Marriott School's National Advisory Council (NAC)

Thursday and Friday, the Marriott School hosted its National Advisory Council and all graduate students in the BYU Marriott School of Management's various programs got to participate.

I got to meet some pretty interesting people. Andrea Thomas who is high up at Wal-Mart and John Locke who is the CEO of Mrs. Fields cookies.

There was a keynote speaker at the dinner Thursday Night. I actually hate listening to speakers (and quite often professors), so for a while I just watched the clock. Finally it hit me that there were many respectable people in the room and if they were willing to be there and listen maybe I could glean some good insights as well. For the life of me, I cannot remember his name.

He spoke of how one learns new information:

• Learn: What is it?
  
• Understand: What does 'it' mean?
  
• Believe: What does 'it' mean to me?
• Application: With this new belief, understanding, and knowledge what am I going to do to bring it into my life?

Since Thursday, I have pondered these 4 steps/principals with special care to see if this would help me get more benefit from my MBA. I have decided that I have been looking for these steps for a very long time.

The fact is, I know a lot. Even more, I really try to understand why things are the way they are. From that point though, I let emotion take over: I don't want to listen to professors * I feel like other activities than studying * I want to be in shape but I don't feel like exercising. This list could get huge! And sadly, this list extends into spiritual feelings / beliefs and opposition trying to get me to ignore them. (ie: but I don't feel like going to church!)

So, I've got to take what I learned about Emotional Intelligence and and "short circuit" the emotions, make sure I can apply what I learn to my life (in this context career), and then make sure I'm doing that which I know benefits me and helps me to achieve my goals.

• Step #1: Listen to the professors even if I'd rather be home sleeping.
• Step #2: Analyze these case studies and pretend I'm really trying to make a business that is important to me great.
• Step #3: Actually learn from the books and don't just do the busy work.

I feel like I'm learning a ton from the MBA Program. I'm also not getting good grades at all. Hopefully trying to build my own business on the principals I learn will help those marks increase; more importantly, hopefully those dreams I spoke of before will still be able to come true through applying the awesome business truths I'm learning as a BYU MBA student.