Ask Jason@沃顿 (my essays inside!) Free essay advice again~

waterbearer

谢谢jason~~~！！！

cannedpineapple

There's a deeper point here.. if these people had gotten into their original choices, they would not have been able to reject it, and perhaps there wouldn't be a Warren Buffet today. That's important to think about when you think about 'should I apply to xyz school'. Sometimes the problem is not that you can't get in, but that you DO get in, and you end up forcing yourself to go to a school where you're not a good fit. This probably doesn't make sense to most people (after all more choices is always better?? well not to me!) but it's what I believe

Anyway, "Rejected once, and then again, by business schools at Stanford and Harvard, Scott McNealy practiced the perseverance that would characterize his career. A brash economics graduate of Harvard, he was annoyed that "they wouldn't take a chance on me right out of college," he says. He kept trying, taking a job as a plant foreman for a manufacturer and working his way up in sales. "By my third year out of school, it was clear I was going to be a successful executive. I blew the doors off my numbers," he says. Granted admission to Stanford's business school, he met Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla and went on to head Sun for 22 years."

Taking a job as a plant foreman and working his way up in sales?? This is inspiring to me- I'm going to be doing similar operational type things, but sometimes in business school if you're not doing 'banking, consulting, PE, VC', it can be very lonely. Just hope I'll have even half the success of Scott McNealy!!

June28

<For my failure essay:

Question: Describe a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself? (500 words)  

NO EXCUSES.>

Dear Jason,

Concerning no working experience, you really have no excuse for your failure in social activities alike the case your have supplied : p But I am still eager to learn from you, to achieve a successful execution, what's your insights for the people allocation, communication and conformation? To be a successful business leader, my question seems to be within the scope of thoughts. Am I right? Although it is a little beside the point of the subject, I still appreciate your sharing right now and in the future, thanks in advance!

Cheers, June

cannedpineapple

June,

There are many things I have learnt over the years. For example, I've learnt that successful delegation means that you need to accept that others might choose to do things differently from you, and sometimes even if you see them headed for failure, you have to let them take responsibility for that and not step in. In a sense, to let them 'conform' to your spirit of delegation, you need to give them the freedom to decide, explore and fail- in short, to 'not conform' to your success.

Another thing I've learnt is, it is important to not be so confident, and ask for help. Often times, the more confident you seem, the more people think you don't need help.. and so they don't help! Indeed, some people might even think, 'since you're so confident, let's see you succeed by yourself'. On the other hand, if you come out and say, 'I really can't handle this.. can someone help me?' All of a sudden, the willingness to put yourself out there, to admit your own shortcomings, gives others the freedom and incentive to step in and contribute.

One last thing is that it should really be about the team and not about you. You need to know where you fit in, and act accordingly. If you're not suited to lead from the front, then don't. If you want the team to succeed, successful leadership also often means knowing when to keep quiet, so that you can build support for the guy who is in front talking. Good leadership comes not only from standing in front of others, but also being willing to give up your authority and invest it in someone else.

Cheers,
Jason

PS, even if you have work experience, the point of a learning from a failure is that you can learn from it without creating excuses. This has nothing to do with whether 'you have the right to make excuses because you have work experience.' Rather, it's whether 'you can look past your ego, be humble, and learn from your mistakes'.

mindysu

Jason加油！有时候我觉得，当自己不用再管how other assess your accomplishment的时候，也许就可以更好地了解自己，知道自己想要什么，想成为什么。being alone不是坏事，on the bright side, it means fewer competitors.
Cheers!

Agreed. Being alone is sometimes great. But one caveat.. I think the problem is that most people don't know how to assess their accomplishment, so they borrow the standards of others (eg. money... promotion... etc). And when they're unhappy, they wonder why. "But I'm earning so much, doing such a dream job!' Well, simple, by others' standards you're doing great, but you need to find your own standards... Whaddya think, makes sense?

cannedpineapple

I don't know what happened there... mindysu's post was the Jason加油, and mine was the one in English. Somehow they got combined!!

June28

Jason,

Your attitude is really admired. For me, some real cases in different working scenario recall back at this time. Sometimes we try (or pretend) to be smarter than our subordinates and co-workers, but really have no time to reconsider about whether it is a wise strategy. To accomplish the targeted team success, one need to start listening more instead of ordering or commanding only. Return to the B-school essay, my experience is to catch the essence of the examples from our mentors, etc. Jason, you've done a good turn!

Have a nice day! Cheers, June

cannedpineapple

June, agreed. Thanks.

cannedpineapple

Bump.

bingbingo0

When you should consider not doing business school:

Original thread here: http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-428991-1-2.html

"我已经快30岁了也，到了我这个年龄，已经很知道人的精力有限，只能focus在一样东西上，跳来跳去绝没有好下场。"

This is true, but also not true. As you've experienced, it's impossible to focus on one thing, when you haven't found what that one thing is. You keep having to self-justify. So yes, it is important to focus, but impossible to do so if you aren't focusing on the right thing. It does seem like you're zeroing in on something, though.

This sounds like a perfect rationale not to do business school. A lot of my classmates came here with a lot of different dreams, but quickly realise that $200K is not a small amount of debt. So once again, the "生活主题全是钱钱钱". That's what you wanted to escape, and that's what you may find yourself imprisoned by once again, when and if you go to business school.

It sounds to me like what you really want to do is the tougher road, and harder. It may look to others like you're a failure. You will earn less money. You are not as trained or as prepared to enter this. Everything about it is harder, and going to business school almost seems like the easier of two roads. Yet you know that you'll be happier doing the hard thing. You've hit on a crucial thing. A lot of people think that going to business school will be tougher- but it really isn't. It's really a lot easier for many of us to go down the road of analytical business, to say that money and status is important, because it seems important to everyone else. What's really difficult is to 'listen to your heart, what matters to you most'. Unfortunately all of us are such an ingrained part of society that we constantly worry about what matters most to society... and often never hear what our heart says. Instead, we mistake what we hear from society as being the only thing that our heart wants.

You're lucky. You're hearing that your heart says it also wants something else (not to say it doesn't want money and status- who DOESN'T want these things? But you've realised that there is also something else that you want more.). That is an incredible gift you've been bestowed. Yet it is a gift that will take great courage to continue to carry. So here I am, to give you support and courage. Go forth and try what you really want to try. It's going to be difficult, it's going to be tough. The odds will be stacked against you. But you only get one life, and if you don't do it it may be even harder to do it in future. We're also a lot quicker learners and a lot smarter than we think. So yes it'll be hard, but given your strong passion and your ability to learn, there's a good chance you'll succeed.

Edit: PS, to use an analogy, since you're from a Hedge Fund background. With higher risk (higher beta), comes higher reward (higher expected return). If you join the fashion industry, that will mean far higher risk, but higher reward will come in the form of your happiness.

Good luck.

-- by 会员 jelt2359 (2009/12/29 7:01:30)

Jason, your ideas are very inspiring. Your comments on essays have been very helpful to my application. Thanks a lot! I am wondering if you act as mature in the real life as what you've written in here, cuz you seem to be more mature for your age. No offense, just curious