When we were first assigned the eminent person interviews near the beginning of eminent, I was quite nervous. Usually when we get assigned projects like this where we are supposed to reach out to someone to talk to about a specific area of study, I stay within my circle, reaching out to family and family friends. When we were assigned with the task of reaching out to someone related to our eminent person or their area of expertise, it was something that I had not had much experience with.
The first thought that ran through my head after receiving this assignment was that there was no way I would ever get an interview with my eminent person. I began to spiral to the point that I almost changed my eminent person. Once I got over believing that I would not get in contact with anyone for the interview, I decided that to look for some people online. I managed to find the name of Naomi Osaka’s manager. I wrote a message to him and convinced my mom to send it to him over LinkedIn. The next person I tried to contact was Naomi Osaka’s coach. I wrote a message similar to the one I sent to Naomi’s manager and sent it to her coach through his website. In hindsight I am glad that I did not change my eminent person but one of the first barriers that kept me from success is the fixed mindset I had going into this assignment.
After not receiving a response from either Naomi’s coach or manager I tried to branch off and find a few more options. This did not work out as well as I thought it would, I thought about trying to contact Naomi directly, but I came to the same conclusion that I did earlier. Reaching out to her or anyone else via social media was not an option. One reasons being that they would have hundreds of people reaching out to them daily as well as the fact that anyone I would have reached out to may not be who they say they are.
If you would have asked me when we started this project what I would have done differently my answer would be completely different than it is today. I would have said that I wish I picked a different eminent person, but now I would say anything but. I may not have interviewed my eminent person or somebody who works with her, but I did push myself out of my comfort zone. I contacted people I never thought I would have, and even though I did not get a response from anyone it was still very important for me to do. Reaching out to the people I did has made me a stronger person. Overall, this assignment, although nerve wracking, was very insightful. I may have not learned as much about my eminent person as I would have liked, but I did learn a lot about myself.