Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Evan Forster
Read between
March 14 - May 6, 2018
and
It’s about creating yes in the face of no by pursuing any pathway necessary to realize your dreams.
of finding the visionary leader in you: the professional whose long-term goal is, no matter what, doing something greater than yourself with the intent to make a difference.
stats, story, and experience.
That’s the bottom line. Once you’ve met the bar, everything else is icing on the cake.
What a candidate does in his or her career, however, is much more appealing to a committee than a brand name.
but what kind of impact you’ve made relative to expectations.
Your essays are not about proving your worth; they are about creating a lasting impression on the committee by painting an evocative picture of how you think, what you care about, how you make decisions, your personal leadership style, and what you look like in action.
Instead, you should focus on being memorable by choosing interesting topics and analyzing your experiences in a compelling, evolved, evocative, sophisticated way.
who accomplish things, who are continually acting to make things happen, who don’t take no for an answer.
That’s when I pulled out our Extracurricular Action Plan (EAP) worksheet and slapped it on the table. “Carl, you need to fill this out.”
Choosing dates, making yourself stick to a plan: This turns an idea into a reality.
Leadership is about making a difference. Carl was failing as a leader because the project had become all about his ego, not about the final result.
Not only do leaders create lasting transformation, but they give birth to other
leaders who take over.
Beefing Up Your Leadership Legacy Three steps to finding your extracurricular passion and creating legacy—the ultimate sign of leadership.
Standout Service in a Nutshell
The first rule of getting fantastic recommendations is to choose recommenders who know you well.
Study your ass off, take plenty of practice tests, and don’t wait till the last minute to begin studying. Also, conventional wisdom says that the longer you’ve been out of college, the poorer you do on standardized tests.
“I want to invest in companies that modernize the electrical grid infrastructure of Third World countries.”
but determining whether you act on your values.
This doesn’t mean you should only look for the simplest accomplishment. It means dig down deep and figure out why your accomplishments matter to you, be they large or small, whether you swam across a pool or the English Channel.
The first place to look is in the land of “firsts” and “bests.”
Or better yet, you simply went above the call of duty and created some form of legacy.
scratch again. And that is called “creating legacy.” As I’ve said already, perhaps that is one of the single most important things a leader can do—leave something of value behind that is not dependent on your continued presence. Not only did Bradley gain a huge amount of respect from colleagues and superiors, but he also passed it on to others.
BRADLEY’S PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT ESSAY
More impressive is when you barely manage to make your $2,000 quota on the night of an event—but would have made only $250 if you hadn’t rallied the few troops who showed up, created an instant phone bank with their cell phones, and inspired them to call everyone they know to come to the fund-raiser right now. You’ve shown the committee a lot about how you operate: You don’t back down, you don’t take no for an answer, you rise to a challenge in the moment, you’re committed to the result instead of the process, and you know how to inspire others in the moment as well.
It had all the right moves: a challenge, an obstacle, changing people’s minds, and a long-lasting impact.
It’s the difference between the guy who says, “I raised a million dollars,” and the
guy who says, “I raised a million dollars, but more important, I created possibilities that were heretofore nonexistent.”
the nonprofessional or personal accomplishment.
while I thought Brook’s support of her father was admirable, as far as I was concerned, this was how she should have behaved.
personal accomplishments not only highlight an achievement, but better yet, highlight the personal values that drive you to succeed.
An accomplishment is not tied to age unless the MBA program’s essay question specifically limits you to recent achievements.
“It’s important to us to find out, are you a visionary leader? Do you lead by socializing, or relating to others? Are you a big sense-maker? Or are you an inventor or innovator or creator? We want to find out what your capabilities are and whether you’re developing those capabilities in action.”
To up the ante further,
Quantum transformation, change, or growth is a result of a quantum leap.
“taking one for the team” and demanding that the formal leaders start acting that way for the sake of the deal.
“up-management”:
Worse yet, when considering this essay question, most people seem to interpret “failure” to mean “came really close to failing but saved the day at the last minute.”
you’ve revealed yourself to be someone who fears failure rather than embraces it as part of your evolution as a leader.
I didn’t make the final cut of the varsity basketball team. 2. I didn’t get the blue ribbon at the county fair (I only got the yellow ribbon). 3. I almost blew the client presentation by missing the FedEx deadline to send off the materials . . . but at the last minute I saved the day by chasing down the FedEx truck! 4. I didn’t get into Princeton, but I’m really glad I ended up at Georgetown. 5. I got a D in art history.
pampered
TAKE OWNERSHIP.
off-the-cuff
Therein lies the lesson about failures: It’s not what you did (or didn’t do), it’s how your failure changed you, what it taught you, and how you evolved as a person.
Where were you born, what did your parents do, what were the values they preached, where did you grow up?
It’s better to be the Opie everyone remembers, rather than the hipster who dresses just like every other throwback poser.
far: He wanted to create a venture capital concern that would invest in alternative energy sources and companies whose techniques improve how efficiently governments recycle. No shock, the guy wanted to have an impact on a clean environment.
What did he bring to the table? He was the guy who would come into a school with some very necessary intangibles.
