Experience the World and the People In It.

This past summer, I had the privilege of traveling across the world for the second time in my life. This go around, I experienced Spain, France, and Amsterdam all with extremely close friends of mine.  The summer going into my junior year, I spent six weeks in Italy and Greece with about forty other kids from around my area. Both times abroad were different and unique in their own way. Of course, each city, adventure, and opportunity provided me with a different outlook on life. Not much is the same when you are traveling abroad, which is what I love. Every second of every day, you are seeing how other people live on the other side of the world. You are seeing how the rest of the world interacts on a daily basis. Nothing is the same, but there is one common standard that I have realized through my trips, which brings me to this blog.

In your lifetime, you meet, interact, walk past, or even just simply see millions and millions of people. Living in the United States has certainly showed me different ways of life. Everyone has their own interests, their own unique look, and their own personality. The same goes for the rest of the world. Meeting people and seeing what they are about has become a huge interest of mine ever since traveling. I tried to take advantage of meeting as many people as possible while abroad to learn more about the people that make up our beautiful earth.

Welcome! Welcome to the World. I hope this blog gives you inspiration to truly see how great and blessed we are to be surrounded by different personalities, looks, and emotions, because each person on this earth brings something positive and unique, we just have to go searching for it.

Rio Onyar, a river in Girona.

How Far I’ve Come

I like to think that my story is a bit unique when it comes to my time here at the University of Florida. Let me first hit you with this:

Yup, that’s me. That’s sophomore me, I should say. When I came to the University of Florida, I had every expectation and dream to be the next big time sports broadcaster. It was through these experiences above that I soon realized this was not the path I wanted to take. I did not have the true passion and drive for this major.

I realized that I did not want to be on the media side of things, but rather on the internal side of sports. Instead of asking the questions, I wanted to be the one fixing those questions. With that being said, I still am a Telecommunications major because I feel as if there are valuable lessons to be taken away. I certainly have these guys to thank for that.

Telecommunications taught me the concept of listening. It taught me how to communicate. It taught me how to fit a ton of different puzzle pieces together for one common goal. I truly think there is a ton to take away from UF, especially its Journalism school.

I could not even imagine where my life would be had I not gone through here.

The Tipping Point Review

If you really want a book that provides you with a different perspective on life, then “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell is the book you need to immediately get right now. Go run to the nearest book store and pick it up right now. Ever since reading this book, I truly do just think about a lot of different things. My mind is constantly racing and thinking of different things that this book mentioned.

I believe it is most important to mention the Three Rules of Epidemics, ultimately what this entire book is based around. The first one that he brings up is the The Law of the Few. What you need to know about The Law of the Few is pretty simple. According to Gladwell, if you are working in a group setting, you are bound to see that eighty percent of the work will be done by twenty percent of the participants. When I was reading this in the book, I started to think back to all of my group projects throughout my high school and college career. I can not tell you how many times I ended up doing a bulk of the work for a presentation we had for whichever class. There would be five people in my group, which would end up being about two slides per person. You would think that is nothing. You are wrong. I would end up doing six slides, while two other people would do their slides. That just proves The Law of the Few. Under the Law of the Few, Gladwell also talks about three different types of people that you will come across such as connectors, mavens, and salesmen. Connectors are people that are essentially a network hub. They are your friends that know everyone on campus. They are the people that when you go out, everyone knows who they are and tries to talk to them. They are very important if you are trying to span to different parts of a social network. Then you have mavens who are people that provide us with new information. They are able to obtain knowledge and are responsible for sharing it with others. Finally, you have your persuaders who he refers to as salesmen. Of course to be a salesman, you have to have great negotiating skills. These people have a certain characteristic of making others agree with them. All of this was an extremely vital portion to the book.

The next rule of epidemics was known as The Stickiness Factor. When you think of this rule, I want you to think of Sesame Street as well as Blue’s Clues. Do not lie to me. We all know that everyone watched these shows at some point or another. There is no shame in that. These shows are great representations of the rule because they show the idea of retaining educational content. Yet these shows do it in an entertaining manner.

Finally, you have the Power of Context. A word that perfectly describes this section of the book would be conformity. The entire idea behind this is that human behavior is influenced by its environment. The area in which you grow up or the people that you are hanging around strongly influence your type of behavior. Sometimes that may be a good thing, while other times it may be a bad thing. It truly just depends.

Overall, this book is a must read. It really makes you think about your lifestyle and certain moments you have had up until this point.

My Friends (Part 2)

As I continue to introduce you to some of my amazing colleagues, we continue on with three more amazing people.

Rachel White – I can’t even tell you when I met Rachel. It had to be during my freshman year when we were both working in sports taking some of the same classes for our major. It is crazy how time flies. Ever since then, Rachel has been involved with the volleyball team, all while keeping up with her duties at the station. I always admired her time management because believe it or not, she also serves on the executive board for her sorority. Needless to say, she does not have a lot of free time.

Chris Platt – To be completely honest, I do not know Chris that well. With that being said, his work has not gone unnoticed. Through word of mouth, I have heard a lot about his work. If you check out his blog, you should certainly check out some of his videos because he is an extremely talented kid with a bright future. I look forward to seeing where he goes in the near future.

Britnee McCoy – I had the fortunate opportunity to work with Britnee during the tail end of my reporting career. At the time I was in my last semester working at the ESPN station on campus, she was coming in. Her eagerness and willingness to listen made her really stand out to me. She was always trying to better herself during each shift, which did not go unnoticed. I truly respected her work ethic and of course it paid off as she will be a reporter in Georgia following graduation.

My Friends

I truly believe you are only great as the people you surround yourself around. With that being said, let me be the first to introduce some of my friends who I know are going to make it big in the real world:

Lucas Dolengowski – I actually met Lucas around my sophomore year when I started working at the ESPN 95.3 station on the campus of the University of Florida. I always looked up to him during my time at the station as he was a senior leader. Now he on the path to great success working for the UAA as a social media intern.

Lauren Bromfield – Throughout my time at the University of Florida, I have been on the same track as Lauren. We both started out as freshman wanting to become the next ESPN sideline reporters. Although we are on different career tracks now, I still always greatly respected what Lauren did in the field. Check her blog out!

Kelly Grosfield – It is crazy to think that just a year ago, Kelly and myself were partners in one of the most vital classes for our major. I always thought Kelly was extremely talented for her age. She was always driven and wanted to produce the best product she possibly could. I truly have not worked with someone who works as hard as her. I can guarantee you that one day, you are going to see Kelly reporting live from a big network.

 

 

Me, Myself, and I

Hey! What’s going on? Throughout this whole blog, I have not really taken the time to tell you about me. So allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Christian Endrigian. I grew up in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylavania, which is just right outside of Philadelphia. I attended a private catholic high school which helped me get into a school of my dreams at the University of Florida. I originally came here aspiring to be a reporter on ESPN, just like the other millions of kids out there. I quickly realized that this profession and major was not something I truly wanted. I changed my focus to a more of a sports management role even though I continued on with my major.

My experiences in this field have been with Gator Basketball as a video intern, which is a position I still currently hold. I also am a Florida Gator Football Ambassador. In that role, I serve on the executive committee as the official visit coordinator. That means I help host student athletes that are being recruited for football. I help coordinate the events that they attend during their unofficial and official visits. Finally, in the past summer, I landed an internship with the New York Knicks as a basketball operations intern.

Click Here if you want to check out more of my resume. If you are really interested in my past career, also check out this YouTube link.

Finally, if you step away from my career, I love to travel and see different parts of the world as well as the country. It truly is one of my hobbies to travel the world and meet different people. As you can tell from my blog post, The Johnston Sisters.

Other than traveling and sports, I am a pretty simple guy. I could sit here and try and make up hobbies, but that just would not be true.

Simple living is the best living.

 

Resume

I always find it interesting to compare my present resume to what it was four years ago, two years ago, and even a year ago. I don’t even have space to put everything I have done on my resume, so I have to pick and choose what I feel is most important for the employer I am applying too. I would be lying if I said my resume does not change from job to job because it certainly does. I do not think that is a bad thing because it is all true, but I like to highlight things more for certain jobs as opposed to others.

A resume is a way of showcasing yourself, but it is a way to show yourself how far you have come through your career. As you get older, the less-serious involvement and jobs you had start to find their way towards the bottom of your resume, while the heavy stuff starts to take over the top. I love looking at my resume and seeing what experiences I have been through.

If you would like to see my full resume, please copy and paste the link below.

https://christianendrigian.wordpress.com/christian-endrigian/christian-endrigian/

 

The Future

Keeping with the theme of Philadelphia sports, a new icon is about to emerge within the coming years. The Philadelphia Eagles drafted Carson Wentz 2nd overall in this past NFL draft. Since drafting him, the Eagles have experienced a lot of success that was not really expected for this year. They have started 4-2 after just beating the Minnesota Vikings, who were previously undefeated.

The Philadelphia Eagles have not seen much success in the past couple of years, but times look to be changing. If you have not got a chance to see his highlight tape from college, here it is, Carson Wentz Highlights. He obviously was a great college quarterback, but I do not think many people saw this coming. He is starting to take the city of Philadelphia by storm as well as the rest of the NFL. The question is, can he go down as one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks to play the game?

Some say that it is way too early to tell what he can be for the city of Philadelphia, but to be honest I think he is off to a great start so far. With that being said, the Eagles are proving that they are more than just Wentz as explained by Bleacher Report.

Being home just had my mind racing. Sports have had such a big impact on my life but in my 21 years of living, I have only seen one championship here in Philadelphia. It is time for me to see someone bring this city back to its glory days.

 

The Best Pound for Pound

This past weekend I had the chance to fly home to my hometown, Philadelphia. If anyone knows me, they know I love Philadelphia more than anything in the entire world. This city has been everything and more to me. My family, my friends, my sports teams, the countless memories, it all just makes this the best city in the world. I would not trade my home experience for the world.

Ever since I was born, my family was big into sports. They put an Allen Iverson jersey on me the moment I got home from the hospital. Since they I have seen Allen Iverson go through an amazing career. Fortunately, my family has had season tickets for over 30 years, so it is safe to say that I have seen some of his greatest moments from just five rows up. It would be tough for me to find a better moment than this one…Iverson Steal Verse Wizards. That play epitomized who he was. He was a tough hard nosed Philly kid with a passion for winning. The joy and excitement he brought to this city was simply amazing.

As I was home this weekend watching all different Philadelphia sports, I could not help but think of how he is one of the best sports icons to walk through this city. I do not know in my lifetime if I will ever experience an athlete like Allen “The Answer” Iverson.

The Man on the Moon

In light of a recent tragic story, I thought it was justified to blog about one of my favorite rappers of all time, Kid Cudi. I should make this clear right off the bat that I have never met him, interacted with him, or even been within 500 feet of him. With that being said, he has been one of my favorite rappers since he started with the “Man on the Moon” series. About a week ago, he posted a very long Facebook status admitting that he has not been happy. In Kid Cudi’s Facebook Post he reveals that he has checked himself into a rehab facility for suicidal thoughts. He wants to make sure he gets himself better before coming back. To be honest, I have never respected someone more. The first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one.

When I started this blog, I did not think I was going to do anyone I have not met, had a strong relationship with, or at least crossed paths with. Kid Cudi is an exception. Rules are meant to broken. I was never going to write about him, but then the Facebook post happened, and things started to make sense. I went back and watched his Ted Talk titled,  “Hi, I’m Scott Mescudi” realizing that he truly was not happy with how his life was shaping up to be. He had many regrets that he addressed in this talk. His overall message is that it is not about the fame and money. You have to love what you are doing, which he does, but you have to also have a clear mind. Too many things were weighing him down.

I think Kid Cudi is a great representation of People in the World. He embodies the celebrity that is in it for the passion, but has been hindered by the fame and money. I greatly respect where he is going and respect that he was man enough to fix the problems he was encountering.

If you want to check out some of my favorite Kid Cudi songs, click below:

1. Up, Up, and Away
2. Enter Galactic
3. Soundtrack to my Life

 

Person Profile: Jake Dube

About a year ago, I shot this quick interview of Jake Dube, a now junior at the University of Florida. At the time, he was just helping to get the Special Olympics off the ground here at the University. For the past four to five years, Dube has been involved in helping out the special olympics, but now he is spreading the word even more about people that need our help.

I decided to blog about this matter because Dube is a special kind of man. His personality and drive to better our world is unparalleled. I think we need more people like Dube in our world. This blog is all about the different kinds of humans we have in the world and I feel very confident saying that he is making a special impact on not only his community, but the state of Florida. If everyone were to follow in his footsteps, we would be better off.