1. Hello everyone! I'm so glad you've joined me for the final video in our 4 part series about using goals to make the most out of your MBA. By now, we've taken a good bit out of the goal's apple. We've opened and we've come to explore the bodacious and audacious "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question.
2. We've worked backward from your long term grand scheme big picture life impact goal to a careful conversation about Google mapping your industry and function career coordinates from where you are now to where you imagine yourself in the future. And we've zeroed in on some practical steps you can take to lattice toward your best fit MBA job. Learning as you go, and making the most of your time to reach that life career goal.
3. Find strength and strategy to move forward in a direction of your life's work. Recall that ending high is a core goal setting principle and that there is a positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and task performance. When you have a commitment, the ability and a clear way forward without conflicts, you’re most likely to reach your goals.
4. Robert Cialdini who writes on the topic of Influence, says that we have a deep desire to become consistent. For this reason, once we've committed to something, we're then more inclined to go through with it.
5. Writing your goals down is a commitment action and it's our first strength strategy in achieving your goals. There was a fascinating study conducted on the 1979 Harvard MBA program where graduate students were asked, "Have you set clear written goals for your future and make plans to accomplish them?" Only 3% had written goals and plans, 13% had goals but there weren't in writing and 84% had no goals at all. 10 years later, the same group was interviewed again. The 13% of the class which had goals but did not write them down was earning twice the amount of the 84% who had no goals. The 3% who had written goals were earning on average 10x as much as the other 97% of the class combined.
6. So let's do that right now. You can simply grab a piece of paper and follow along through the write-it-down slides in this video or go ahead and pause the video so you can download the Beyond B School Goals Packet labeled Goals Write It Down.
7. Give yourself permission to do this imperfectly. Sometimes if our standard is perfection, we never begin. So allowing that your ideas are imperfect, go ahead and write down a statement that signifies your grand vision for your career or your life statement. Then write down what that grand vision suggests in terms of the industry you might work in and the function you might excel at.
8. We worked really hard on this in the 2nd video. Next write down where you are now in terms also of industry and function. These are your career coordinates: Industry and Function Now & Industry and Function in the Future. Take a deep breath and let that sink in.
9. From the 3rd video, remember the latticing technique for determining the footwork from where you are today to where you wish to be? Go ahead and plot where you are now at the bottom left hand corner and where you want to be ultimately. If you want to change both industry and function, can you leap frog? Or is it more realistic to plot an incrementally progressive route? In addition to giving this some thought, you may even have done some preliminary work like taking some assessments or researching your options online. Write down your options with your favorite or best bet option at the top of this section.
10. Now, for your top priority option, what do you need to do to get started? Learn to schedule actions that you can make the best use of the hours in your day and your natural energy pattern.
11. We are definitely talking about a lot of Hard Work which is why this strategy is so important. Let's wrangle all of this and put this into perspective. Here is a handy and probably familiar 2x2 model which looks at the relationship between what's important and what's urgent.
12. I think we can all agree that our career is important so we'll concentrate on the top row quadrant's 1 and 2. Because there's a tendency to procrastinate when we feel overwhelmed, we face the risk of facing important career activities until they become urgent.
13. By leaving important career decisions and activities to the last minute, we risk falling into the crisis management quadrant in the upper left corner, Quadrant #1. Dealing with your career development activities when you are in stress mode means that you risk the body chemistry that stress induces.
14. Stressed career management will immediately narrow your thinking and limit your options. Instead when we work steadily important career goals, planning to spend the appropriate amount of time in the appropriate time frame, then we gain the advantage of proper energy use and clear and strategic thinking. Plus the sufficient reflection time that allows us to test our decisions against our greater values. We see that depicted in Quadrant #2. Important but not yet Urgent.
15. When goals are used to make the most of your MBA, we can combat urgency but timing is still important. For each of you, it may be different, depending on when you plan to finish your degree and relative to that, when you want to be interview ready in order to have the offer that you want and paycheck you want, when you need it. So pinpoint your graduation date and isolate your interview timing so that you can decide when you should start this goal oriented project of making the most out of your MBA to make the most of your career.
16. Using your time wisely really matters. When you look at your day in terms of not only your time, but also in terms of your productivity and performance, you can sometimes make smarter choices about how to spend that time.
17. Here's a chart that allows you to account for the hours of your day from when you wake up in the morning at the top, until when you go to sleep at the end of the day at the bottom.
    The columns from left to write allow you to mark your daily productivity tendencies ranging from counter-productive to super-productive. You can also know when in your day you're most likely to perform at your highest level.
18. Get more out of the minutes in your day by managing your work. Tasks that use top-energy and acuity are scheduled during productive & performing times and tasks that are less demanding are scheduled during your less productive times. For example, you might determine that researching career options, industries and functions that appeal, is a lower energy activity than writing a cover letter to a top choice employer or studying for a critical exam. If you're a morning person, plan to get your writing and studying done early. Then use your less productive time for the more passive activity like career research. For a morning person, this might be just the hour before dinner for example.
19. Once you've organized your goals, and committed them to paper, tell someone so that you become accountable for your actions. This also gives you something to celebrate as it allows you to acknowledge and reward your hard work and to stave off the discouragement by marking your headway.
20. Create visual reinforcement for both your goals and your progress. Post your goals where you can easily see them. You can create a collage of pictures and form a visual treasure map that depict your career ambitions and illustrate what's most important in your career story.
21. Which brings us back to the idea of your true north and the difference you're getting there can make to you and to the world. For this 4th and final video about the power of goals, I searched for 6 real life stories about ordinary people who accomplished the extraordinary.
    • In the summer of 2014, the baseball world fell in love with 13 year old Mo'ne Davis who is the star pitcher for the Bad News Bear Team out of Philadelphia & Dragons. Mo'ne was the first girl to earn a win and to pitch a shut-out in Little League World Series History. When asked about her pitch, she acknowledged, “I throw my curveball like Clayton Kershaw and my fastball like Mo'ne Davis.” She already has her signature. And she's been on the cover of Sports Illustrated for her baseball acclaim. But baseball is just a step along the way. Her dream is to play basketball for the University of Connecticut and then, for the WMBA.
    • Then there's the other 13 yr old, Moziah Bridges, the CEO of Mo’s Bows and purveyor of high-end handmade bowties. When Moe couldn't find the bowtie that he liked well enough, he asked his grandmother to teach him to sew. Today, Mo exclaims, “My passion is your fashion.” As a kidpreneur with $55 bowties for sale on the internet and in 12 retail boutiques across the south, Mo’ goal is to have his own clothing line by the time he's 20. Mo’s wisdom on goals is figure out what you like doing and find out how you can make money doing it. He says, “Figure out... find out...”
    • Cateura Paraguay is the slim-built on a landfill. A local there, Fabio Chaves decided to open a music school to help children in the community stay off drugs and gang violence and to reaffirm their life in dignity. And that was the beginning of the recycled orchestra now known as the Landfill Harmonic. Nicolas Gomez, a local there known as Cola, is a trash collector and recycler. And has turned out to be the most unlikely genius in lieu of avionic instruments made from trash. Together with the committed child musicians, Senior Chavez and Gomez have brought the community a new mindset and the inspiration that turns trash into music for the world. "The world sends us garbage. We send back music."
    • Amy Purdy, a competitive snowboarder, at age 19 contracted bacterial meningitis which led to septic shock within 24 hours leaving her in a coma with a 2% chance of survival. Amy suffered the sudden loss of the hearing in her left ear, her splint, her kidneys and both legs below the knee. When Amy realized that the stock prosthetic leg she was given wouldn't allow her to achieve her goal as a world class snowboarder, she made her own legs. She willed and worked her way forward until despite her devastating setback, she became the highest rank adapted snowboarder in the world. Losing both of her legs, radically changed Amy's dream of living a life story full of action and adventure. But instead of experiencing the loss as a disability, Amy insists that losing her legs enabled her to learn that our imaginations can be used as tools for breaking through borders. Amy says, “Our borders and our obstacles can only do 2 things: Stop us in our tracks or force us to get creative.” She says, “Borders are where the actual ends but also where the imagination begins. And that it's not about breaking down borders but it's about pushing off of them. And seeing what amazing places they might bring us.”
    • Diana Nyad was the first person confirmed to swim without a shark tank from Cuba to Florida. A 110 mile treacherous journey, Diana first attempted the 60 hour swim at age 28 in 1978 but was thrown off course by high winds and high seas. She came back to that original goal 30 years later. And between 2011 and 2013, Diana made 4 more attempts to complete the swim. In her 3rd attempt, she suffered several boxed jellyfish stings which caused respiratory distress and ended the swim prematurely. One of Diana's motivational talks is about getting over the big disappointments and grace in the face of defeat. But also about never ever giving up. On her 5th attempt, having shouted courage as she left the dock in Savannah, and after 53 hours of continuous swimming, Diana Nyad reached the beach of Key West on September 2nd and realized her extreme dream. When she arrived on the beach, she said 3 things: "Never ever give up. You can chase your dream at any age. You're never too old. And it looks like the most solitary endeavor in the world and in many ways of course it is, and in other ways, the most important ways... it's a team."
    • Misty Copeland was recently signed by Under Armor to launch the “I will what I want” campaign. Ending the brand's gender repeal. They created an awesome 1 minute 1 second video set to the narration of an actual ballet academy rejection letter she received stating that she had the wrong body for ballet. In this video, Misty's beauty, strength and determination will take your breath away. Misty recently published her auto-biographical story titled, “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. My Story of Adversity and Grace.” In it, she chronicles her prodigious dissent from a 13 yr. old late start unlikely ballerina to becoming the only African-American soloist currently dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theater and the 3rd African-American female ballet soloist with the ABT ever. The story is partly about adversity, about overcoming poverty, racism and body shame. But it's also about being born for ballet and will and want. From her rare find, prima ballerina perspective, Misty shares this wisdom, "In my moments of clarity, I envisioned all of the people whose lives have been touched by my story, who upon seeing my journey know that you can start late, look different, be uncertain and still succeed." Simply put she says, "Children see themselves in me."
22. So returning to our conversation about your goals, I challenge you to think about what others see in you and maybe the even harder challenge is what you see in yourself and how that matters the most.
23. Nelson Mandela said, “Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate. We are powerful beyond measure.” The quote goes on to say, "And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
24. Look into the future and see on the other side of your borders where the actual ends and the imagination takes over. Imagine what's possible when you commit to your highest aspiration at any age based on your natural ability and with intrepid innovation of clearing the paths to make your way for your lifelong dream.
25. Because it's not only about what you get, or about extrinsic motivation is important. But it's about what you give from the fire born inside of you. And the sustaining intrinsic motivation that will compel you perpetually over time toward mastery. That excellence that you were made for. Because when you find that clear sense of what you were made for, and figure out how to be all of it, you will set the world on fire.

Assistant Dean, MBA Career Curricula of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. Patty worked for over 20 years as Master Recruiter, Trainer and Human Resource Manager. She managed recruiting efforts for major employers and served as a relationship agent, navigating employer/employee relationships to complete placement assignments. Patty shared this expertise with professionals new to the recruiting industry as Trainer. Her final ten years in industry also included the performance of HR generalist functions.