altMBA

Advice to future altMBA students – Written by Heatherlee Nguyen and originally published on LinkedIn

You’ve made it. You’re now part of a movement much larger than yourself. You can take a deep breath. Your application has been reviewed. You’ve been found worthy andinvited to a program that will change your life – if you so choose.

The premise of holding a live event isn’t daunting because of the logistics or the public speaking aspect. It’s more like I’ve discovered this magnificent view, but only those who are willing to weather the journey can fully enjoy the grandeur and beauty of this newfound place.

It's so easy to talk about ideas, grandiose plans and big dreams of changing the world. It's much, much harder to take even 5% of those ideas and put them into action.

Atlanta is my home. I love it for so many reasons, especially the people. So when I see my fellow citizens of Atlanta enduring injustice and hardship, it breaks my heart. But a broken heart with no action is useless.

There's a big difference between stretching yourself and putting yourself into a situation that will stretch you. I stretched myself by applying to altMBA (with no expectation of being accepted). But the altMBA is stretching me – uncomfortably so. But that was what I wanted when I set out on this ambiguous journey

These are all large decisions that I started down the path to pursue at some point in my life. I was going to start a nonprofit that acted as a “greenhouse” for children where they could be nurtured and grow. I was going to move to Cambodia for a year to work in an orphanage. I was a Marine Corps Officer candidate, but then I decided to not move forward with pursuing a commission.

Kodak is an example of a company that didn’t look around enough to see the changes that were imminent. Worse still, once change happened they pivoted in the wrong direction. They lost sight of who they were and have been failing to find their way back to their glory days ever since.

On June 19, I put myself on the line and declared my goal to, “Create compelling humanitarian content that provokes people to move from inaction to action on behalf of those in need.” It sounds like a lofty goal, and since then I’ve been marinating on how to bring this goal and passion to life.

I’ve always been averse to the thought of salesmanship. I find it slimy, underhanded, dishonest and cheesy. I prefer to tell the whole truth in an authentic and engaging way. To me selling equated to lying. But as usual altMBA has changed the way that I frame my views. Seth posits, “I define selling as the transference of emotion… Selling is a human being saying to another human being I believe in this.” That’s a stance on selling that I can get behind.

We're over halfway through the altMBA program. Considering my initial trepidation about starting the course, I consider that an accomplishment on it's own.  

The structure of the Marine Corps is clearly defined. There are no questions as to where people rank based on tenure and experience. From insignia patches to brass on the collar, Marines are taught and expected to show respect and deference to those whose role outranks their own.

The concept of global warming can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Awareness is half of the battle. So, if small changes in your daily routine could make an impact – would you step up on behalf of the polar bears? Discover how choosing between hot or cold can be a small step in the right direction for climate change.

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to travel to various places around the globe for the sake of mission-related work. From building a school for tomato can boys in Mauritania and Senegal to providing an educational, loving environment for orphans in Cambodia, I’ve been blessed to be a positive impact on disadvantaged children around the world.

This post is a project response for the altMBA to, “get in the head of someone you disagree with, someone who you at first think is inane and illogical. The prompt should feel a little unfair or morally unjust to even write. Because if you really disagree with someone, it would feel strange to argue for why their position makes sense.”

For the sake of clarification, I do not support or agree with the POV above, but instead I am making an argument for logic that is irrational to my own thinking and beliefs.

June 15. That date has been looming on the calendar full of anticipation and excitement. As the day arrived, I was anxious to meet my classmates and get started. There is quite a bit of ambiguity that accompanies the altMBA, so getting to see faces and read through our assignments started to bring some clarity and shape to the program.

I’m a list maker. I like journals, notebooks, whiteboards and post-its. Any method to pen my ever-growing, ever-changing list of to-dos and ideas… I love it. But I learned something tonight while discussing goal setting with my altMBA peers – the things that are easiest to jot down are usually not worth pursuing. It’s likely that you’d complete those tasks even if it were never written

If you’ve ever justified finishing a bad meal because you already paid for it, you encountered sunk cost thinking. If you’ve ever watched an entire movie after you lost interest in the first twenty minutes, you chose sunk costs over smart decision-making. The premise of sunk costs is pervasive throughout our lives. While the principle is financial in nature, money is not the only type of “cost” in sunk cost thinking. Anyone or any business that continues with a course of action based solely upon the time, money, energy or human capital already invested (instead of considering the best course of action) has fallen prey to the common decision trap of sunk costs

As someone who can easily entangle myself with the what-ifs, should have, would have, could have scenarios of life, Andy Stanley’s Ask It was penned perfection for me. Instead of tossing my head back and forth wondering what to do or comparing my situation to that of my peers or heroes, Andy sets a new premise for navigating through your life. “In light of my past experience, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?” This question not only resets the context to focus on the realities of my life, but it helps eliminate a lot of dumb decisions.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Seth Godin's daily emails per the usual. He's so insightful, inspiring and challenging on the regular, but this day's post was different. Instead of hiding behind my MacBook and absorbing, I felt a beckoning to which I needed to respond.