The beginning...

Hello! This is the beginning of my new journal writing effort. I am near the end of my first semester in the MBA program at BYU. The biggest thing that I have learned this semester is the power of storytelling. I am writing a paper about it right now for my leadership class. Maybe I will post the paper on here when I am finished with it. Anyway, early in the semester we were advised to come up with several stories about our past performance (usually in the workplace) that we can share in job/internship interviews. I have found this process very difficult. One of my biggest challenges has been remembering the details of events that have happened in the past.

Throughout the semester I have learned that storytelling is good for more than just bragging about your accomplishments and abilities in a job interview--it is also a useful tool in leadership, to provide interesting and effective instruction, inspiring guidance, and persuasion in the workplace, in church, and at home.

So I've decided that in order for me to become a better storyteller I need to start writing in a journal. As I record events in my life, I will be able to remember them better and use them to create stories in the future.

Rather than using paper and pen, which takes up space, cramps up my hand, and is not easily searchable, I've decided to create an electronic journal. I thought about using MS Word, but then comes the question, do you create a new doc for each entry, or just have one long Word doc? It just seems cumbersome. I looked at journal writing software, but they are mostly from obscure software companies, and who knows if they'll be around to provide support later on...so I decided to just do a private blog. I've made it only viewable to the author (me), so it's still like a locked up journal under my bed, but I can access it from anywhere (with an internet connection), and it's searchable, and I can post pictures, etc. I might make it viewable to the public eventually...I mean, it's not like I'm planning on writing a bunch of juicy details that I want to hide from the world or anything...and even if I did, who would want to read MY blog?

Well...I'd better get back to writing my paper. Goodbye for now!