Don’t listen to Everyone and Everything – Avoid “THEM” and just believe in “YOU” – MBA learning

I really like and follow the great advice given by our parents – “Listen to THEM, analyse what THEY have to say, but absorb only what you feel would be beneficial for your growth” similar to “Ek kaan se suno aur dusre kaan se nikaal do and beechme jo accha lage vo rakh lo”.

At every stage of our lives we come across many “THEYs”, some of whom we follow, some we believe in and some are those who just exist. Every “THEY” has some advice to give, some solutions to suggest and some decisions to oppose. But one should always keep one thing in mind while dealing with “THEYs” – Every “THEY” has had their own set of experiences – good, bad, ugly…. you won’t know. And the advice which “THEY” have to offer are based on their experiences. And it would be highly impractical to take your decisions based on their set of experiences.

I would like to share a small story back from by MBA days.

With an unending curiosity to learn more and my childhood dream to become a businessman like my dad, I decided to pursue Management Studies just after my Engineering. It was not that I didn’t like Engineering but I just had more curiosity to learn management and widen my universe of knowledge. So instead of looking for a job, I decided to go for a Post-Graduation in Management.

Being one of the youngest bunch of men in my MBA college, I always looked forward to learning from my friends who had prior work experience. I always thought that everyone would have some kind of knowledge to share, some advice to give and some learning to pass on. And in the process of this peer-to-peer learning I came across a lot of positive and not-so-positive advises, which we will discuss after some time.

Moving ahead few months in the first year of my college, came the time when we had to select our field of specialisation. Just to justify my grades I would like to tell something which every average-grade-student said in his placement interview, “I was too much involved in various extra-curricular activities in the first year and was satisfied to maintain an average-above average grade”, most part of which is correct while the rest…I don’t know…I did study…. hard...

As they say in Gujarati, MBA means – “Mane Badhu Aavde” which translates to “I know everything”, something I took a bit seriously. I had almost equal interest in Marketing, Finance and Operations - the three major specialisations in management but had a bit of inclination towards Finance and Operations. But then we had to select one major and I was really confused what I should do. Operations was my forte and my comfort zone as I had studied few operations subjects back in engineering while Finance was something I was not very comfortable with but had a lot of curiosity to learn.

We had been given a period of few days to decide and fill our preferences, and hence this was a major dinner-table conversation topic those days. On one such fine evening, I was having dinner with few friends from my class. One of whom, which I later realised, was a “THEY”. This guy, still a good friend of mine, had a different kind of personality. He was very confident by nature and I liked the way he thought about himself. There were few uninspiring traits that he had but as I was always curious to learn from others, and he had had different exposures in his life, I listened to him every time he had some advice to give.

Finance is considered to be a not-so-easy specialisation to take, mainly because a lot of finance topics are quite new to engineers and majority of the class toppers preferred this stream. But yes, Finance is not that easy, but then who wants an easy life….so I decided to go for Finance instead of Operations as my major. The main reason to pursue management education far away from home was to get out of my comfort zone, then why should I take a step back and settle for something I was comfortable with.

Coming back to our dinner table conversation, everybody said what they had decided to take as major and this good friend of mine was taking Marketing as his specialisation. When I said that I had decided to take Finance as my major, there was this typical expression on my friend’s face – an expression your coach would give you when your team lost a football match because of your self-goal. I asked him the reason for his expression as I preferred listening to him whenever he had something to say. He quite bluntly said that Finance was not my cup of tea as I was neither a class topper nor did I have extraordinary grades in Finance subjects. He then started explaining me about the failures I may face, the struggle I may have to do and his views on my incapability to handle something which was difficult for him. He was playing the proper “THEY” role on that table. He specifically asked me to take another specialisation which he thought would be the best for me (which was actually the best for him) and gave me all those comforting reasons to back his point. I was troubled, confused and a bit angry as well. I never felt I was incapable of doing anything, I had achieved reasonable amount of success in the past because I trusted in myself. But that day, after the dinner, it was very difficult for me to sleep. Somebody had challenged my ability on open grounds, but apart from that external threat, I was a bit scared internally. But then I saw few notes I had pasted on my room’s wall. Few small successes I had in the past which may not sound too big to some, but for me it meant a lot. It was not for the first time that somebody had challenged me on face or tried to pull me down, I believe you all would have faced such a situation at some or the other point in your life, but this time it came from somebody I thought always had some good advice to give. I sat on bed and kept staring on that wall with the posts and then I realised something. What if I am not able to get good grades in Finance next year, what if the entire class thought I was a dumb student who didn’t understand anything and what if I couldn’t hack it…. I was definitely sure that I would pass and in the process would learn a lot and lot of things which I had always dreamt of. I always preferred challenging opportunities and I was not going to let this opportunity go. So I again decided what I had already decided, filled in the preference – “Finance major” and slept like a baby for those few hours before the dawn.

At the end of my MBA I not only did quite well in Finance but successfully conducted one of the biggest Operations B-school conclave of the country and the biggest Operations event in the history of my college, got placed in the first Finance company to the campus, received a pre-placement offer from the same company and fortunately doing quite well today. While that very good friend of mine, the “THEY” is working in a Financial Firm with an MBA specialisation in Marketing (which he thought was not something normal).

By telling this story I don’t want to portray myself as a great person or something, but I just want to share my learning over these few good years of my life.

That’s my ADVICE to you….so “Read this story, analyse what I have to say but absorb only what you feel would be beneficial to your growth”

Keep learning!!

Disclaimer:

I believe that every specialisation, be it Marketing, Operations or Finance has its own challenges and toughness, but this article portrays my personal views based on my learning preferences and my previous knowledge base which made few specialisations look not so difficult to me.

Also through this article I don’t feel that a marketing specialisation student cannot achieve success in a Financial firm, it was just the analogy I wanted to express.

P.S. This is one of my initial attempts towards writing, if you have any suggestions or ADVICE to give, kindly leave it in the comment section.