Content

  1. Introduction

  2. Premises

  3. Beliefs

  4. Focus

  5. Change

  6. Goal Setting

  7. Perfection

  8. Health

  9. Relationship

  10. Self-esteem

  11. Final

Introduction

Extraordinary successful students of Harvard MBAs

  1. They really believe in themselves. The sense of confidence.
    • They thought they could do well. They were driven. They were motivated. They thought “I’m going to make it, I’m going to succeed.”
  2. They were always asking questions.
    • Always asking questions, initially of their boss, later of their employees, of their partner, children, parents, friends, they were always asking question. They are always at the state of curiosity, always looking up, opening up, wanting to understand the world more. They didn’t say “Now I have my MBA. That’s it. I know enough.” They were life-long learners. They were always asking questions.

Change

Change is the most important thing. Do work your talk. Give a due time to write down your change, so that you need to change before that time.

Find “fit”

You would be exposed to many theories and many ideas in this class. Not everything will be right for you. You’ll be exposed to it, you’ll try it, and then you’ll make up your mind “Yes, this is what I want to incorporate.” or “No, this is just not relevant for me.”

Premises

The permission to be human

Active acceptance.

Understanding certain things I cannot change, and certain things I can and ought to change.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

– Reinhold Niebuhr

The A, B, C of psychology:

  • Affect: emotion
  • Behavior: action
  • Cognition: thoughts

Affect is there, just like the law of gravity is there. That does not mean we need to accept our behavior and our cognition.

For example, I can envy toward my best friend, but that does not make me a bad person. It’s human. Envy is part of human nature. Nothing good or bad about the envy (affect / emotion). The question is how do I choose to behave, to act as a result of it. I can have moral or immoral behavior toward my best friend. I can still experience envy toward my best friend, and choose to behave generously and benevolently toward him. The same with the cognition.

I can feel the certain way (affect / emotion), but it doesn’t mean that I need to resign to my thoughts about the feeling.

As for experience, meditation is a great way to experience the permission to be human.

  • Shift the focus of your thought to your breathing.
  • Repeat deep breath.
  • Shift your focus to your emotions, to your feelings. Whatever they are, allow it to flow through you naturally. It’s all okay, just breathe.

Hint: The meditation is at the last part of lecture 4.

TBC…

Reference