We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gregory Nicholas Garibay. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gregory below.
Hi Gregory, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Everyone has their own idea of work ethic when it comes to how one moves in accomplishing a job, goal, or anything for that matter. I’d describe my personal work ethic as being diligent and always with full effort. I have my parents to thank for that. Growing up when they would help me with school projects I can recall many times when they both separately encouraged me to go big or go home. One time in 4th grade my mom helped me with a science project. She helped me create a 3D model of the layers of Earth that was full of detail. We had made the Earth out of styrofoam hanging from fish wire inside of a cardboard box with glow in the dark stars and everything painted and labeled. Even had to the other planets labeled in the background for extra detail. Mind you, for this project, we were only required to make a poster but my mom decided not her son. Another time in 7th grade my dad saw a poster board I was making for a science fair & decided it just wasn’t enough, so he made me go to the dollar store to think outside the box for food & things I can include to give the judges a better visual presentation. Then, I’ll never forget he told me when he was in school, when it came to his projects, he made sure he went above & beyond for them because it always ensured an A. That same year I was the only one in the whole school to ever create a video presentation and present it as a project. It was titled “The Super Science Show Hosted by Gregory Garibay” your imagination can do the rest. After the class saw my debut film Mr. Gomez said “You got your A!” Little did I know that would be a repeated phrase from other teachers as the years went on & I continued making videos for school. I think the teachers saw the hard work & effort in my videos and liked them. Also because they would show every other class period & I got to be a little celebrity for the day. Among these school experiences I often saw my parents working a lot and genuinely hard in many different circumstances to provide for my sister and I so I have them to thank for instilling those type of work values in me that I use today.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
One major thing I learned is that being be a good, nice, genuine person can take you places. Reputation holds weight in this world and if you’re able to leave a good impression, do yourself a favor and do it. The call backs that I receive are only from people I’ve worked with before and that’s a testament to how they felt about me when we worked together or met and had pleasant interactions. They’ll want to work with you again and you’ll establish great relationships with those people. If there’s one thing you can leave with anyone it’s a good impression. It doesn’t cost anything to be a nice person so at the very least try to be positive.
Also, be a sponge when it comes to learning any new information. Don’t be so close minded to shun yourself away from new knowledge and don’t be a know-it-all. Never stop learning even if you may feel it doesn’t pertain to you. You never know when you might need that knowledge for something.
This last one is cliche but very important: Don’t give up. If you quit, you’re done for and you have no chance. You can say goodbye to that dream, goal, achievement, whatever you wanted. Give yourself a chance, don’t doubt yourself & be resilient.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
When I get overwhelmed, a strategy I like to practice is to face the facts. I’m more of a practical person so when I perhaps feel too overwhelmed with projects for example, I have a lot of deadlines coming up and not enough time to get everything done, rather than giving up or panicking I like to zoom out and view everything from a birds eye view in order to see what my viable options are for handling a situation. Life can be like a puzzle or an edit sometimes. You could only work with the pieces you got so in the example that I gave, I would more than likely just communicate that I need more time or power through and try to get everything done. You only really have so many options, considering whatever the circumstance may be, but giving up is just not one of them so you find a way to make it work the best way you can without hurting yourself. If you need a break I take it, recalibrate and then come back. Try not to unintentionally self-sabotage, be aware.
