Effort.

Started thinking about my marketing course and trying to apply it to work, what is our points of parity and points of differences. I’m not really sure yet, but I’m starting to feel a bit of using effort as an expense to create a competitive advantage. You do that, I’ll do it better. You can’t do that, let me take care of it. All our projects require a lot of time and effort, that many would not be willing to spend the time for. I suppose that’s good and bad. It is sort of how the service industry work and align with my “just be awesome” mantra. At the same time, it’s neglecting a lot of other things like financial viability and mental health of the team. I guess most importantly, out of this reflection process, I can finally agree with others when they say I work hard. I never felt I did, but I do now. It’s another level of self-affirmation.

August is over. It’s been 6 months since the transfer of patients and putting medication review push on hold. I think the clients are comfortable now to be engaged at another level. EK is starting next week, fire power is in place. The stage is set. Show time!

Ready to go.

It’s been 2 days since finishing a tiring stretch of 2-3 weeks of doing nothing but work and study. CPBC review, Final Exam, AGMx2 just came at once altogether. I can’t even remember how to sleep at a normal time or drink something aside from coffee. It’s tiring but it’s been fun and accomplishing, in a different way. I’ve always had troubles feeling like I earned something because nothing took a prolonged perseverance where it was inconvenient and I had to give up something that’s important. If I pass this marketing course, I think I can say I earned it. I wanted to give up since week 3, just work and study and the little life I was trying to keep wasn’t holding together. It’s been a semester where I never quite had a handle on it. Then in the last 3 weeks, I really pushed my effort to another level I’ve never seen before. I’ve studied hard before, stayed up late and sleep very little, but this one took way beyond that. It’s everything I have.

Thought I would appreciate resting a bit to figure out what I want to do going forward, but I can’t stop. I’m coming up with more and more things to do, but I want more! I’m not a workaholic. I want to achieve and accomplish; the only way for it to happen is to do things and keep working. It’s the ticket to ride. Read this on alearningaday blog today, quote from Muhammed Ali “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” That bigger goal is so much more important than resting right now. Work Work Work! 😀

Marketing.

I’ve been studying like crazy these days and it’s driving me nuts. Part of it is my fault for getting so behind. It’s been busy at work, overtime and energy wise that doesn’t leave a lot of me for school, but that’s not an excuse for the journey I chose for myself. Part of the real challenge here is the topic itself, marketing. The concepts are not difficult, but it’s a difficult one to study and master in. Most of the reading goes by relatively quickly, but it also just goes right through me because it makes sense. It’s like oh ya ya, that’s why this company does this because of this theory. It doesn’t help my exam situation here because I need recall, not just recognition. I need to be able to put my understanding into words and answer questions, not just agree with the answer key that I’m not provided with. When I try to think back on all that I’ve read and learned this past semester, I may do fine, considering it’s part of my knowledge somewhere, but it certainly doesn’t feel very secure.

Despite my slightly worrisome situation, it’s actually quite cool. Understanding it is so much more important than memorizing. And seeing how it applies to the real world is more practical than learning concepts that I can’t correlate with. What’s the most amazing though is how I sort of see things a different way. Not skeptical that everything is marketing with some motive behind it, but just everything is what it is for a reason, an effort of someone else, and me understanding all of that! Nike has the products it has because of its mantra, Avis promotes the way it does because of its strategic positioning. Seeing life through different set of lens and understanding these behaviours, indirectly growing and maturing to a more dynamic mind and person, that’s why I’m studying. I can see myself slowly realizing this goal. It’s kewl.