Above Average Ambitions

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(Written by Alana Kinard)

My name is Alana Kinard and I’m a senior at the University of Georgia. I am from Clinton, South Carolina, a town with a population of less than 9,000, so I guess I am the clichéd small town girl with big city dreams.

I have always been a slight risk taker, very optimistic, and have had an entrepreneurial mindset, even in elementary school; I used to sell stickers and coloring book pages to my classmates at lunch and recess, until my teacher made me stop. I would drag my cousin into starting businesses with me and we would go pass out flyers to people in the parking lot of grocery stores.

As a child you are expected to have a huge imagination and you are told that you can be anything that you want to be. As you grow older you are expected to have “realistic” goals and told that you can be anything you want but only under certain conditions. For that reason, the older that I got I started developing more inhibitions about doing things like passing out flyers to strangers, but I never completely loss my drive – the drive that allows me to follow my dreams at all costs.

One of the biggest questions in a young person’s life is “What do I do after high school?”

College was always the answer for me, but which college would I attend? My drive helped me answer that question and I took the huge risk of declining to go to a school in South Carolina, where my in-state tuition would’ve been fully covered, in order to attend the University of Georgia to pursue a certificate in music business.

Fast forward to my sophomore year at UGA where I had the idea for Trey-A, an Instagram page that would turn into a blog and a business with a cause. The name, Trey, a synonym for ‘three’, followed by the letter “A” represents the phrase “Above Average Ambitions.” I came up with the saying Above Average Ambitions when trying to think up the name for my future record label. Owning my own record label is one of my main ambitions and I think striving to do so falls into the category of above average, especially considering that I am from a small town with no real musical influence, I don’t have a background in music, and

I’m a female trying to both get a place in a male dominated industry and be one of best doing it.

%tags Overcoming Challenges By growing up in a small town with not many opportunities, I know a lot people who don’t think they can leave or do anything better than work local fast food place, grocery store, or manufacturing plant. Clinton is a poor town with not a lot of job opportunities nor not the best education system, so a lot of people settle. I think that they settle because that is what their families did and that is what they are seeing their friends doing, so it becomes a natural cycle to repeat.

Luckily for me, I have a huge support system – my family. My family encourages me to do my best and they always support my dreams and decisions. Even though they are not as accomplished as they would like to be, my family wants better for me, so they are my motivation.

I want to be that person to give encouragement and an offer source of motivation to the people who don’t have the support system or role models. I want to inspire people to change their way of thinking, the thinking that says that they cannot be anything bigger than the place that they come from.

With the phrase Above Average Ambitions I want to encourage people to eliminate excuses and self-doubt.

To never settle and follow their hearts
To overcome stereotypes that society places upon them
To have the courage and self-esteem to leave their hometowns in search of something more
To do something what they are passionate about, not what their parents or others want them to do
To give their dreams all that they have and not give up after facing challenging obstacles

I want to encourage people to embrace their fears, not run from them. I hope to accomplish all of these things by promoting the Trey-A brand and by also continuing to strive towards my goals. After graduation, I plan on taking another large leap by moving to either New York or LA and getting a job in the music industry. This will be a scary journey but a necessary one to achieve my goals.

Through this process I will work on my personal development and also be a positive example for the people around me, showing them that facing their fears and getting out of their comfort zone is worth it if they want to be everything that they dreamed.

The question that I ask myself and post on my blog all the time is “Why settle for average when amazing is attainable?” That is what Above Average Ambitions is all about and that is the message I want to spread!

Check out my blog: http://trey-a-achievers.tumblr.com/

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Above Average Ambitions

(Written by Alana Kinard)

One of the biggest questions in a young person’s life is “What do I do after high school?”

I’m a female trying to both get a place in a male dominated industry and be one of best doing it.

With the phrase Above Average Ambitions I want to encourage people to eliminate excuses and self-doubt.

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