I'm back! After a REALLY LONG BREAK. A lot of things happened since I last wrote and now. Here's a quick summary: I graduated. I got my consulting job. Quit my consulting job. Moved back home to LA. Applying to medical schools (...with some dancing on the side, of course).
Looking back on some of my old posts, I find it fascinating how I wrote some "deep" ideas and also some very silly anecdotes. But this past year, I made one of the hardest decisions, and the experience has really placed a new outlook and direction on my life. I figured this is something worth sharing, and I promise it won't be a silly anecdote!
The hardest decision I had to make was telling myself to quit my consulting job, after barely working there for a full year. I had a firm plan of getting a healthcare / life science consulting job, working there for 2 years before applying to medical schools. I thought this job would give me an understanding for how the healthcare system works and the dynamics that influence a patient's healthcare. That subject was quite mysterious for me, and something I really wanted to understand before I completely dive into the world of medicine. While I did learn a lot about this space (not to mention got a nice salary), I found myself not completely happy. Was it was the crazy 70 hour work weeks? No. Was it the people I worked with? No. Was I passionate about it? No.
I am all about hard work. But I believe that you are happiest with yourself, life, and career when you're working hard at something you are passionate about. I am very thankful I had the opportunity to work at my consulting company, but after months of working long hours for something I wasn't extremely passionate about was the ultimate deal breaker. However, the fighter personality inside me fought against this gut feeling for months. I hardly ever quit at anything, and I wasn't about to do it on my first job after college. I kept telling myself that I was just grumpy because I worked late the night before, or the amount of work was piling up.
When May 2012 rolled around, I came across a video of Professor Deepak Malhotra, a popular negotiations professor at Harvard Business School giving a speech to the graduating MBA class of 2012 (see link below). He articulated something that I had been feeling for months. He said "What makes you, you? What is your essence, and how do you create a life, and the choices, that allows you to exhibit that genius every day so that who you are, and what you're doing, aren't two different things?" He later went on to say that if what you're doing is something inherently different from who you are, then quit early... and quit often. Don't quit because something is hard, but quit because it inherently doesn't resonate with you.
I found this so enlightening that later that night, I wrote my 2-weeks notice and set the plans I had been holding at the back of my mind in motion. I loved learning about the space itself, but I dreaded everything else about the job. I wanted to be with actual patients and experience the trends I learned on the job first hand. I wanted to be a part of that decision-making process that helps improve / treat patients' health. It was definitely difficult coming to terms that I was quitting my first job sooner than I planned, but when left the office for the last time, I felt so free.
I'm glad I decided to quit. I'm now applying to medical schools for the next academic year. I am using what I learned from that job and bringing it to my part time job working with public health organizations and minority populations in LA. I am tutoring biology to high school kids. I'm spending more time with my family and friends, and picking back up the hobbies I had put on hold for a very long time. I absolutely love it!
So no matter what you're interested in, I hope that you are doing something that displays your genius. If you don't think you are, use my experience as an example, and make it happen! It's completely worth it :)
Professor Deepak Malhotra's full speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D73mm29XXAw
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