Leadership, Career Growth, and Evolution

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”
-Eckhart Tolle

I was trying to think of a subject line and a starting point for my blog entry today and as I was listening to the Eckhart Tolle Audiobook, A New Earth, I stopped when I heard the above quote and decided to write today's blog entry.

A few days ago, I had written a post on being present, which was inspired by an employee orientation that I attended. One of the components of the new employee orientation was a presentation from one of the senior leaders in the company. The senior leader described her own evolution both personally and professionally here at Intuit. This was yet another thing that really amazed me about the culture here at Intuit. Employees at Intuit are empowered to succeed and build on what their strengths are and focus on what they are passionate about. Her own passion was building and leading teams. She also talked about how she had helped others become focused on areas they were passionate about. Finally, she concluded her presentation with some general career advice, and the one that stood out to me the most was to "Be Present."

Although I already wrote about it when I heard the quote at the beginning of the is blog post, it made me think about careers, personal growth and more. I look back at the earlier part of my career which was an unpleasant but character building experience, and realize that life was giving me the experience that was most helpful for the evolution of my consciousness. So my advice to MBA students, regardless of your situation, if you're at a top tier school with more jobs than you know what do with, or if you're at a second tier school struggling to find the right job, or if you are applied and didn't get into your dream school, is to keep the above words in mind.

How to live longer

Last night I was lucky enough to see the legendary blues singer BB KING. What amazed me wasn't his ability to perform but, the guy's energy. At the age of 82 he still had the energy to sit on stage and entertain a large crowd. For a guy who is on the verge of dying, he seemed to be in quite a jovial mood. He was a great story teller.

The one thing I realized is this guy has lived to be 82 because he's happy. People spend so much time making life more difficult then it needs to be. So, may one tip for the day is find whatever you can to make you smile and spend at least 15 minutes a day thinking about it. It'll probably add 10 years to your life.

5 Best First Person Narrators- Actor’s whose voices you wish where in your head

1. MORGAN FREEMAN –SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION/PENGUINS

It would be difficult to argue against the fact that Morgan Freeman has the greatest storytelling voice of all time. In Shawshank Redemption his ability to tell the story was what made the movie. The guy’s voice is so great he managed to make a movie about Penguins with no actors absolutely incredible. If the voice in your headed sounded like this you’d probably sleep like a baby every single night. This guy could probably narrate a story about two people staring at each other for 5 hours and you’d find it interesting.

2. Daniel Stern “The voice of the Wonder Years”

Let’s face it Fred Savage was pretty worthless without that voice inside his head. Those quirky insights and hilarious commentary was all Daniel Stern. Yes, it’s that other guy from Home Alone who was Joe Pesci’s partner in crime. He is the voice of Kevin Arnold. Can you imagine waking up every morning with that voice in your head? Just brushing your teeth and taking a dump would be a captivating story.

3. Edward Norton- Fight Club

Talk about a storyteller. Having his voice inside your head might be a bit disturbing. But, this guy in my mind is one of the most versatile actors around. Hopefully you’d have his voice in your head and not Tyler Durden’s voice.

4. Johnny Depp – BLOW

After watching this movie, I wanted to be the largest distributor of narcotics in the US and hang out with Pablo Escobar. The way he told the story made every moment poetic. When he described Pablo Escobar and said “For those you have been on the moon the last 20 year’s, he was it, the king of it all, El Majico” that made the scene.

5. Robert Deniro-CASINO

After this you feel like you want to be in the Maffia. Can you imagine walking around, going to bars, clubs, etc, with this guy’s voice in your head. “When she ordered a long island, I just knew right then and there I was F#$#$d.

Be Present

I know that I've spent a good deal of time writing about thinking about your future, thinking about your job search and more. One of the things that humanity as a whole has become completely obsessed with is progress. Ironically, so much of our progress has led to misery. We become obsessed with getting ahead and moving forward, so that there is never any ability to be present. You can see this all around you.

• The person who sits in a restaurant or a bar looking at their cell phone or their watch waiting for the other person
• The person who spends all their time planning for the future, writing down ideas, and never acting on them
• The person who lives in the past and constantly starts stories with "I used to"
• Waiting for events or circumstances to be favorable in order to have a favorable emotional response

When you are not present, you are in a mental prison which keeps your from reaching your full potential. This mental prison is really responsible for the state of misery you are in. At the rate that information reaches us today through mediums like the Internet, there is a tremendous danger that humanity will not only perpetuate this misery but fuel rapid spread of this misery.

After my recent reading of the Eckhart Tolle Book A New Earth, I realized that when you get to the future you are still in the present moment, and the future will continue to exist until you die.
You will find that the more present you are, the more power and impact your interactions with people will have. Just to be clear, I'm not saying don't have goals, don't plan, the key is to make plans and not concern yourself with arriving at your destination. In other words, enjoy the journey.

9 most pointless groups on Facebook-The Power of Web 2.0

Pure Energy

This is an article written by my friend Brent Smith and I thought I'd post it here for the world to see.



Pure Energy (by Brent Smith)

I'm always telling you that it's your "energy"
that's the key to having an extraordinary life
but some of you are having a hard time grasping
the concept. So, I think it's time that I explain
it.

Here it goes:

Nobel Prize winning physicists have proven beyond
doubt that the physical world is one large sea of
energy that flashes into and out of being in
billionth's of a second, over and over again.
This is the world of quantum physics. They've
proven that thoughts are what put together and
hold together this ever-changing energy field into
the "objects" that you see. So why do you see a
person instead of a flashing cluster of energy?
Think of a movie reel. A movie is a collection of
about twenty-four frames a second. Each frame is
separated by a gap. However, because of the speed
at which one frame replaces another, your eyes get
cheated into thinking that you see a continuous
and moving picture.

Think of a television. A TV tube is simply a tube
with heaps of electrons hitting the screen in a
certain way, creating the illusion of form and
motion. This is what all objects are.

You have five physical senses:

Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste.

Each of these senses has a specific spectrum; for
example, a dog hears a different range of sound
than a human does; a snake sees a different
spectrum of light than you do; and so on. In
other words, your set of senses perceives the sea
of energy from a certain limited standpoint and
makes up an image from that. It's not complete,
nor is it accurate. It's just an interpretation.
All of your interpretations are solely based on an
"internal map" of reality and not the real truth.
Your "map" is a result of your personal life's
collective experiences.

Your thoughts are linked to this invisible energy
and they determine what the energy forms. Your
thoughts literally shift the universe on a
particle-by-particle basis to create your physical
life. Look around you. Everything you see in
your physical world started as an idea, an idea
that grew as it was shared and expressed, until it
grew enough into a physical object through any
number of steps. You literally become what you
think about most. Your life becomes what you have
imagined and believed in most. The world is
literally your mirror, enabling you to experience
in the physical plane what you hold as your
truth...until you change it. Quantum physics shows
us that the world is not the hard an unchangeable
thing it may appear to be. Instead, it's a very
fluid place, continuously built up using your
individual and collective thoughts. What you
think is "true" is really an illusion, almost like
a magic trick. Fortunately we've begun to uncover
the illusion and most importantly, how to change
it.

What is your body made of?

Nine systems including cardiovascular, nervous,
and skeletal systems.

What are those made up of?

Tissues and organs.

What are tissues and organs made of?

Cells.

What are cells made of?

Molecules.

What are molecules made of?

Atoms.

What are atoms made of?

Sub-atomic particles.

What are sub-atomic particles made of?

Energy!

You are pure energy. Energy that is constantly
changing beneath the surface, and you control it
all with your powerful mind.

If you could see yourself under a powerful
electron microscope and conduct other experiments
on yourself, you would see that you are made up of
a cluster of ever-changing energy in the form of
electrons, neutrons, photons, and so on. And so
is everything else around you. Quantum physics
tells us that it is the act of observing an object
that causes it to be there where and how we
observe it. An object does not exist
independently of its observer!

So, as you can see, your observation, your
attention to something, and your intention,
literally creates that thing. This is scientific
and proven. Your world is made up of spirit,
mind, and body. Each has a function that is
unique to it and not shared with the other. What
you see with your eyes and experience with your
body is the physical world-which we call BODY.
Body is an effect, created by a cause. This cause
is THOUGHT. Body cannot create. It can only
experience and be experienced; that is its unique
function.

Thought cannot experience-it can only make up,
create, and interpret. It needs a world of
relativity (the physical world, i.e. body) to
experience itself. SPIRIT is "all that is;" that
which gives life to THOUGHT and BODY. Body has no
power to create, although it gives the illusion of
power to do so. This illusion is the cause of
much of your frustration. Body is purely an
effect and has no power to cause or create.

The key to all of this information is how you
learn to see the universe differently than you do
now so that you can manifest everything you truly
desire. Change the way you look at things and the
things you look at will change.

Try it and let me know what happens!

Top 10 Reasons to get your MBA (ridiculous reasons included)

1. Change Careers

Among the list of reasons that many people go back to business school, probably the top one is to change careers. I would venture to say that half of my class came in to change careers. What’s the downside for career changes? Be prepared to take some steps back in pay, and status. The entertainment industry is notorious for having Harvard MBA’s working in the mailroom.

2. Career Advancement

If you are looking to rise in the ranks, these days an MBA is pretty essential. It gives you an opportunity to apply for higher level positions, take an internship in a higher level position, and more. Additionally, you can probably get a higher salary.

3. Intellectual curiosity

This is a high price to pay to satisfy intellectual curiosity. You could just read articles on digg.com and reddit all day for free.

4. Move to a new location

This is a great excuse to jump ship from your current location and move somewhere new. Moving to a new location is a tremendous personal growth experience and forces you out of your comfort zone.

5. Happy Hour

Let’s face it. No B-school experience is complete without a bit of excessive drinking. In the MBA world, we call it “networking.” Some of the benefits of “networking”

• Random Conversations
• Bar tabs that make your eyes pop out of your head
• You celebrate when the bar tab is below triple digits

6. Study abroad programs

It’s the perfect excuse to make up for not studying abroad as an undergrad. Get to b-school and plan your exodus for the following fall and you’ll be the envy of your friends and family. But, don’t forget to keep searching for a job while you are abroad. Or you may have to retire to the beach in some exotic location and open up a lemonade stand (maybe that’s better than being an i-banker)

7. New friends

The academic setting forces you to make new friends by default. Since you are going to spend countless hours together suffering through finance, marketing, and other things that are “useful”, you might as well make some friends in the process

8. Three more letters on the end of your name

Nowadays, acronyms are in. When you spend all day long (ADL) online talking people and LOL, what’s one more acronym? You get to hand out business cards that say MBA.

9. Undergraduate girls

If Playboy can make an entire series of DVD’s out of this, they must be on to something. This is your opportunity to be the next Van Wilder. It’s like getting to be an undergrad with 10 times the brains and 5 times the money you had the first time around. WARNING: This could lead to excess unnecessary purchases.

10. You get to wear a cap and gown after 2 years and listen to Pomp and Circumstance.