It was funny
coming into this “event” and there being a challenge involved. My roommate came
with me and she has heard a lot about BLF, it was great for her to experience
what it was like. There was pressure when we were first handed the paper with
the challenge but there was excitement as well. Anne Marie had her mom and
Anthony had his girlfriend so we had a pretty mixed team. Without Anne Marie’s
mom we would not have been as successful in making our meal…or at least the
soup. I don’t think any of the Fellows in the group were used to making soups
that did not come already prepared in a can. It was really good working with
each other in this way; I was surprised we had as much fun as we did.
We meshed
well as a group and continued to check in with each other to make sure things
were going well. Anthony’s personality definitely emerged. I love how he funny is;
it’s very unassuming until you are around him for a while and can get to know
him.
Overall I think
we were more of an action based group. We did not do much discussion; instead we
started and went from there. Once we knew what we were making we split up the
tasks. Antony and his girlfriend took care of our main meal and the rest of us
focused on the soup. We tried to all be helpful wherever needed. Our success
was just rooted in wanting a meal that tasted good. We were not really competitive
at all.
We really
should have focused on planning more and sharing our ideas. With our entrée Anthony
said he could make something with chicken and we went with it. For some reason
it did not click that his meal would only include him making chicken and adding
a bunch of stuff to it. There were no sides to go with it. We did not realize this
until it was too late.
To me the
biggest thing about teamwork is us all bringing the best of who we are to make
the team better. I came up with this activity once that was called The “I” in
Team. People forget that as individuals
we make up the team with our individual strengths and weaknesses make
everything work. This experience showed
that even though we all may not be great at something (i.e. cooking) we can
collectively come together and still produce something great. Our challenges are not something that many…if
any…of us have previous experience in. But we have enough experience in other
areas as well as connections that can help us be successful. This is what I would like to transfer into the
next challenge; a deeper willingness to try all those connections and tie in my
experience to the challenge.
