Business School vs. the Real World

After spending a summer working in corporate America, I realized that you go to business school to get your MBA and they basically will give you a piece of paper with three letters on the end of your name. Then you start working and you have to earn your degree all over again. While you do learn a good amount in the classroom, the classroom is about the fundamentals of business. Most of that stuff doesn’t change, but bringing those skills into the real world forces you to evolve and combine the b-school skills with the real world skills. In school things are pretty black and white. In the real world, there’s a good amount of grey area. There’s way more risk involved. But, that’s what makes it interesting!!!

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.

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

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