Its been a really long while since the last time I wrote, the two contributing factors being that I got really busy as work as well as I wasn't sure how interesting my new adventures is going to be for everybody. Anyways in the past couple of weeks I got messages from various people who suggested I pick it up again and so here I am.
First of all, thanks to all of you who followed up with me and bugged me to pick it up again.
In any case, I figure it might be interesting to follow somebody their MBA and see how their life continues, beyond the walls of the educational institution. Perhaps, the real value of your investment actually comes as you embark on your career, after the program completes.
As some of you might recall, I was really lucky to have come across and ended up connecting with Prudential UK. At the same time I'd like to share the following pearl of wisdom which I discovered through a lot of pain and mental exercise in the past 3 years. Things come to those who believe in themselves and work hard to make others see it too. It turned out to be actually much tougher than you think, but trust me, its worth it.
Basically it goes like this. You think you can reach some goal, but everybody around you just don't see it. Starting with your school teachers and finishing with your own family, everybody keeps on telling you that you are just an average Joe Shmoe. In the beginning it hurts, you don't understand why people don't see what you see in yourself. Then you start to wonder if those people are right, and that maybe you are really not worth all that much and that you should settle for something that's available to people with you supposed level of intellect and mental abilities. Well and in here comes the challenge... do you settle (like a number of my ex girlfriends suggested, in those particular cases, on them) or does one keep on looking blindly believing that there's something out there that's going to be worth your time, mental efforts etc.
I've learned this lesson the hard way right after my undergraduate days. Since I've never really found school mentally stimulating nor particularly applicable to the real world I didn't put an excessive amount of effort into it for the four years of my Computer Engineering degree. I didn't understand nor do I still do the value of learning all the various theories other than to build a learning strength of your brain. But at the same time I had a lot more interesting ways to build that strength, for example through challenging and learning by yourself. Anyways, back to the point of settling. Since I was an average student I really didn't have employers lined up to hire me. Perhaps contributing factor was the fact that it was a smaller Canadian city, and that it was 2004 when the job market for IT jobs has not quite recovered after the Internet Bubble of 2000. Whatever the case might have been I found it next to impossible to find a decent job upon graduating from my undergraduate degree.
So what choices was I left with, may you ask? Fresh grad with no real experience and no outstanding academic record, in a smaller Canadian city.. I was cast to live a life of mediocrity. Fortunately I didn't follow my families advice and get a job at Canadian coffee chain, Tim Horton's, not did I take an enticing offer from Philips Medical Systems to move to an even smaller Canadian city to become technologist fixing their medical equipment. I sensed that both of those would have been absolute dead ends. Years later when I was working as a Product Manager in a fast growing IT company, I used to still see my uni classmates working in jewelry and photo processing stores.. quite sad.
So how does that have to do anything with a belief in yourself, you might be asking yourself at this point.. Or more like, well not quite sure where he's going with sharing his whole life story. Or even, c'mon George get on with it, the lunch break is running out.
Without further adieu: the belief in yourself in the missing component of when they tell you that you have to work hard and you'll get places. Or if you look at it in a different way its the zing while pushing ahead is the zang. Very creative, I know...
To cut the long story short, after the undergraduate I ended up spending couple of months scouting around for my ideal jobs, gave up on that and instead walked into the local Chamber of Commerce and asked to volunteer with them instead. And after volunteering with them for couple of months I managed to make enough contacts to land me my first and second jobs.
I had the same lesson reiterated to me after the MBA. Wherein due to my limited years of experience and IT background I wasn't a best fit with Consulting and Ibanking, which are both traditionally big recruiters of MBA Grads. This time around though I took it a lot less stressful and just had a blind belief that settling is not the answer and I'll find a great opportunity if I keep on looking and constantly working towards finding one. To which after three months of soul searching came the answer of the career at Prudential.
So here I am, you can guess the place where I'm writing this. Starbucks of course... Its month number four in the new Asian city. The second part of the adventure started last November when I moved to Singapore to join our local operations here. And what's the most important is that I love my job here. Its full of learning and challenges. Perhaps for the first time in my life I feel like I can do this for a long time and not get bored.
Let me put a disclaimer about the things which I said above. I recently read a very interesting book, which is called “Marry Him”LINK , in it the lady by the name of Lori shares with readers her ideas about finding a right husband. The key to the book is the fact that author recommends to draw a set of key criteria which the lady needs in a husband and settle for a guy who satisfies those criteria even if the guy does not satisfy other less important criteria (like hair and physical shape – ie he is bold and short). It was a fascinating read and its exploring a very interesting concept. One would think that the concept of settling is foreign to a lot of things that we do in a modern world, we want the biggest TV the best Stereo system, the highest paying job, the spectacular looking partner, etc. And what's more important yet, we might not want to settle and be happy with what we've got. That sadly predisposes us for a life of unhappiness as we will feel that we've settled on something that wasn't good enough.
Settling is not really settling if you have reached your goals. It actually something that gets you out of the hamster wheel at the point which you think you have reached your potential in that particular area of your life. Its actually something that should make you really happy, as you've reached a lot and its time to concentrate on finding a balance by striving to reach higher in another part of your life, whether that being a family, or mental or spiritual development.
So lets go back to the believing in thyself and using that to reach forward. I guess the lesson for me would be to be ambitious and at the same time realistic about your own potential. More importantly yet, I think setting time bound efforts helps one to focus the efforts in a particular area and achieve the most before you move onto the next area/challenge.
Its all obviously not mean to be prescriptive, as each individual has their own path in life. Just thought that by sharing my thoughts I might trigger some positive ideas in your mind.
Cheers,
George
