What Matters Most?

Is Your Life a Reflection of Your Values?

Is Your Life a Reflection of Your Values?

With the start of a new year comes an enormous amount of pressure to establish a variety of ambitious goals. Most individuals struggle with balancing things because they haven't been self-reflective enough to find out what they're attempting to balance. We examine how self-reflection may help you connect your behaviors with your values in this blog post.

A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"

A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"

I wanted to get ahead of something - a problem I see with my clients to Harvard Business School (and Stanford GSB.) HBS calls it out as "overthinking, overcrafting and overwriting." I call it "overselling" yourself when writing.

Reacting to the Stanford GSB Dean Saloner Controversy

Reacting to the Stanford GSB Dean Saloner Controversy

It's never easy to wade into troubled waters such as those present at Stanford GSB right now.  And truly, we're not here to report any detail on the unfortunate scandal involving the faculty and administration of the world's most selective business school.  If you want the down and dirty on exiting Dean Garth Saloner and professors Deborah Gruenfeld and Jim Phills, be sure to read the initial reporting by Poets and Quants and then the deep dive by David Margolick of Vanity Fair.  Needless to say, it's a sad story that doesn't appear to be getting happier anytime soon.  And it certainly leaves a bad taste in your mouth and invites all sorts of questions about GSB.  But what should you actually worry about here?  That's what we want to tackle.   

A Decision Tree for the Ross 2014-15 Essays

A Decision Tree for the Ross 2014-15 Essays

I wanted to try something a bit different today when breaking down the new Ross essays, which is to post the decision tree I am going to be asking my clients to use this year. 

Why would I just share this with the public, you might ask?  In part because the real value of our services with Ross (unlike with some other schools) is going to be in implementation rather than in the setting of strategy - so I don't feel I am cheating my clients at all.  Further, we just don't have that many clients select Ross, to be honest.  This is confusing to me, as Ross is an amazing school and a true value pick ... but that's a column for a different time.  Today, I want to present a really simple way to work through Ross' seemingly wide open essays.  I'll be using one part common sense and one part program knowledge, but both are born out of lots of experience just being someone in this world (by "in this world" I mean working in "higher education" and with "people trying to maximize their lives and abilities").  Let's get into it.