Microsoft was started by two high school friends while in college, and Tesla was started by two entrepreneurs wanting to create a car with clean energy.
Maybe your business can find its origins with the Crews Center for Entrepreneurship. On Nov. 22, Crews Center hosted an event where they combined goal setting and mental health. The Crews Center invited guest speaker Madison Nel-Nicely, a clinician at the University of Memphis Counseling Center to speak to at Crews Center’s vision board party.
“I’m here today because the Crew Center asked the Counseling Center to come out to talk about how mental health has a role in goal setting. I talked about setting realistic goals and the downside of setting unrealistic goals which would be perfectionism, anxiety, and depression,” Nel-Nicely said. “We try to avoid those and how do we do that, we practice self-compassion and self-acceptance. I feel that anytime we have an open discussion that’s chill, not judgmental about mental health and our goals and ambitions in life can be helpful for
creating healthy culture around productivity and self-care.”
Crews Center has been hosting events all week and ended with their vision board party to bring students’ vision to life.
“Ultimately with this event we are helping to encourage students to set goals for personal or for their businesses. By setting them up, they have all the resources to pursue those goals also, to set realistic goals,” said Crews Center’s program assistant Lydia Haworth.
Its resources are not just for business majors.
“The Crews Center serves the entire campus, so we know there are entrepreneurs in every single college, said Whitney Hardy, Crews Center director. “There are fourteen colleges here and there are change makers and brilliant entrepreneurs in every single one, so we always open our events to anyone on campus because we know that this is their safe space as an entrepreneur,” she said.
Crews Center events can be important to students. It’s specifically meaningful to Syd McKissack, a sophomore fashion design major.
“I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who have the entrepreneurial mind set so going to Crews Center events are important because a lot of people want to be their own boss,” she said. “Or they are doing something but they’re calling it a side hustle when it’s a business and they call it a side hustle because it’s what their friends calls it, or people put them down and call their dreams unrealistic. So, of course it feels unrealistic but it’s not unrealistic to meet your goals you just need that community."
