Keeping it together, and mostly stable.

Today I'd like to share a bit more of a personal note with you. While also attempting to introduce you to my theory of pillars. In my life I found it to be helpful to think of ones mind/existence as a table top resting on four legs/pillars. Those three legs are: family, friends, career and personal relationships. Moreover, think of having objects on the table, we have plates, cutlery and food, which metaphorically represents stuff, like thoughts, ideas, aspirations, worries and so on. OK so you get the picture.

The tricky parts with tables is that you have to keep all the legs equally strong to provide the adequate support for the stuff on top. The idea actually came to me couple of years when I was sitting at a coffee shop in Toronto and the table was just not cooperating. One of the legs was clearly shorter and the second you leaned on it slightly the coffee cups went sliding all over the place and I had to scramble trying to catch them. After that point came number of make shift solution attempts: napkins under the table leg, sugar packets, shifting the table to find more solid ground... but all the attempt were futile. At that point I was dating a Russian girl, Ekaterina who had a lot of issues, so somehow in my mind I saw a parallel between those two.

I really think that in order to be “balanced” you cannot forget/disregard one of the pillars. The main difference in this metaphor is that the table is gonna stay the way it is if you just leave it along. While we have to constantly reinforce our pillars to ensure that our life remains stable and things don't start falling off of the top.

Unfortunately, Ekaterina had a lot of family issues and her table was very shaky indeed. I tried to explain that by ignoring the issues it won't go away and only will bring more instability into other aspects of her life. Furthermore, when you try to combine one unstable table and one stable one it rarely works. There's only so much you can do to bring stability to the person that you care about. Only if they realize that its very tough to try to fix all the pillars at the same time.

Anyways, whenever I feel like things are shaky in my life I keep on thinking of Ekaterina and table tops and things become a bit more clear. I realize that I've disregarded one of the pillars for a tad too long and its time to invest more time in one of those four key areas.

Interestingly enough, I thought things were going quite well with Ekaterina. We've met at a salsa dance studio, where she was an instructor. She was a very smart and cute gal and we got along well. However, after a number of months of seeing Ekaterina she got engaged to her best friend, which happened completely out of the blue. The best part was that I found out about it really randomly. I thought that kind of stuff only happens in movies. ie. I was sitting in Starbucks with her friend. The friend left to the washroom and I decided to play a prank by writing something funny in her calendar. Instead I got a shock of my life when I opened the page onto Ekaterina's engagement dinner date ... big ouch indeed ;)) It further confirmed my theory about instability: basically her life was very shaky and she didn't really understand that the source of it was her own family situation. Things became even more tangled up when she came back half a year later saying that she broke off the engagement and wants to get back with me... Very unstable table indeed.

The moral of this story is that by disregarding one of the legs you are ultimately risking the stability of the whole. Moreover, if too much focus is concentrated in one direction the table is gonna end up lopsided and you'll likely come to regret it at one point in the future or other, although you might not openly admit it.

Just some food for thought, as usual.

The end ;))  
- George

Life in a fast and busy lane

Call it whatever you want, I actually feel my life getting better and more interesting by the day. Whether its sheer luck, like some of my friends say, or some careful planning and execution, which I'd like to attribute where I am now to. In any case, I am greatly enjoying the experience. For the first time in life I'm in the place in which I'm challenging myself. Moreover, I am putting it seemingly to a good use helping the organization see the gaps and move forward in return for it giving me a lesson in what works and what doesn't work in the world of business.

Its been four months since I came to Singapore, and I have been fortunate to be able to gain exposure to lots of different projects. Both the organization and my bosses are being surprisingly very accommodating to my learning style. I basically get involved in anything and everything. I started in the Product Management position which mostly entailed analyzing the performance of our product promotions as well as bringing quantitative rigor into the design of the new campaigns, an interesting tasks in itself and the best part being the exposure to all the various departments that Products naturally impact: Sales, Actuarial, and Finance. I quickly discovered that I needed to keep everybody in the loop to make it a successful exercise. The Product Management remains the core area of my responsibilities.

As an aside, there were two funny questions that people kept on asking me when I first joined our business in Singapore. First of all, the question of how old was I, kept on coming up time and again. It was a safe bet, no matter who I got introduced to, the first question never failed to be related to my age. It was a bit shocking for the first little while, as I couldn't understand if its simply part of the greeting or there was something wrong with my age. The answer turned out to be that people were apparently really curious about how young I looked for the position. Which is really not the case, but I attributed it to the fact that I was a new face and everybody wanted to know who I was. The second question was whether I have a girlfriend. Honestly, I was a bit shell shocked for the first couple of days by this friendly interrogation. I ended up shifting the topic by asking them why they were curious about my age / relationship situation and than talking about an unrelated topic of mutual interest. The girlfriend question was even funnier, as it turned out that people's curiosity went to the extent of doing a due diligence on my life back in Hong Kong. I took it in good heart though as people were surely curious, and sometimes a little bit too so. At the same time its good to know those things right off the start, so that you can manage them appropriately going forward.

So in terms of the actual work, the first month was mostly concentrated on learning about the products while helping on the product launch initiatives. It did not take long to land in the thick of the action. I remember the CMO calling me into the office and explaining that he needs a simple calculation to estimate an impact of a promotion, easy enough that spiraled quite quickly into a model which spanned multiple spreadsheets. That marked the beginning of lets go to George as he is the Excel guy story. Of course I didn't mind as I was actively adding value to the team and helping them to become more data driven.

Second month was more interesting yet. In the beginning of the month it was announced that we have signed a distribution deal with a major partner and also as part of that have to take on their insurance business. The next day I was informed that I'm going to be spending a large part of my time helping with the integration of the two entities. As the integration project progressed I have gradually get to participate in all the various parts of the project eventually ending up playing a supporting role on Steering Committee for the whole integration. It has definitely been an eye opening experience as far as the complexities go. Giving me visibility into some foundation things that happen in all the various areas to write a new business.
Lastly, my boss suggested that we have a challenge with one of our distribution channels and he mentioned that he volunteered me to provide an objective assessment of the problem and come up with potential solutions. So that was actually very interesting as I got a chance to spend time with our distribution people and understand how the whole sales process happens on the front end of our business. I've spent number of days interviewing various stakeholders. After spending some time on the project, I did come up with three main ideas, two of which was very well received by the channel head and one is already being implemented. And the best part? I'm actually getting to implement the second idea which can have a potential for a major impact on our distribution.

I feel that my work is finally having a meaningful impact on the business rather than simply recycling information and putting it in different formats. This is exactly what I was looking for and I'm glad that I was finally have been able to get to this place.

Till next time,
George

Call it a gut feeling..

So let me share with you today what that mysterious gut feeling means to me. First of all, I believe all of us have it and its the matter of choice if we chose to listen to it or not. The gut feeling is technically a subconscious process  which happens deep down in your mind and does not really require much conscious effort on our part. When it happens people say... I feel, rather than I think.

All of the people are born with this shortcut hardwired into our brains. Its such an integral part of our essence that when activated it causes physical reaction akin to when all of a sudden we feel thirsty once the body starts to run low on liquids. You can say that this gut of ours has a dual purpose, keep the owner happy with the supply of tasty energy while at the same time keeping us out of major troubles.

Personally I've discovered the gut feeling for the first time at a tender age of 12. Obviously back then I didn't know what it was. Let me share with you the experience and hope that should make things a bit clearer on your end of things as well.

At the time I was in an all boys summer camp. Which by itself usually spells some trouble. To set the scene, just imagine Sunday, parents visiting day. Excitement is in the air and camp management lets us go up to the road and wait for the arrival of our parents. This was clearly a mistake on their part. Combine bunch of excited mischievous boys with an occasional fast moving vehicles and something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. In this case thankfully nobody got hurt, although we came quite close... so here's how it went down:

Two of the camp troublemakers decided to conduct a live experiment. They would pick up a small rock and throw it up in front of a car as it would be passing by ay 100km/h+... smart right?! Since the rest of us were there just to wait for the parents we could care less about their experiments. So clearly seeking more attention those two decided to up the ante by increasing  the effect, now those guys weren't educated in physics but they thought that if a single stone wasn't producing enough effect why not pick up a handful of stones and through them in front of a car... I think you can imagine that nothing good was gonna came out from that idiotic experimentation.

I just remember looking away for a second and the next thing I remember hearing was squeaking of tires. And then a driver coming after everybody screaming on top of his lungs as we ran back to the camp....great adventure the troublemakers got us into. Thanks guys!!

Right after the incident the driver had a discussion with the camp management where they paid him for the ruined windshield and damages to the car. In the process the driver pointed out the boys which he could remember running away from him.. and guess if yours truly was among those pointed out......hmmm double great. That day was just getting better!

So I'm telling you all of this just to set the scene. The fun part which had to do with the gut feeling is coming shortly, I promise!

So here we are, the two troublemakers and myself and another kid. To make things more interesting it turned out that one of the troublemakers' mom was an assistant camp supervisor, which created a potential for an explosive situation, at least for a 12 year old. I mean, I point them out and his mom comes after me hard, I don't point them out and the camp supervisor comes after us two innocent bystanders.

To add some spice to the story the bullies started using all kinds of mental techniques on us two, it consisted of threats as well as incentives (in Russia we have a saying which translates literally into them using both sweets and wips on us, how wonderful, right?).

The basically told us: you tell on us and we'll beat the crap out of you (and I knew that it wasn't an empty threat) and if you say that it was you than we'll give you this brand spanking new flashlight with a radio... wow amazing, (OK don't laugh, when you are 12 it did seem pretty enticing OK!) The camp management wasn't helping the situation neither. They kept repeating that somebody should just confess and there are absolutely no consequences to us, apparently they just wanted to know... all of them were very convincing. But even as a 12 year old I knew that something was fishy...

At the time I remember weighting all of the options: on one hand I had a seemingly harmless take the blame option, I get the flashlight and no harm comes to me and the situation resolves....riiiighht? ;)) Second option: tell on the troublemakers, that's not so great neither as I don't have any guarantee that anybody will believe me plus likely him and his mom are going to come after me....at night???.... help anybody?? ahahahah

Anyways I actually came close to picking the option numero uno (1), taking the blame to get it over with, and in reality there was a lot of pressure on me from everybody to take that choice. But something invisible was not letting me take the seemingly easy way out, something from within my gut was reaching out and putting a breaks onto my false admission. I could not grasp that it was my brain telling me not to pick the stupid option. So the choice that I wisely settled upon with the significant assistance from my gut was the option 3: deny your involvement and say nothing else...

At the end things turned out relatively OK. After a day of trying to get a confession out of us by putting us to bake under the sun while trying to get a confession out of us they gave up. Russian camps are tough but Russian kids a even tougher...And everybody learned something:
Management: Don't EVERRR let boys out of sight;
Troublemakers: Don't mess with expensive things and you can't always force a false admission;
Me: Nothing is without consequences even if people say that it is. And gut feeling saved my neck and probably quite a  bit of money for my parents.

Who would have known that this lesson would come handy over and over again. Get this: Only one year passes by and I'm on my way back from school. I heard a hissing sound when walking by the neighbors truck, that's strange I thought to myself as I paused to listen. Oh well, must just be my imagination.. as I continued walking home. Little than 10 min later the door bell rang, and I've heard some commotion as my dad answered the door. My dad came out and asked me if I've punctured the tires on the neighbors truck?? say Whattt dad?!

And here it came again, the neighbor was using the same techniques on me again: just say that you did it, I promise there won't be any consequences. I understand that you were just playing around and I'm not angry with you, just say that it was you! I thought to myself I'm not as dumb as you think I am and having learned my lesson in the summer camp I wasn't about to fall for the same trap again. But he kept on insisting that I did it, apparently his sons actually saw me do it and then running away, they saw the knife in my hand as I punctured the tires.

I have to admit, at this point it was starting to get a bit confusing. I mean for a second it sounded so convincing that I started retracing my steps back in my mind to when I walked by the truck and thinking maybe I was sleepwalking and my alternative personally kicked in??? huh? but than I ultimately knew that I didn't do it and so I stuck to it. At the end all I got was an empty threat from the neighbor: apparently if he'd seems me anywhere near the truck he'd come after me... OK pal, you do that, I thought to myself.

Subsequently I had numerous times through which I gradually learned to trust and work with my gut or inner voice, whichever you want to call it. I'm also trying to further hone it by reading books about people making right and wrong choices: ie. lots of biographies and historical books. I obviously use my own head when taking the information from those sources as sometimes its presented from a bit of a pedestal (the author uses the book to say how smart and gifted they are and give themselves a pat on a the back). The latest best example of the later case being: A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O'Reilly. About 20-30% of the book actually strike me as genuinely interesting while the rest reads like  a personal soap box monolog of a guy who wants to rail against the world. None the less most personal  books are a good way to hone my gut to recognize the differences in people's thinking and get a glimpse into their mind.

Alright, I think I have said enough. The only thing I'll add is that gut helped me in both personal and professional life. It none the less best used together with the quality of knowing how to settle which I discussed in the previous post. I think it really helps to polish off the inner voice by putting the upper limit on what the gut is allowed to tell you. Meaning that if the gut feeling at times gets too sensitive and starts telling you that you are basically get screwed in everything. Than its time to let fire up your settling engine and desensitize the gut of yours. As you probably have figured by know, I'm a big believer in balance, too much of anything is bad...

Hey Gut, I guess I owe you one big Thanks!
- George

 

Thoughts from Singapore

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