Dude, what HAPPENED?

It was such a valiant attempt at keeping a chronicle of my experiences.

The frequency of blog postings is a testament of precisely what came to pass – me. By the seat of my pants.

Finally. I fulfilled the graduation requirements and last week achieved my last outstanding personal goal: find a job.

And – finally finally finally – I know. I know.

From the Record: Notes from Orchard Road

These notes I found from somewhere in time, after a meeting, during a drink and before a meeting. Lessons from the Social Entrepreneurship event, thanks to YYL, and an epiphany moment:

• Always think like a 3-year-old!
• Never take “no” for an answer.
• If you do something, make it count – leverage.
• You go there, set it up and disappear.
• If you’re doing grass roots, listen to them and do what they need.
• DO IT. NOW.

“Each of us at each moment of our lives has the ability to change the world. For the better. To use everything we’ve been given up to that moment to make every moment after better, for as many people as we choose. I love life. I love people.” – text2LM

I believe it was the 18th of December?

P4/P5 Break: Piece and Quite

It’s funny how you really should take your own advice. I was just perusing the Republic website for no particular reason and found a piece of work that I really needed to read right now. Output. Success.

Output is a win.

Today was a good day.

P3

From somewhere in the foggy past, unposted until now:

So it’s the end of P3. Very strange. Consistent with the rest of this madcap adventure, the last few months went by in the blink of an eye.

I really do feel like it was just yesterday I was walking through the streets of Paris in solitary muteness, shoes crunching softly on the snow as I made my way along the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower, mentally composing a French rhyme and wondering how I was going to get to Fonty, and when I did, what I would do there and how I would cope. Well. I’m still around and I’m still alive.

Being A Head

Leader vs. Manager: change with the market and change your business model as necessary. It’s not just about alignment.

“A lot of those good leaders who came out of Sun understood and knew what I was trying to do when I picked an enemy, or when I picked a cause or when I put all the wood behind one arrowhead. It was about trying to align a bunch of really different people around a commonality of purpose. That’s what really great leaders do.” Scott McNealy, interview in Forbes magazine (McNealy: “Hire Great People and Delegate”)

Necessary but not sufficient. Be like Jack. Nimble. Quick.

Taking Off: My Last Weekend

I’m leaving Singapore tomorrow (Tomorrow = next week in INSEAD time. To be more accurate it’s later, since it’s past midnight) and I couldn’t ever DREAM of boiling down my adventures since my first weekend into a half dozen highlights. So. These are a half dozen things that I learned (for and about myself) in the last four months (4 INSEAD months = [7 INSEAD days/Real Life days x 30 Real Life days avg/Real Life month x 4 Real Life months] x [1 Real Life month/30 Real Life days x 12 Real Life months/1 Real Life year] = 2.33 Real Life years). Yeah, I know you checked that calculation. I’m right.

• Prioritize. Figure out what you want – find out what sets you on fire – and make It happen. Life is too short to over-focus on things that are not important to us. Dig deep, separate the noise from the signal, do the analysis and find your own personal Goal. As soon as you figure that out, put your heart and soul into turning the Dream into Reality. That means (1) you also have to learn to let go, because there are tradeoffs, and (2) you have to treat the things of which you’ve had to let go with respect, because respect is non-negotiable. Alternative stock tip of the day: people. They are what matter, so to the extent possible, invest in them. Prioritize them over letters and numbers. Bugger off to the Raffles Hotel before FMV to spend some quality time with Mr. Messy. Stay up until 8am organizing that fundraiser and reschedule your class to the afternoon section’s. Recycle your course packs (scan them if you have WOWs you want to enshrine), spend the night before FOM sharing Brazilian food and beverages poolside. One way to prioritize people that requires no trade-off but time – my favorite one of them all, needed in large quantities on a daily basis  -CHINA!!!

Touching Down: My First Weekend

So I got into Singapore yesterday (yesterday?? it feels like it’s been years!!) and these are a half dozen highlights of my adventures so far:

• The quest for a phone/line. Yesterday, I schlepped all along The Island in search for a red Nokia E75. Didn’t actually have to (as I discovered today), but I did, and ended up as far as Jurong Point shopping center. 2 stops away from the end of the line (I had arrived at the other end of the line after lunch, i.e. the airport). [Moment: 9pm in the dark by myself leaving the MRT station with a bit of trepidation in my heart.] This all meant that I became very, very familiar with the green MRT line, as well as bits of the red line.  Instead of getting a phone line (the universe was hell-bent against me doing that easily), I ended up buying a sim card from the convenience store at the MRT station (see bullet no. 6) from a sweet lady who today thought I was on my Day Off. As in a domestic helper’s day off. I told her no, I wasn’t working today. And this evening, I spent over an hour at Lucky Plaza picking the place apart for my target phone and haggling for/ensuring the functionality of my new red Nokia E75. Red is the key phrase – black ones come a 8400SGD a dozen. Nevertheless, mission accomplished.

Most of What I Really Need to Know I Learned in High School and Uni

I was taking a good look into several companies and their leaders today, and I realized that the skill I was using was not new. It dawned on me then that there are two very valuable bits of arsenal in our corporate toolbox for which we can form foundations reasonably early in life:

1. Stalking –> Due Dilligence
2. Partying –> Networking

I’m aces! Just need to practice these (oh the humanity!), learn the hard skills, and Bob’s my uncle – I’m on my way!

Maybe we can even plug these into an alternate-universe b-school curriculum as “Stalking for Business” and “Corporate Partying”. I can see it all now… Okay maybe not. Got a wee bit too excited.

Barbarians at the Gate (Part 2)

Done and done!! I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I finished the book a while back, but haven’t gotten ’round to noting down what I learned. Here ’tis.

Holy Week 2009 – The Mish

So! I’m back from checking out the campus, living spaces and looking for That Book. Here are the results, just quickly:

Campus: Pleased. Great facilities, good food – looks conducive to what we need to achieve. Logistically fitting an enlarged class a bit of a question mark. Can see some excess demand for the BORs (break-out-rooms).