So this is crazy – I’m now an adjunct professor! I am super pumped and very much looking forward to the opportunity. Over the last few years, I’ve had the good fortune of being invited to guest lecture by colleagues of mine throughout the sports industry. With a personality and sense for entertainment, I’ve loved getting in front of a group and engaging them in content. A few months ago, I decided to reach out and inquire about opportunities to teach either a sports marketing or business analytics class in Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies.
Talk about right place right time. Over the few weeks after expressing my interest, some opportunities that generally don’t open up, opened up, and I had the opportunity to interview. I’ll skip the boring parts of the story, but it ended up in a really neat opportunity that I’m incredibly excited about – joining the Georgetown faculty as an adjunct and teaching my first class, sports marketing.
So why on earth did I want to do this? I’ve spent some time really thinking about this lately. More-or-less, it’s because I love to challenge myself and I love to be challenged. Let me explain.
I’m terrified of public speaking and presenting. My friends and colleagues tell me I’m great and I’m a natural. I’ve seen tape of me, it usually seems to go pretty darn well, but the 5 minutes before I’m on, I’m terrified. However terrified I might be on the inside, the desire to push myself into uncomfortable situations is much greater and is an effort to push myself to grow and be better. As such, no-brainer to push myself out of my comfort zone and do something that I find personally challenging.
I love to be challenged. I don’t mean this aggressively or negatively, but I’m of the opinion that I don’t ever want to be the smartest guy in the room, and I don’t want to be surrounded by like minded people when making important decisions. Rather, I value and love others’ opinions and thoughts. A classroom environment, if structured correctly, is a hotbed for contesting ideas and for creating new and better ones. An opportunity to breath life into a group of people and push them challenge thoughts and ideas is both fascinating and inspiring to me.
I’m sure I’ll end up writing more about this as I progress and I’m excited to share with you!
-Alex