#rvalifestyle

[montecristolive]

That good shit..... #rvalifestyle #health #healthychoices #healthyeating #cleaneating #kingofeverything

[yrichmondrva-blog]

What's Your Color?

Last week, YRichmond interns attended an Insights Discovery workshop with Floricane. Insights is a personality profile tool that uses colors to describe different types of personalities and work style. There are 4 colors (Red, Yellow, Green and Blue), and while most people have a dominant color, it is possible to fall in between 2 or even 3 colors. The workshop had interns on their feet, trading color-coded personality trait cards, and moving around the room in relation to their defining characteristics. Exercises in self-awareness helped interns discover where they fell on the Insights color wheel.

The color wheel is broken down into 4 main colors. In terms of task completion, Red is the "do it now" group, Yellow is the "do it together" group, Green says "do it harmoniously", and Blue says "do it right".

Having taken the Myers Briggs Personality Test at least twice for various classes, I found Insights to be a much clearer and effective way of identifying personality types. Myers Briggs gives you a series of letters that describe your personality (I believe I'm an INFJ), and while in the moment of reading your report it makes all the sense in the world, it's not necessarily easy to remember your exact profile and what each letter means later on. Example: I just spent a solid 10 minutes Googling MBTI profiles trying to remember which one I was- and I've taken it more than once. And forget about remembering and understanding what your peers and co-workers profiles are. I've never worked with someone and thought to myself, "yeah, that person's a total ENTP" (it's usually a more memorable series of 4 letters). 

Insights on the other hand, gives you a simple and more comprehensive color profile. It's easy to understand what each color means and where you fall on the color wheel. More importantly, it's fairly easy to identify the colors of those you work closely with. As we were going through the different color profiles, I could not only pick out the colors that best defined myself, but also the colors that best defined one of my close friends who was there with me. Because what good is having a full understanding of your own personal profile, if you don't also understand how those you work with every day think, react and work?

So, what color am I? I'm a Green-Red, and yes I'm aware that that doesn't make any sense at all... unless you've worked with me before. 80% of the time I'm Green: I want to be there for those around me, and make sure that every voice is heard and every potential solution discussed. That other 20%? If something needs to get done, there are sports involved, or 40% of my grade is riding on the success of a group presentation... well then its nothin' but Red.

I had never heard of Insights before this event, but I wish I had. It certainly would have come in handy for all those previously mentioned group projects- If I had known what colors the individuals I was working with were, maybe there would have been a few less all-nighters or strongly-worded emails. And looking at the groups I've been in that have worked really well together, it is interesting to look back and notice the balance of color.

Live, Work, or Play, understanding your own personality and work and communication styles, as well as the personalities and styles of those around you is essential for success.

What's your color?

[yrichmondrva-blog]

Go Brand Yourself!

YRichmond’s second event of the summer, Building Your Personal Brand, was an insightful look at how we, as future Young Professionals, can use social media to create our own personal brand. Chris Mumford of the Martin Agency, Jim Coe of Tumblr, and Doug Orleski, creator of RVA Coffee Stain gave a lot of great advice on what tools and skills we have as millennials, and how best to utilize them for our future career search.

This event left me thinking about how we, the millennials, contribute to our own personal brands every day. My first thought jumps to my Twitter feed, and all of my classmates and acquaintances who should consider re-evaluating their brand strategy. Hint: maybe re-tweeting S*** Slutty Girls Say is not in your best interest, but hey, what do I know? Our social media use started in the early days of middle school (may my MySpace page remain forever in the depths of the cyberspace abyss), and has become a large part of our lives. In high school, and even maybe freshman year of college (wait, definitely freshman year of college) I doubt any of us were concerned about the pictures that went up, that maybe weren’t the most flattering or sophisticated. Pics or it didn’t happen right?

At the event on Tuesday, Chris Mumford referenced a quote: “You are the story teller of your own life.” There is such a strong emphasis on ‘kids these days’ censoring our social media: don’t tweet that, don’t post that, crop that solo cup out of your profile picture…it’s overwhelming. Yes, to an extent it’s necessary (again, posting certain things just makes you look bad), but where do we draw the line? If I’m the story teller of my own life, how many chapters do I have to cut out or edit before its public-approved. Not that my life, or my current social media use is that outrageous, but if I want to curse out A-Rod via my Twitter account, I would like to not feel guilty about it. My point is, how much is too much? We’re told to embrace the creative energy of our generation, but then we’re also told to pump the breaks on how much of ourselves we let show on Facebook, Twitter, and even Tumblr (I’m not referring to our physical beings here, keep your shirt on). Should we all look like boring cookie-cutter young professionals when it comes to our social media pages?

[yrichmondrva-blog]

What better complement to a tropical storm than a new movie starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaugn poking fun at the life of an intern? Happy Friday everyone!

[yrichmondrva-blog]

Meet the Intern

Hello, my name is Jen and I will be your tour guide for the summer. Just kidding...kind of. I'm an intern at the Greater Richmond Chamber, and if you decide to read this blog regularly (as you should), I will most likely be the voice you'll be hearing, or I guess reading.

For you nosey curious readers out there, let me tell you a little about myself, so you don't think I'm just some rando blogging for the Chamber. I'm a rising senior at the University of Richmond where I double major in Leadership Studies and Psychology. I'm originally from New Jersey (think whatever you want, it's a lovely place), but I absolutely love it here in Richmond.

Enough about me. The point of this blog is to keep you updated on all things Richmond, and to highlight the YRichmond program, a 10 week series of events for interns throughout the Richmond region aimed at exposing them to all the wonderful things the city has to offer.

I would say sit back, relax and enjoy, but it would be a much better use of your time to get up and explore the city. So get out there and live the RVA lifestyle!

[yrichmondrva-blog]

The weekend not coming fast enough? Get it started early and head over to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden at 5:30 on Thursday 5/30 and check out Carbon Leaf, part of the Groovin' in the Garden summer concert series! Check out more about the series and ticket info at www.groovininthegarden.com!