10 KEYS TO CLIMBING THE CORPORATE LADDER FAST!!!!

Want to know how to climb the corporate ladder in rapid fashion? After completing 12 weeks of working as an MBA Intern, I compiled my list of what I consider 10 of the greatest tips for success in you career and life.

1) BE PRESENT- This is hands down my greatest take away for success in life, relationships, and your career. When I picked up the Eckhart Tolle book that I read, it was like his words began to echo in my life. From senior executives to people I met at various bars in San Diego, the greatest wisdom I’ve gained is the need and ability to be present.

2) Be a learner- I may have heard this in an organizational behavior class. But, I have to say that in this summer I’ve learned more in 3 months than I have in 3 years because I was willing to be a sponge. I soaked up as much information as I could and now I feel like somewhat of a subject matter expert in my field. Become addicted to learning and your passion will come across.

3) Embrace your strengths – For half my adult life I have tried to improve all the things I am weak at. While it’s ok to fix things, I think that embracing your strengths is really the key to a successful life. Find what you love, and what you are good at and the rest will fall into place

4) Be flexible – Life is full of curve balls. As many self improvement gurus have said, it’s not about what happens to you, but how you react to it.

5) Be Patient- My best friend once said “It’s not a race. What are you going to do, race to the death?” Too often in life we are in such a hurry to make everything happen and the irony is being in a hurry slows you down

6) Learn to Control your energy- Energy is an amazingly powerful, yet intangible force. The right energy can literally make miracles happen in your life. With good energy you draw the most amazing circumstances. I left my car in La Jolla over night where they ticket like mad, and I got no parking ticket.

7) Know your Story- This is a strange one. But, your story is the story you tell yourself. If you tell yourself a story of failure then that’s exactly what it becomes.

8) Don’t be Realistic- Realism is just pessimism disguised as practicality. Rational thinking never made anybody famous. In fact, it might have killed a man or two

9) You’re always Networking- Whether you know it or not, you are always networking. However, you don’t want to go out with the idea of “I’m networking.” Just talk to people and let it all happen. Last year at a bar, a southern real estate mogul who owned shopping malls, practically offered me a job after a 5 minute conversation.

10) Choose the right job – Most people will make choices based on money. While we may need it to survive the people who have been willing to give up everything and take risks often have tremendous success. There is a great deal of truth to the statement “the greater the risk, the greater the reward.” It’s ironic when you’re willing to give up your attachment to things, how easy it becomes to obtain them.

Reflections, Looking, Back and more....

This morning was I was driving to work, I was reflecting on the time that I've spent at Intuit over the last 12-13 weeks. Then I started to think about my career as a whole and the journey. When I graduated from college, I was living in a delusional world with expectations that everything should be handed to me on a silver platter and that I shouldn't have to work for less than a certain amount. It was basically the ego of the first dot com generation. We all felt entitled to say the least.

When I look back over the last 13 weeks, one thing really stands out to me. The amount of personal growth I've experience over the summer is probably equivalent or greater than the personal growth I've experienced since I graduated from college. Personal growth from come from a number of experiences, moving to a new city where you don't know anybody, working in an industry where you have absolutely NOTHING in common with the people you are working with, working somewhere that forces you to deal with people from ALL walks of life and more. While this isn't my final blog post for my intern blog, it's getting really close. But the advice I would give somebody when searching for a job or an internship is, don't just look at whats going to give you professional growth, look at something that will give you the opportunity for personal growth too because the personal growth is the fuel for your professional growth.

Being in the Moment

I wrote a previous blog post about this subject where I talked about being present. The reason I'm writing about it again is because I feel like it's really an ongoing theme in my growth this summer. The power of presence has made me realize that it really is essential to your happiness. What I've found is that in my career and in my life, I've always been worried about getting ahead. It's ironic that the extreme desire to get ahead can actual be counterproductive. You'd think that a focus on getting ahead would get you there. Ironically excessive focus on getting ahead reduces the quality of the work you are currently producing.

After reading a ton of books this summer, listening to podcasts, hearing executives talk, I realized that when you can master presence, the rest of your success in life is just a byproduct of being present. Looking back over the course of my internship, I would say the major thing I was guilty of was being so obsessed with making my internship lead to a full time offer that it actually took away from the experience to some degree. So, my one piece of advice to anybody in any internship is to go ahead and let the cards fall where they may, enjoy yourself, work hard, and live in the now, not the future.

The Final Stretch

Well, I thought I'd write a quick blog post on the final stretch. I'm about 12 working days away from being done with my internship. I started much earlier than most MBA students, but it has been a jam packed summer with a ton of learning opportunity. I've gained significant expertise in areas I was previously unfamiliar with. I'd like to think that I've added value to my resume that will make me quite marketable. I was in the middle of wrapping up one of my projects and came to realize how much I really did use skills from my MBA to work on my projects. I think the biggest challenge I've had as an MBA is to be concise and to the point. But, when I write things now, I think about how much shorter I can make everything. I'll have another update on my wrap up and some video footage posted pretty soon. Oh yeah, if you ever get to live in San Diego, do it.

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.

The coolest job at Intuit, defining your identity, and more...

Today I was on a call with a business partner and when I described the projects I'm working on, he responded "wow, it sounds like you have the coolest job at Intuit." When I thought about, I realized, I really do have one of the coolest jobs I could possibly have. I get to constantly work on cutting edge stuff and get exposed to a bunch of different things. This topic actually ties really well to something I wanted to write about today. One of my good friends is a Life Coach, and I'm a big believer in investing in resources such as that because it is investing in yourself. People invest in tons of things to improve their lives, but they often forget to invest in the most important place which is themselves.

So, when we were talking the other day, we got into a discussion of identity. Identity can be thought of in numerous forms. You might identify yourself by name, ethnicity, job function, etc, etc. But really there is a deeper level of identity I think it's important for everybody to explore. I know that a good amount of students at Pepperdine are struggling with the internship search, and while it's easy to complain and discuss all the downfalls of our career office, I realize that this is quite self-destructive. This is where the concept of identity becomes important. So, I asked my friend "how do you change this identity or change what you want to have happened in your life?" The example I'll use is one that anybody who reads this blog can relate to. Let's say you are struggling in your job search or internship search. You go out and talk to your friends and they ask how you are doing and you respond as follows:

"You know, things are not going that well. I keep submitting resumes and I get no responses. When I do get responses, it's for a job that I hate or a salary that is unacceptable. The economy is terrible, and we're not Harvard MBA's, blah, blah, blah........"

You get the gist of it. That believe it or not is your identity. You associate yourself with the statement above when you are in that situation. The strange thing is you think that in order for that to change the situation has to change. What's funny is the situation will change when that changes. Every time you tell this story to a friend or tell it to yourself, you are reinforcing that identity. So what's the key? Change the story. Write it out, put it on your wall and read it everyday.

"You know, it's going really great. I keep getting all these calls for interviews. Every one of these jobs sounds so exciting, and they all pay really well. It's going to be hard to figure out which job to choose. The economy....for some reason....well let's just say it's irrelevant in my job search."

It's amazing how the way you use words and construct language impacts the results in your life. So, that is my take away for today. Below are some pictures of yet another perk for working at Intuit: FREE CORP HOUSING

www.flickr.com

Top 5 things to look for in an MBA internship program

1) A recognized Brand Name
2) A formal MBA Internship Program
3) A project that leverages your career and first-year MBA skills
4) A project that helps you grow personally and professionally
5) Potential for future employment

Choosing the right MBA internship

Choosing the right summer internship is something that’s really important especially at the MBA level. One of the best pieces of advice that I got as an MBA student was to go somewhere where there is a formal internship program and you’ll be among other interns. One of the great advantages to a formal internship program is that they really integrate you into the organization.

As far as my experience with Intuit, I’m amazed at how well they do this. One thing they are really good at is matching up your strengths against the projects and responsibilities you get. Another thing that has been awesome is how well my project is aligned with the skills I gained from a year of business school. I recommend that anybody who comes across this blog a year or so from now or is in the internship search process seek out positions with will utilize the skills you’ve gained as an MBA. That’s it for today.