My Secret Sauce

What’s Your Secret Sauce?

1)   Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique. What is it about you, exactly, that makes you different? Write this up in a detailed list. 

1.     To start, I believe that something that is rather unique to me and would constitute as human capital is my curiosity. I believe that I am uniquely curious which has allowed me to learn a lot about many different things and people.

2.     I also believe that I am uniquely interested. I am someone who has always done multiple sports, had many different hobbies, and diverse groups of friends. I can get excited about a lot of things.

3.     I would like to say that I am also always very polite and conscientious which I believe has served me well.

4.     I would say that I am also a hard worker in everything I do and I am not okay with mediocrity in any sense really.

5.     Lastly, I believe that I am also really positive. This ties in with my curiosity and interested personality I believe, but I believe that I am very positive on many things.

2)   Interview the five people who know you the best. Ask them what they think makes you different -- remember, focus on your knowledge, skills, abilities, emotions -- in other words, your human capital. Try to stay away from discussing your other types of capital (such as who you know). Record each interview. In your blog post, please post each interview, as well as a two-three sentence summary of each interview, explaining what your key takeaways are.

Since I had to interview five people and I have four family members plus a cousin who all know me quite well, I figured I would interview each of them.

1.     Mother: My mother obviously has a special place for me in her heart, so she spoke very positively about me. She touched on many of the things that I actually wrote about myself. She first talked about me being extremely passionate about a lot of different things, which ties in with my first two points.

2.     Father: My father also touched on many similar things. For one, he said that I am very polite and always respectful. He also said that I am very competitive which drives me.

3.     Sister: My sister talked about my interest in a lot of things and basically said most of the other things that I referred to in my points.

4.     Brother: My brother made more jokes than anything and I couldn’t really get any serious answers from him but he also said that I might be considered a hard worker. He was mostly being sarcastic here.

5.     Cousin: I am pretty close with my cousin so she knows me quite well. She touched on my curiosity a lot; saying that she knows me as someone who is extremely curious about many different things and that this has made me ‘smart’. This is why I also, in her opinion, have played and done a lot of different sports and hobbies.

3)   Reflect on the differences. How do you see yourself, and how do others see you? Are there differences in how you assess yourself compared to others? What do you think causes these differences? Do you think your interviewees are correct about you? Finally, going back to your list from part 1, would you make any corrections to the list? How? 

     I would say for the most part, I looked at myself very similarly to how my family looked at me. I wanted to ask my family, firstly because they were easy to comply, and second because they do know me extremely well and have seen me throughout my entire life. I would say though that even within my family, there are definitely different perceptions such as my brothers versus my mom or dad. If I were to go back to the list from part 1, I really probably wouldn’t change anything because my family members mostly touched on everything that I wrote for my human capital.