I’m finally returning to the details of what has become my everyday life now that my temporary work project and final exams are over. I have never been so exhausted in my life. While I was worn down from going to zero to sixty, and still kind of amped after going from sixty to zero, I am glad that I had the opportunity to go through this valuable roller coaster ride. In retrospect, I’ve learned the following from the last few weeks:
- Having things in order in advance of craziness: I have a consulting professor (or had, now that the semester is officially over for me) who told a story during orientation about things going haywire while he was completing his MBA degree. Since I went to the emergency room the evening before I first heard this story, I can tell you it was on my mind for the past couple of years. Even though I was thinking about it, I failed to heed this sage wisdom.
- Committing to staying on top of a couple of essential details: Anyone who knows me well or has been avidly following this blog, knows that I firmly believe that details are the Devil. I guess that this is due in part to my love of abstract high ideals and such. That’s why I started getting into creating systems and record keeping to help me not forget things I can’t allow myself to forget during the busy times. The most important of these things are my current financial status and my weight. I went through my savings a lot quicker than expected and added another ten pounds to my weight. I guess that my loss of concentration will be leading to some serious belt tightening in the next few days (in more ways than one).
- Keeping a slightly faster pace at all times: Working a forty-hour work week, even when I’m not getting paid from what I’m working on, is a really good idea. That’s five days on with a couple of days of relaxation each week. This will help me to be ready when I get the last-minute call to do something that I really want to do.
- Specific skills: There were so many resume-type of things that I picked up over the last couple of weeks. First and foremost, I got to work on a real-life market research project. That’s especially important, since I’m working to sell myself as a marketing guru. Additionally, this was a marketing project in a previously unfamiliar industry, thus proving that I can still pick up new types of information quickly. I also got valuable experience in cold calling. While people dread cold-calling for some reason, having the opportunity to explore the techniques associated with neuro-linguistic programming helped to make industry leaders and corporate giants more comfortable talking to me about sensitive issues. Furthermore, I used cold calling as an opportunity to understand the rules for winning the sales and research game and using this knowledge of the rules to my advantage. All this newfound knowledge was in addition to the old standbys of bettering my personal time management skills, developing the motivation needed to do the hard stuff, and improving my report writing skills. All this, while difficult and not always perfectly executed, will make me even more successful on my next project.
I think that my biggest takeaway from this experience, though, is the confidence to know that I can do bigger and better things with my career. So, while I previously thought that I could never go out on my own because I couldn’t work hard enough to sustain that type of effort (even for something I loved doing), I was pleasantly surprised to prove myself wrong. Starting my own consulting firm or whatever I chose to do from now on should be a cinch.
Tribe
Meetup
Entries (RSS)