The ASSETS Lady of March is a co-worker of
mine at NBCUniversal who is always professional and has a lot of knowledge when
it comes to teaching, traveling, communicating and business. Lilly Gannone, a
25 year old Rutgers, New Brunswick Graduate, has a perspective on the world and
work ethics that I know all young women can learn from. Lilly has incredible
experiences and a great personality that have brought her to where she is
today.
From
interviewing Lilly I myself have learned so much from her and found her advice
and quote she lives by a great way to look at life. As Lilly said “Don’t
complain. If you’re unhappy about something in your life, you can change it
however you like, so do something and be proactive, not bitter.” I love this!
So often young women feel that they have “crap end of the stick” to put it
nicely get what are they doing besides complaining it. It is your life and you
need to live it the way you want. If you are not happy with where you are at in
school or work, do something about it! No one is going to be able to help
except yourself. That is why I completely agree with Lilly’s advice. If you
don’t like something, it’s up to you to change it.
I
also loved Lilly’s quote she lives by. Though not a very “everything happens
for a reason” or “if you don’t love me at my worst you don’t deserve me at my
best” type deal, Lilly truly has a meaningful quote. “A man who carries a cat
by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way” quote by Mark Twain.
Lilly said that she knows it is “a bit strange but it makes sense to me. Though
difficult, sometimes challenging yourself forces you to learn and improve in
ways you never thought you could.” From learning more about Lilly and seeing
the way she upholds herself I know this is the quote that exudes from her.
While
a student in high school and college, Lilly did a lot of traveling and took on
a large course load. To me, Lilly is a bright, young woman who has a lot of
knowledge under her belt as well as traveling! In college Lilly was definitely
active as she had a double major and a minor. She traveled as well as being
involved in organizations. Lilly said
“During college I was very involved with an
organization called the Institute for Domestic and International Affairs (IDIA,
2006-2010). We worked to build and facilitate model United Nations and model
Congress conferences for high school students. My work mostly included
researching and writing long briefs on topics like human trafficking, the War
on Drugs, and crimes against humanity. I would then present these briefs to a
group of anywhere between 10 and 85 students, who would proceed in debating the
topic at hand and work together to find solutions to those problems. I love
this organization and the work they do. I spent 4 years with them and it was
one of the best learning experiences I had. Teaching is something I am
extremely passionate about and this organization really helped me grow as a
teacher.
With IDIA, I also got to take a 10 day trip to the
Gambia(January 2009). There we taught seminars on personal growth and
development to middle school aged children. The overall goal was to help the
children understand that their voice mattered and that they could work toward
helping and improving their communities. On somewhat of a similar note, I
participated in a program in Croatia called Global PACT that was geared towards
rehabilitating communities still struggling with the aftermath of the Yugoslav
war in the early 90s.
During my first summer with the program (July-August
2007), I was a participant in the program, learning the skills necessary to
reconstruct communities broken by social strife and confrontation. In my second
summer with Global PACT (July-August 2008), I was hired to teach the program.
It was wonderful to go from student to teacher with this program. I was able to
further my teaching skills by learning how to harness them in a totally new and
different situation than I was used to.”
As it seems and shows, Lilly has a large passion to learn she
mentioned that “Grad school is definitely something I would like to pursue in
the future, but for the time being there are too many things I’m interested in,
so it would be difficult for me to pinpoint one to study. I think education is
extremely important in bettering your career and your own personal development.
I try to further my education anyway possible, even if that means going outside
the preverbal box of a university, so I take advantage of training sessions at
work and try and ask as many questions as possible when learning something new.”
It is always important to remember that education can never hurt you! Though
there may be loans to pay as well as bills, don’t forget that furthering your
education can only help you in the end. It is clear that Lilly wants to do so
many things but has her eye on certainly going back. As I say, it is always important
to want to do things and set goals, it gives you something to work towards!
So what exactly is Lilly’s story? We know where she works,
where she went to school and her experiences of travel and college but what
makes Lilly, Lilly? As I always love to ask the ASSETS Lady of the month, what
makes you, you or what is your story? Here is what Lilly said –
To someone who doesn’t know me, my resume is a bit
strange and makes little to no sense, other than my obvious attachment to
travel. The first 5 months of my freshman year of high school were spent in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, by way of my father taking a job there. Needless
to say, when I came home I automatically stood out in my small high school in
southern New Jersey. My parents thought Congo the ideal situation to get me out
my small town and teach me about what lies outside of the United States. It
worked; I love Africa in all of its wonder and mystery.
That adventure quickly led to others; I
spent my junior year of high school in France as a foreign exchange student. My
French limited to “My name is Lilly, I can’t speak much French,” made being in
France difficult the first three months. I soon learned the language and took
every advantage of being in a foreign country possible. My wanderlust followed
me to college and led me to take advantage of various travel opportunities
within my organizations and elsewhere. My travel experience led me to consider
a life of diplomacy, so I started off my collegiate career on the Political
Science track. Realizing I couldn’t stand the pompous arrogance that seemed to
inflict many of my fellow Political Science classmates, that major soon became
a minor and I took on Communications in its place. All the while I was also
studying French, having learned the language while abroad, I figured I should
keep up with it and took it on as a second major.
Needless to say, French and Communications
majors do not directly lead to any one career path. Since teaching has been a
long running theme in my life, the obvious route would have led me to the
classroom, but I became too comfortable working outside the generic classroom
structure; I couldn’t see myself trapped there and decide traditional teaching
was not for me. I was really uncertain of what career path I wanted to pursue,
so I did what most students do and applied to every internship available and
worked a lot of different jobs. I taught swimming for 4 years, tried my hand at
public relations, waited/cooked in many restaurants, and did some screening
printing. Nothing really developed into anything until my last semester at
Rutgers when, by freak chance, I got an internship at NBC. That internship
later turned into a job and allowed me to break into the world of television.
It was my first big grown-up job outside of
college. Unfortunately it was only a freelance position, so after a year I
either had to leave the company for 6 months or work part-time. Part-time does
not pay bills, so naturally I moved back to France. I do understand that that
is not really the natural response for any normal person, but I knew an English
teaching opportunity existed and I took advantage of the 7 month long program
and had a blast teaching again.
After France, I was able to come back to my old job at
NBC and soon after I was hired as fulltime staff. I love the fast paced
unpredictable atmosphere of my job. There is something comfortable to me about
the frantic environment. It’s like traveling, you never know what to expect and
you should be prepared for anything. Although I know my life has been a bit out
of the ordinary, I have grown accustomed to its weirdness, and to be honest I
rather like it.
I always love reading these stories. It allows me to see how
driven and hardworking these young women are and what sets them ahead and apart
from the pack. I know Lilly as a driven, hardworking, ethical women at work it
was so lovely for me to see her in this other light. To see her passions for
travel and teaching and seeing what fit best for her. Lilly certainly is one to
always put the best foot forward.
One thing I always ask the Lady of the month is her future
plans or goals, where she can see herself. Though it is hard to be precise as
one may never know where the future may lead you, Lilly has realized this but
still knows what she wants from her life. Lilly said “It’s really difficult for
me to pinpoint exactly where I see myself in the future. In a year, I expect to
be in a position at NBC slightly higher than I am today. As for the next 5, I
know I have the patience and teaching ability to be a good leader, as well as
the drive and determination to further my career and possibly climb the
corporate latter. As for the rest of the future, I can’t really say, I’m
excited to see what happens, because at this point I would rather see where
life guides me rather than guide life.”
All and all, I loved having Lilly for this month feature! As
you have noticed so far all of the ASSETS lady have been very different yet
they are all successful young women. It doesn’t matter what you want to do in
life, it just matters that you want to do it. You should never stray from your
dreams and goals and you should always, and I mean always, go after what you
want!
I would like to say thank you again to Lilly for some awesome
answers and helping to teach other young women ways to find themselves and be
successful. Thanks Lil! If you would like to reach out to Lilly with any
questions below is ways you can contact her!
Facebook:
Lilly Gannone
LinkedIn:
Lilly Gannone
Email:
LGANNONE@gmail.com
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