "Ah Ha!" moment just like a light switching on in their brain.
Alongside running BestSmallBizHelp.com, Fotopulos serves as the Associate Professor of Business at The King's College in New York.
You can watch her video on Youtube called "Dawn Fotopulos, Your Small Business Coach" and get a better idea about her business and how it works!
After dinner, it was time to get down to business! Whether the students were in "company huddle" time, figuring out their time management schedule for all of their assignments or sell, sell, selling, making money for their business!
Concessions was ordering tacos from Taco Bell for their "Taco Tuesday event! The entertainment companies were busy, busy advertising their scavenger hunts, karaoke parties, netflix movie socials, and much, much more! Style had their hands stained with tye-die and publications was snapping away for pictures on their DVD. After their first night of selling, tonight the students knew what they were in for and knew they had to kick it into HIGH gear in order to make a good profit! Like any new business things are hectic at first. Communication can be a little skewed, but once they knew what they had to work on - there was no stopping the success these students were bound for.
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