Breakthrough!

Does patience actually pay off? Not always (unfortunately), but right now for me, I feel like it did. I was able to run the first 0.5 miles of my 2.5 miles (hell yes!) run without keeling over or having to stop! It feels incredible to have made some progress (although I have a creeping suspicion that the cup of chai I had right before I ran may have had something to do with it) and I think staying in (for the most part) over the weekend and actually eating proper meals, and sleeping (helloooo second year MBA when this is actually a possibility) helped! It is unbelievable how much that one small teeny tiny progress made me feel so much better - like this whole running thing might actually be getting me somewhere (of course I might completely change my mind after my next run). The morale boost was much needed!

After this run, I am pondering on how necessary a breakthrough is in life - putting it in the context of business school - that first interview, that first job/ internship offer, that first successful event that you organize, the first set of midterms that you pass (yes - pass - Probability & Statistics class at Tepper will have you running for the hills) makes a world of a difference! Even if that breakthrough doesn't result in something concrete, it reinforces the confidence you have in yourself (and yes, no matter how awesome you are, EVERYONE goes through moments of self doubt at some point or the other). Sometimes that moment of mini-success comes right along your way without you doing anything, and sometimes you have to work hard - very hard - for it, and sometimes you have to be on the lookout for it. A jump from 0.35 mi (and this is how I felt when I first started running) to 0.5 mi is not very big, but I was looking for it, and I wanted it.

Bottom Line - Look for the small breakthroughs; they make a difference.

Taking the backseat

Running has taken a backseat this week with oh-so-much going on at school, and I have also been feeling a little unwell, so I thought I'd give my body a bit of rest. It is weird though how I see people running and I just want to run, the weather being so nice and all (which is going to change very very soon). However, I know that I shouldn't and/or have other priorities to take care of, and so unwillingly I don't run. Putting something on the back-burner - I have learnt - is a skill.

Leadership is something you hear so much of during Business School. I can't tell you how many times we've had to prove to someone that we have led people and managed people and led teams to success (starting with the business school applications!).  I'm not sure if everyone realizes that leadership is not always about taking the lead - I think it is also about giving up the lead when you know something at hand is someone else's strong-suit. Knowing when to stay out of the limelight, is also a skill, and an important one at that. I wonder if we will ever be asked the question - "Tell me about a time when you gave up your lead and let someone else shine".

Bottom Line: Stepping back is as important as stepping up.

Expectations - when do you set them?

Expectations are different than goals. Expectations, in my head, align with the outcomes of any or all actions. Setting expectations may be good in some scenarios, and not setting them could be inevitable in other scenarios. How do you navigate through these scenarios so as to not get too disappointed, and yet have enough pleasant surprises?

When I started running, the expectation I set (with myself) up front was that I would go out and run - three times a week for however long it takes for me to get to the half marathon mark. What I didn't consider was that sticking it through will be difficult - I cant sneak in a run when I am in class from 8 am - 10 pm, I cannot run (painlessly) after a night out with classmates (which happens way too often with one drink too many), I don't want to run when it is cold and dreadful outside (which in Pittsburgh, it is for a majority of the year going forward). Even though I knew it would be a long journey, I expected to be farther along in the process than I am right now, so now I am (a wee bit disappointed in myself) changing what I had set earlier to just getting out and running three times a week (no caveat about getting good - I will run thrice a week, or try to, forever technically).

A couple things that have been keeping me from running painlessly, have been cramps and side stitches. Now I know that I should be stretching before I run, and breathe well while I run, but that was a bit of hear-say. When I looked into it further, I found this video very useful, where the doc talks about the types of cramping, how they are caused, and what to do to prevent them, and side stitches. Now, I expect to take the steps that will ensure that I don't face the same problems going forward (well otherwise I'm just plain lazy and like to be in pain).

Business school teaches us to set expectations up front - before a meeting, before starting a group project, and before signing up for a class. This helps get everyone on the same page in terms of objectives, and results. I wonder how or if this can work outside the work/ classroom setting - can you ever set expectations for a friendship/ relationship? It seems so artificial (imagine telling your new friend that  you expect him/her to check in once a week at certain date/time! yuck!) and yet we all have certain expectations that we have in our head about knowing whats going on in your friend's life, about hearing from your significant other regularly, about what we do or don't do for family/ friends ("No, I won't do your dishes."). So the best relationships come out of aligned expectations, but would the bad ones be any better if this whole process of "setting expectations" explicitly happened? I wonder.

Bottom line: Expectations change. Be flexible.

Think running and run thinking

My Spanish for Managers class has revealed more insights than I expected from a language class. We had a guest professor come in, who essentially talked about the culture and about his background, mostly in Spanish (this was supposed to be our exercise - listening to a person other than our professor or TAs and ask him questions - I was guilty of reverting to English). He brought up a very interesting point about Spanish (or any language for that matter), being a way of thinking. When I learn Spanish, I am not only learning the language, but I am also gaining insight into what a native Spanish speaker might think like and structure his/her thoughts like. Being a non-native English speaker myself, this rung so true and I wondered why I had never thought about it that way. Learning a new language, the grammatical logic (or lack of it sometimes), and the difference between the language and your own, helps understand people and their way of thinking much better too. It also makes you feel so vulnerable and stupid when you just don't get something or when you struggle to say something as simple as "I don't know" that it levels the playground. Ever think about international students and how they struggle to get words out? Imagine having to translate your thoughts every time you have to say something!

My mind was very occupied with all of this when I ran today, and I wondered if learning anything new gives you an insight and changes your way of thinking. I see runners now, and I appreciate them more (I also hate them for running by me, chatting away as though its so easy), and I wonder if they are training for something, and if they had gone through the same starting pains that I went am going through. Even though I don't know exactly how, I think it is affecting the way I think - the way I set goals, and go about accomplishing them.

This kind of ties in with my Industrial Design Fundamentals class (part of the Management of Innovation & Product Development track) where we talk about design as a way of thinking (Design Thinking as its called - duh!). Think consumer, think ease of use, think solving the problem, think design.

Bottom Line: Learn something new - it keeps you on your toes, it humbles you, and it changes you.

Away from discomfort or towards it?

Running makes me uncomfortable in more ways than one and yet, I have taken it up as a challenge and want to see if I can get comfortable with it. I am well aware that it wont be an overnight process, and that it will be a painful process, but I am putting myself in that 'zone of discomfort'. (Some may call me crazy for doing that, but I believe that I will learn more from this experience)

Asking for feedback/ advice is another thing that usually makes people uncomfortable, and you do this a lot throughout your MBA. Putting yourself out there and trusting someone else to rip you apart and critique you, is not a fun process, but you are better for it. I have been lucky to have had the most blunt mentors who will tell me how crappy my stories may be, but at the same time coach me and challenge me to improve them. I have learnt that when someone takes the time to rip you apart, they care - its easy to say that something is good, not so easy to tell you that you suck and here's exactly why. Putting myself in an uncomfortable position where I am agreeing that I need to work more on my skills/ deliverable pushes me to do better. I end up wondering if I have a tendency to run towards discomfort (in this particular case of feedback - maybe I run to comfort in other scenarios - case in point - FOOD), but I'm sure for a lot of people, it is all about running towards comfort. Giving feedback is also a skill - an important one that B-school teaches you. Its a test of who truly cares (although keep in mind that everyone has a million other priorities, no hard feelings, but at the time you are not a priority) and who can take critique well.

I have also learnt that unsolicited advice usually falls on deaf ears, for the most part. Wait for someone to ask for advice - free advice is not something people want to hear.

Bottom Line: Get uncomfortable once in a while, it helps you appreciate comfort more.

Immersion

My fun class this semester is Spanish (for managers)! I haven't ever taken Spanish, although I pride myself as being good with languages. I picked up some basic Spanish fairly quickly in Colombia when I was there for ten days and spoke it well enough that the waiter assumed I was a native and spilled out the entire menu at break-neck speed before I could stop him. The professor for this semester long 8:30 am class (what was I thinking?!), who is also Colombian, talks in Spanish the entire time and her theory is immersion.

I couldn't help but relate that theory to running - I was talking about running and how I hate it for a long time, mostly because I never did run. Now, I think about running, write about it, and actually am running - very little, but I still am running regularly and I am learning new things every day (like don't run on an almost empty stomach after a late Friday night!). I am also realizing that a half marathon in May (thats the goal of this running experiment of mine) may not happen will be very VERY challenging since I can run only 0.4 miles without having to switch to walking - 13 is a looooong way away! I was running today and so many other runners passed by me (some cute guys too - running has its perks) and I just felt like I was at the bottom of the totem pole. Then again, this reminds me of last year this time when classes hit me head-on, like a truck carrying loads of bricks speeding at 100 mph (hello Probability & Statistics - its no joke at Tepper). I was pretty sure I would fail all my classes, would not quite be able to keep up with my brilliant classmates, and be kicked out at the end of the first mini (well this is an exaggeration, but I did think it at some point before I drove those thoughts away with tea, alcohol, and food!). I survived (thanks to all my wonderful classmates that helped me out) and I think I'll survive this one too!

Speaking of surviving, National Black MBA Conference is coming up next week and its time to turn the recruiting face on, and get through this crazy busy career fair. I went to the conference last year as well, and this brings back the fact that immersion is the best way to learn - when you are on the floor with thousands of other MBA candidates, spilling out your pitch to hundreds of recruiters. you learn to make your pitch your own and original, and you learn to be aggressive (well in my case, semi-aggressive, apparently I need to turn it up a notch - not fun when humility has been drilled into you forever).

Bottom Line: Just do it (courtesy Nike) - you never know if you can (or cannot) until you try.