Success

Success

Success ---- Setting a goal and reaching it while still maintaining happiness and integrity throughout the process

By: Margot Weber

(Pressley)

Interview Kathy Leciejewski Interviewed by Margot Weber Q: How would you define success?

A: Having a goal. Working towards that goal. Striving for that goal. Working hard and accomplishing it.

Q: Would you consider yourself successful? Why? A: Yes, because I’m driven. I’m passionate. I’m very dedicated. I’m education based, and I think my success comes from the connection I have with young people, and adults even.

Q: Do you think you have achieved both personal and professional success, and how would you define the difference between the two for yourself?

A: Yes,for sure. For me, because i'm in the arts, it feeds the soul and for me. Because i've see such a volume of students for 39 years, and I've been measuring my success over almost four decades teaching kids, that teaching feeds into my personal happiness. My music and my job, my career, drives my personal life.

Q: Would you consider yourself happy in your success?

A: Extremely.

Q: Can you cite any specific reasons for that happiness, or does just an overall happiness exist?

A: Over such a long period of time, and seeing generations of kids, it comes back to you. It really does come back to you. It reminds me of, “do good and forget it,” and sometimes, you have to make decisions in your business that are difficult, because it is a business that i’m running, and that i've developed. It's definitely my style, my signature, my background, and it has come back to me, which makes me very happy.

Q: When you think of a successful person, do any specific words or traits come to mind? If so, what words?

A: Passion. Dedication. Discipline. Vision.

Q: Do you think that success depends on how someone achieved it? Why? A: Yes.. I mean, I think of my sons and what they did to be in the top of their careers.

They're so young, I’m still amazed. I don't want to be a bragging mother but I could clearly see their methods. I think sometimes we forget that success is all about ingredients. I see

what they've done to be successful, and you can definitely see how they got there, and why they are so successful.

Q: If you knew someone who achieved success, but they lacked integrity, would you consider them less successful?

A: For sure. I would say, and I live by, “what goes around comes around.” I think that if someone were successful but they had to step over people to get there, they would eventually meet their demise.

Q: Would you consider happiness important when trying to be successful?

A: Yes. I do believe that it drives you to become more successful when you are happy, and that it definitely has an influence on how successful you are. You have to be happy to do that.

Book Reviews Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling Throughout the entire ​Harry Potter series, written by J. K. Rowling, Harry relies on his two best friends to help him achieve all his goals and defeat the dark lord, but in the seventh and last novel, Harry’s reliance on his friends and the happiness they bring him ends up standing as one of the main factors that let him come out victorious. In the Deathly Hallows, Harry and his friends go off and attempt to find and destroy seven Horcruxes (Harry Potter). One Horcrux they find takes the shape of a necklace, but in order to keep it safe, the trio takes turns wearing it. Sadly, the Horcrux has a negative impact on whoever happens to wear it, as it sucks the happiness from the wearer. Despite this increasingly harmful side effect, the happiness of

the other two friends helps maintain their drive toward success. While in hiding, Harry and his friends end up arguing and that arguing leads to Harry’s best friend Ron leaving. Harry and his other best friend, Hermione, come up primarily unsuccessful in the absence of Ron. Only after the return of Ron does the trio triumph and destroy more Horcruxes. The happiness Ron brings with him of friends reunited stands as a driving force for Harry to accomplish his task.

Cover Art by Mary GrandPré (Harry Potter).

Breaking Night In Liz Murray’s memoir, B ​ reaking Night​, she focuses on how, in the end, she achieved success. Despite her drug addict parents raising her and her sister in a dumpy apartment for part of her life, Murray somehow attempts to maintain her own happiness. Eventually, after many misfortunes, Murray ends up as a homeless, teenage, high school dropout. She remains truly miserable and without happiness until she finally decides to attempt to go back to school. She visits multiple schools who turn her down until finally she gets accepted into the Humanities Preparatory Academy which a teacher designed for troubled students who stand on the verge of dropping out (Arn). Once there, her attempts to regain control of her life increased tenfold. She took extra classes and took every opportunity she could to do better. In the end, her hard work and integrity successfully got her into Harvard.

-

Liz Murray

(Arn).

Overall, I prefer H ​ arry Potter and the Deathly Hallows​ over ​Breaking Night.​ Although both books remain enjoyable, I find myself intrigued by fiction writing more often than not. The fantasy aspect of Harry Potter greatly pulls me in and makes it so I do not want to stop reading. I find his reliance on his friends and peers inspiring. His tendency to look for happiness in his friends stands as a reminder that success remains attainable only if happiness remains, and often times, happiness can

come from friends. To finish, the themes Rowling develops in Harry Potter stand as a main factor of my love for the series.

Letter to the Editor Dear Administrator, I write to you because of my concerns regarding students’ success in high school.

Personally, I have witnessed a decline in genuine success in myself as well as in my peers. I believe that part of the reason reveals itself as a loss of integrity when we as students complete our at home assignments. I know firsthand that homework and assignments can get passed around from student to student. Although sometimes the communication between students remains truthful and does not test the rules of integrity, more and more often students end up sacrificing their integrity to “succeed”. In the end, though, their success remains tarnished because of the ways in which students achieved it.

In today’s high school society, at least in my own high school, the emphasis on good grades and success remains so important that many students have become desperate. The integrity of high school itself has changed. With the new format of “teaching to the test” and with all the standardized testing, students no longer truly learn the way they should. Kids cram for the tests they take, but as soon as they take it, the information vanishes and the kids do not retain the information they need to know. This new way of studying ends up hurting students in the long run, seeing as they end up lacking key study habits.

Kids tend to either share or use methods online to help them complete their homework. In my experience, math students lack integrity when it comes to math homework the most. So many resources exist online for students to use to help them cheat. I know that attempting to forbid students from going online remains futile and pointless, but the truth remains that the internet and it’s infinite resources have become a hindrance for students when it comes to specific examples of learning. This reliance on our computers and the internet gets fueled by the growing emphasis on good grades and success. Each student learns in a different way, and in most cases, their success depends on how well their education can cater to that method. Students in school today often think of themselves as dumb because their education does not fit their needs, and does not cater to their strengths. This ignorance of people’s difference with the idea of “overall success” in mind puts kids down, and then because they do not do well in their classes, students look to cheating and other ways that sacrifice their integrity.

We can not keep this emphasis on success in school if we do not change the way in which we approach learning. We, as a society, have sacrificed our children's integrity with the hope that maybe they will achieve success, but in the end, that success means nothing because of the integrity lost along the way.

Sincerely, Margot Weber

A Doctors Happiness Many would define happiness as a state of content in life. We, as humans, naturally look for this state. In the past, the emphasis on happiness remained great.

Society often placed happiness in the same category as family. Nowadays, the emphasis on happiness has increased so much, because of a new rise in the emphasis on success, but does success really come without happiness?

Doctors consider themselves successful but in reality, their lack of happiness diminishes their success.

In today’s society, a population of doctors exists that remain “successful” in their own eyes, but unhappy because of the things they miss while achieving said success. Often times, doctors have no time for their families, whether that includes children or not. Some doctors even work so hard throughout college and medical schools that they end up missing opportunities to meet someone to share a life with. In addition, doctors can work anywhere from 12 to 30 hour shifts, which leave no time for them to spend with their loved ones (The Deceptive). Furthermore, even if they had time after their shifts to spend with family, they remain so exhausted that they physically can not function. Doctors often spend so much time working toward their

success that they end up missing key events, such as holidays, parties, and their kids’ activities (The Work-Family). Although these doctors may see themselves as successful, they missed out on so much valuable family time, they do not know true happiness, and therefore do not know true success.

In addition to missing family time, doctors also lack time for themselves, which in turn can impact their overall success. In order to remain mentally stable, variety must exist in one’s life. Doctors miss out on this much needed variety because they do not have the time to develop passions outside of work. The option of having a hobby becomes eliminated when one works 60 hours in a week (How Many). Overall, doctors can spend up to a decade in medical school, their residency, and fellowship training. Doctors could have spent this decade developing hobbies and passions that help mental stability. When someone’s entire life revolves around their job, what happens when that job comes to an end?

Either by retirement or a termination, when doctors stop practicing medicine they end up not knowing what to do with their time.

They go a bit crazy, because they never established and developed hobbies or other passions. Although hard working doctors

will say they have no need for dedicated time for themselves, once they have a taste of the benefits of self-time they will think differently.

With this, doctors who want success so desperately, without thinking of the

things they will lose will finally see that having the benefits of family and self-time improves happiness, which will, in turn, improve their success. In the future, the successful population will have family whom they remain dedicated to, as well as allocated time for themselves.

The Integrity of Business Most businessmen and women would say success remains the most important thing in running a business, but how does one measure success. Integrity stands as one of the most important factors when running a business. In the past, many businesses became successful without integrity, because they remained somewhat isolated from the public. Thankfully, in today’s society, many people who the public once considered successful have now revealed the true nature of their business, which lack integrity. In short, true success in business only exists in the presence of integrity.

The integrity of a business stands as a foundational element no matter what size, or kind of business. A business’s reputation can stand as the single most important thing when considering it’s current, as well as future success (The Importance). A business with a better reputation will, in the end, get more customers, which impacts their success. Even small businesses with a good reputation will end up more successful than others because that reputation can mean

more to customers than the product itself.

Arborwear, a small outdoor clothing business based in Ohio, has become more and more successful in the past decade because of the reputation hey hold of producing “honest hardworking clothing.”

Businessmen and women who lack integrity will say that they still maintain a successful business because not all customers know a businesses reputation, but with the growing number of rating and review apps, customers now have the ability to leave feedback about a business, which can greatly impact that businesses reputation.

In addition to the reputation of a business, the integrity of the leadership of a business also drastically impacts business success. Whether a CEO or a team leader, a business relies on its leadership to run successfully, so that leadership must maintain their integrity, for their business may collapse without honest leadership. The leadership must maintain integrity with their employees as well as their customers. If employees know their leader maintains integrity, they will in turn work harder,

which increases success overall. A leader must build their business on trust, as trust stands as an important quality in any business, and that trust only comes from the existence of integrity within leadership. New leaders will ask how others will know integrity remains, but the answer lies in the simple truth that most people can judge good character or not, and good character envelopes integrity.

When men and women look to start a successful business, they now know they must maintain integrity in order to have true success. In the future, the majority, if not all businesses will have a structure based on integrity in every aspect. The bright men and women on the future will see the mistakes of the past and learn what not to do when it comes to business and it’s integrity.

Biography Margot Weber currently lives in Chagrin Falls and has lived there her entire life. She has three sisters, of which she sits in the middle of as number three. Both of her parents lead successful lives and jobs as a business owner and an interior designer. Her father graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor's degree in sociology, and her mother graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in communications. Her two older sisters both attend The Ohio State University; one resides as a senior with a double major in music and creative writing while the other resides as a sophomore with a future degree in medicine.

Weber currently resides as a Junior at Chagrin Falls High School. In the past, Weber took both honors and AP classes at the high school and she currently takes four AP classes, of which include AP English Language, AP Calculus ab, AP US Government, and AP Physics. Weber prides herself on her good grades and GPA of a 4.2. She would like to think of herself as extremely self-motivated and driven as well as fairly successful in her high school career so far.

She also resides as a member of the mixed choir and the yearbook staff. Weber loves to sing so she has stood as a part of the Pop A Cappella Select Choir at the high school all three years of her high school career so far. In the fall, Weber spends her time as a part of the crew for the fall plays at the high school, while in the winter and spring, she devotes the majority of her time to the Musical, of which she has either resided as a member of the ensemble, or as the assistant music director.

Outside of School, Weber takes lessons for classical piano with a little bit of playing and singing on the side. Weber considers herself a late intermediate or early advanced pianist. She has taken lessons since first grade from Kathy Leciejewski. In her free time, Weber enjoys snuggling up in her bed or on her couch and reading a good book. She also watches the show Game of Thrones​ and would like to think of herself as an expert. She currently has the first book that inspired the TV series waiting for her at home.

In the future, Weber hopes to follow in her sisters’ footsteps and attend The Ohio State University or branch out and attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. While in

college, Weber plans to study biology with the hopes of someday becoming a research geneticist.

Although her passion for science remains great, she also hopes to carry on with her participation in music and theater productions, as well as piano, whether on a large or small scale.

(Above Photo Taken By Julia Crandall)

Works Cited Arn, Jackson. “Breaking Night Plot Summary.” ​LitCharts​, 20 Oct. 2017, www.litcharts.com/lit/breaking-night/summary.

“The Deceptive Salary of Doctors.” ​Best Medical Degrees​, 2018, www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Summary & Study Guide Description.” ​Book Rags​, www.bookrags.com/studyguide-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows/#gsc.tab=0.

“How Many Hours Are in the Average Physician Workweek?” ​AMA Wire​, 6 Jan. 2015, wire.ama-assn.org/life-career/how-many-hours-are-average-physician-workweek.

“The Importance of Honesty and Integrity in Business.” ​Brain Tracy International​, www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/importance-of-honesty-integrity-in-busines s/.

Pressley, DeLores. "5 Ways to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Success." EHS Today, 1 Dec. 2016,www.ehstoday.com/safety-leadership/5-ways-overcome-obstacles-and-achieve-suc cess.

“The Work-Family Balance for Doctors.” ​The New York Times​, 14 June 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/opinion/l15doctors.html.