After 4 months

When I write this I have gone through the first 4 months of the MBA program. It is intense, I study until after midnight every day of the week. But I have learned so much. The case study method used at IESE makes me feel like I’ve experienced several years worth of business situations in just 4 months. On top of that I’ve been meeting amazing people every single day. I came to the program with expectations, but after 4 months they have already been exceeded.

An MBA for an aspiring entrepreneur?

I decided to do an MBA while having the desire to start my own business. Some may say that this is contradictory. However after 4 months I can say that the contrary can also be true. The things I am learning will help my future business and prevent me from making many mistakes. But, the amazing people that I have the privilege of meeting will help even more!

Time will tell…

The IESE MBA lasts 18months, something I chose on purpose.  The first year focuses on building a foundation for general management. Currently I am concentrating on laying this foundation. However the second year students can choose from many courses and I plan to specialize in entrepreneurship. During this second year I will also work on my own business, validating the model and finding investors. Time will tell in which way the IESE MBA will help me. To the amazing life of an entrepreneur, or to a amazing next step in my career. One thing I am sure of after 4 months: The experience will help me in whichever path I choose pursue!

For six weeks I had been postponing actually doing it. I had all kinds of reservations and fears. What if he becomes angry? What if he takes an entire afternoon of my work day? What if he makes a scene in the restaurant? Finally last Tuesday I gathered all my strength and courage and decided to go ask him.

At 12:00 I left the office. On my walk to his place I felt the adrenaline rising, thinking of all the possible consequences. What if this restaurant would be full of colleagues? I could become the gossip of the month. I decided to press on regardless of my fears etc and approached him.

I greeted him, shook his hand and saw how bad his skin looked etc. So I asked: Are you hungry? He looked at me strangely and said: Yes. Then I said: “Would you like to have lunch with me right now”? He looked at me even more strangely and after a couple of moments he said: “…No”, together with some comments I did not understand. I asked again and pointed at the restaurant across the street. He said no again.

There I was… standing wondering what to do. To me an invitation to a “clochard” to have a warm meal at a restaurant was an opportunity you don’t pass by. However he did. So I asked God: Why did you make me go through all this stress to ask this guy, all these worries fears etc? While you knew he was going to say no to me?. God replied: “No you know how I feel”. God invites people all the time and gets rejected. The feeling of rejection is indescribable. It is not personal but different. I have trouble to put it to words. Now I know the feeling as well. I don’t know what I will do now. Maybe I’ll be like God and… Invite the clochard again…

I started jogging, I have done so now for 3 weeks. Every Sunday morning I run as soon as I wake up (twice 7.30 now and once 10.30 . As I was running along the Seine river, looking back at our first period here I realized some parallels between jogging and our transition. Let me share some of them here with you.

It looks great when you plan to do it but…

Whenever I decide to go jogging I realize in advance what satisfaction it will bring after I have done it. When I start running, my body starts protesting and I think: “O no what have I started? My bed was so nice and warm etc”. However, then I think again of the satisfaction I will have when I am done, that keeps me going. The same goes for the transition. Before me moved I was in a state similar of the moment right before I start jogging. The first week I felt absolutely terrible here. I wasn’t able to speak the language, we knew no one. We didn’t know where to find what and how to get things done. Like jogging I started feeling great about the move but when we begun everything in me started protesting.

Keep going…

After my body has begun protesting, I decide to keep on going. I can still go back but I keep focusing on the fact that it will do me good when I continue. I get into some kind of running rhythm. I find a comfortable way of placing my feet and syncing my breath. My body accepts the fact that I am running. I can start enjoying my surroundings and start thinking. I start to set goals, like where I will have my first break etc. The same goes for our transition. After our first week we got a lot of things arranged, bought the necessities, I got into a normal daily rhythm etc. This is the first period of enjoying the fact of living abroad. Experiencing all the new things and the culture. It is a great period.

The first break down…

After the first long period of running I become short of breath. My body starts protesting. Looking at the scenery has starting to become “normal”. All of a sudden I realize what I am doing. That there is still a long way to go before I am back home. It is the moment where I need to have a pause. Stop running for a moment and start walking. This has been the last week and will probably be the next weeks. Everything that used to be new about living in France is now normal. I start missing the “normal” things of the Netherlands, but also friends and family. The new daily rhythm seems a lot harder than the old one. I start asking myself the why questions: why have I done this? why France? Why haven’t I taken the more easy way of staying in the Netherlands?

These questions are the same as what happens when I start to run again. After the short walking break my body starts protesting even worse than before. However knowing the satisfaction of it that awaits me when I come home I keep going. After a couple of hundred meters I start enjoying again… until the next pause.

These are just some similarities I see. Even though I know that end benefit to me as a person, as professional. There are times when this transition is hard, and they will keep coming. I just need to take the proverbial break, and then start going again. But along the way, I enjoy the run very much!