The most valuable thing I got out of MBA school, aside from the friendships and connections, was definitely what I learned about myself while I was there. There were a ton of things. Here are three:
1. I have a strange tolerance for risk
In one of my 1st year classes, we did a test involving questions in regards to money. This was to test what is known in behavioral economics as prospect theory, which describes the way people make choices based on their perception of risk. A normal value function looks like the following, which shows that people are loss averse.
That is, losses hurt more than gains feel good. Not me, mine was inverted. That means things that appear risky to people don’t really appear risky to me, and things that appear risky to me others don’t find risky (I am extrapolating the results and generalizing here). This explains a lot to me and was really eye opening. While others are “playing it safe” with their stable job and steady income I’m “taking a gamble” and choosing my own destiny. While to most, I’m the risk taker, in my opinion “playing it safe” is a dangerous illusion of certainty where the stakes are highest. The rat race is a game nobody can win and a game I choose not to play.
2. I am mercilessly efficient with my time
While my classmates were busy networking, practicing their interview skills, going to workshops to polish up their resumes, and spending an inordinate amount of time on homework, I was rock climbing, going to jiu jitsu, and hanging out with friends. I never went to a networking session, or an interview or resume workshop, and never spent too much time on homework. Was I worse off? Maybe a little, but I don’t think so. I was always in class on time when I showed up and usually the first to leave. I never stuck around to chit chat or kill time between classes or anything like that. In effect, I was just being efficient with my time so I could do the things that make me happy, such as hanging out with friends and heading to jiu jitsu to train. I never did more homework than I needed to. I always skipped optional homework exercises and readings. Did my grades suffer? Not really, I did well on the things I enjoyed and pretty average on the things I found boring. If I were more studious, would I have done better? Perhaps, but there is a law of diminishing returns that I just didn’t want to deal with. My time is my number one resource, and it is limited. I wanted to do the things I wanted to do and I very rarely compromised on that. I was obviously not the most popular kid in school for doing this, but I never went back to school to become popular. I made some great friends and those friendships will last a lifetime. That’s good enough for me.
3. I am good at what I love
As mentioned in point 2, I am not good at “doing school”. I was, however, very good at doing things I enjoy. If I like it, I’ll be passionate about it and take a proactive stance on it. I’ll also spend a disproportionate amount of time on it. I don’t know what the cause and effect here is (am I good at something because I like it or do I like it because I am good at it), but I did learn at MBA school that this is how I am. I did very well in certain courses (even getting an award for the highest mark in the class in one) and just didn’t care for others. There was some courses that I enjoyed but was very average in, but I never did above average in a course I disliked.
I’ve been out of school for a year now, and I must say that learning the above 3 points about myself has had the most impact on how I spend my days. Of course I learned a lot more during my time in school, but these 3 points have had the longest lasting effects on me at the moment. Who knows, maybe in the future other things that I learned about myself will emerge as more important. I definitely learned a lot about myself at school so I wouldn’t be surprised.
The lesson for you? If you learn something about yourself, use that to your advantage and don’t throw out those lessons. You’ll likely be better off for it.
