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I’ve been checked out lately due to Thanksgiving break and winter break around the corner. I’ve also been less disciplined in checking the to-do boxes and instead, doing more of whatever it is that I feel like in the moment. My heart has been craving some good reads and outdoor bike rides, and so I managed to set aside my laptop and work, and did those things to my heart’s content. It felt great! My stress and pace odometers are at their all-time LOW. My skin is more radiant, and I’m shedding less stress hair…all is better, right?
Well, I’ve been also feeling a bit of the tension between wanting to feel total relaxation & indulge my inherent laziness and needing to find my passion again with something that I devote my time and attention to with hopeless abandonment. I’m torn. While I know it’ll make me really come alive again, I’m also scared of losing my luxury of laziness.
Anyhow, two happenings today FURTHER confirmed my flow and passion: public speaking.
1) We had to do a presentation today in class. I was not completely prepared but knew the gist of what I wanted to say. The team members have agreed to divide the slides and present the parts that we’ve worked on. Well, or so I thought. We MBA students are strange creatures…a little too competitive and needing to be in command way too often. Some people have the need to pose as the leader and speak the first word AND the last word in everything. I admit, I have that tendency sometimes, but not as bad as some people. Anyhow, long story short, silly things happened, my initial slide got jacked and I was pissed off at the CHILDISH unprofessionalism and lack of collaboration. Yet, when I presented my other part, all the fumes went away once I began to present. I was focused on the audience, I spoke without needing to think, and I was my most authentic and attentive self with no concept of emotional baggage. Right there and then, I knew that speaking is therapy for me and I’ve never lived more in the moment than then.
2) This afternoon, I finished my last GSI (Graduate Student Instructor, equivalent to TA) discussion class with the Undergrads. We went through our discussion topic of what it is like to be an entrepreneur. Before the class ended, I gave the students my top 8 words of advice for more broadly-speaking, someone to live his/her life to the fullest. My words- word usage, phrases, sentences, pauses and expressions came from my heart and seemed to have a mind of their own, flowing out with my authentic thoughts and feelings. I felt transparent and courageous. Everyone seemed to be so engaged, I saw a student wipping away a few tears. When I was done, an (older) student raised her hand and echoed my sentiments and advice. All of a sudden, people started clapping and I got a roomful of clapping going on. Crazy. It was like I was in one of those movies or something…
I love public speaking and communicating my thoughts and ideas with genuine care. How can I turn this passion into a career? What would I do?
I’m not completely sure yet. I just know that I love doing it.
How do you go from this? ———> To this!
Most of us MBAs have started our lovely internships by now. My first day went really well, until the moment when I was formally introduced to my cubicle. Cubes!! Maybe I’ve been in school for too long…but it felt so cold and foreign! I was instantly mortified and disgusted. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked in cubes before, but I’ve never had to directly identify one as my own.
Prior to school, I was a nomad consultant straight out of Undergrad and later worked either at home in my PJs as an independent consultant or in the gym as a trainer. To now formally confront this premium piece of 10×10 real estate that I had worked so hard for, I felt more insecure than relieved.
As MBA interns, we are at a disadvantage because we are hyped up by our prior work experience and the MBA brand, so we’re not able to camouflage ourselves with the Undergrad interns when it comes to performance expectations. I guess it won’t fly either way, since we are branded by this weathered look from the year’s worth of beaten in case studies, which promptly rusted away our oh-once youthful glows.
With one more year of school left and loans to be repaid, it’s no wonder that we put this great sense of pressure on ourselves to “make it or die.” But what really is “making it”? We’ve been taught to identify ourselves and our sense of happiness with labels- adjectives, titles, achievements, credentials, etc. Sadly, many of the labels are transient or meaningless. As I went through my past and present labels and happily assuming my new label from the internship, I wanted to make sure that I don’t become too dependent on them. I make my labels, not the other way around.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that labels serve as tools to help to discover and assess passions in life. If there’s a consistent story coming out of your collection of labels, then you have either found your passion or you are stuck (at simply what you’re good at or comfortable with).
