The Preparation is done, but the growth has just begun
In my last 3 weeks leading up to the start of the first year of my 2 year MBA journey, I have found that I have learnt so much more about not only the content covered, but about my true self as well.
The main things I have learnt revolve around the revision that I have done, the discipline in doing it and the stretching that I have done.
Revision
Reading through the economics and accounting subject 6 years after having started working, I have found that I am looking at the world with different eyes. I went through 1 year of economics and 3 years of accounting in varsity, but this weekend was the first time that I picked up a newspaper and was truly interested in what the financial statement of the company results for ACSA were. What were they doing with their assets? How have they used their cash reserves? These are the types of questions that I had never asked myself when in university.
I also started questioning some business decisions that had been made by certain companies since it is being drummed in that the true cause and effect should be looked at before implementing a strategy.
These new perspectives are making me think very hard about my 4 years I spent in varsity.
Discipline
Another thing that seems to have happened is that I have somehow attained the discipline to sit down and study on a daily basis, although I have decided to take Fridays off to recover.
With the studying discipline has come a new found respect for that ever elusive work/life balance. My big learning however, is that I need to spend a bit less time in the gym and rather spend that extra time on personal relationships, be they with my wife, friends or church community.
Pushing my Boundaries
The last thing I wanted to mention is how I am being stretched even before we have officially started. As mentioned, this includes the discipline that I am finding I never had in terms of studying (I have always had discipline in terms of exercise and diet, but never studying). This points to the discovery of self that is occurring, especially the parts of my life that I would rather gloss over and not think about, but am now being forced to face.
The biggest push I will receive before we start is an interview that I need to conduct with someone who is senior in our organisation to discuss high performance work cultures. I decided to shoot high and asked the CEO if she would meet with me for 10 minutes to discuss this. She agreed, but instead of 10 minutes I got half an hour, so I am going to need to do a bit more prep in case we move onto other topics that she might bring into the discussion, especially in terms of our internal drive to create a high performance work culture.
Looking back at my personal growth over the past 3 weeks, I can only hope that this continues for the next 2 years and that I can keep up with the stresses that are going to be coming my way once fully under way.
Soli Deo Gloria
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