Often time I have found that family and friends are afraid to say the truth when I ask for their opinion. They either do not want to hurt our feelings or simply too lazy to go through the material we have asked their opinion on. When a sugar coated lie is told instead of a hurting truth, it leads to a lose-lose situation. Most often we fail at what we are doing and when we eventually realize that we were told a sugar coated lie, we lose trust. Both sugar coated lies and harsh truth have happened with me.
In the first year of the graduate school in US, I was keen to get admission to a better ranking school. Therefore, I applied to many IVY league universities in US. In preparation for the application material, I asked opinion on my 'Statement of Purpose' from two people and made many mistakes doing so. First, both of them were lazy losers in their own lives and second, they are not a bit interested to hurt my feeling telling the truth. Result was that they returned the material without many comment saying that it looks good to them. I applied 13 schools spending $1000 and did not get admission in even one of them.... Not a single one of them..... I lost 5 years in somewhat mediocre institute with mediocre people. Yes, there were many aspect of it that benefitted development of my personality more than if I would have been in a high ranking school, but career wise it stamped me mediocre. I learned two things: first ask opinion from capable people and second ask in a way that they feel confortable to give a true evaluation.
Recently, I applied to a single MBA school ranked in world's top 5 and got in. Learning from my earlier experience and a bit of luck were instrumental to this achievement. Early in the application, I asked the opinion of a alumni of the said school. He dispatched a scathing critique of my essays. It was likes somebody slapped me to reality. It was very harsh on my ego. But I consider myself lucky that it was not a sugar coated lie. I thanked him for his frank opinion, collected myself and then worked on my essays extra hard to get them to the level for an interview call. An encouragement for frank opinion helped me build trust. Again his tips on the interview helped me impress interviewers and despite an average GMAT and above average age, I got in with flying colors. This achievement and the journey to this achievement will always be a guiding light to me.
At home, my wife likes to get sugar coated lies instead of harsh truth. House is very dirty because she does not act like a owner of the house and be lazy about things. Dirty diapers are everywhere, there is food on the floor that our son picks up and eat and gets sick, there is no surface in the house where a laptop can be put and worked on, her desk has everything from comb to dirty plate etc. I admit that I am not great either but the difference between her and me is that I give a fight before things go out of control. Usually, things go in following order - I get helpless and angry when things get out of control, resulting in some action from my wife. But these actions never sustain, leading to a cycle of long disorganized mess followed by a few days of cleanliness. When I get angry, my wife responds in two extremes - first she remains quite for extended periods of time with sullen face, leading to increase my pitch because I get the signal that my point is not getting across. But as soon as I increase my volume she either gets angry or starts crying, forcing me to step back. I have made her see extremities of these responses and how lack of communication is not helping us find solution together and also, coming to our original discussion, how sugar coated lies are not helping improve ourselves. Today we had one of those cleanliness days after prolonged disorganized mess that got our son sick. We have made a pact to do things differently but not the same way we made pacts before. I am hopeful it would work :)
In the first year of the graduate school in US, I was keen to get admission to a better ranking school. Therefore, I applied to many IVY league universities in US. In preparation for the application material, I asked opinion on my 'Statement of Purpose' from two people and made many mistakes doing so. First, both of them were lazy losers in their own lives and second, they are not a bit interested to hurt my feeling telling the truth. Result was that they returned the material without many comment saying that it looks good to them. I applied 13 schools spending $1000 and did not get admission in even one of them.... Not a single one of them..... I lost 5 years in somewhat mediocre institute with mediocre people. Yes, there were many aspect of it that benefitted development of my personality more than if I would have been in a high ranking school, but career wise it stamped me mediocre. I learned two things: first ask opinion from capable people and second ask in a way that they feel confortable to give a true evaluation.
Recently, I applied to a single MBA school ranked in world's top 5 and got in. Learning from my earlier experience and a bit of luck were instrumental to this achievement. Early in the application, I asked the opinion of a alumni of the said school. He dispatched a scathing critique of my essays. It was likes somebody slapped me to reality. It was very harsh on my ego. But I consider myself lucky that it was not a sugar coated lie. I thanked him for his frank opinion, collected myself and then worked on my essays extra hard to get them to the level for an interview call. An encouragement for frank opinion helped me build trust. Again his tips on the interview helped me impress interviewers and despite an average GMAT and above average age, I got in with flying colors. This achievement and the journey to this achievement will always be a guiding light to me.
At home, my wife likes to get sugar coated lies instead of harsh truth. House is very dirty because she does not act like a owner of the house and be lazy about things. Dirty diapers are everywhere, there is food on the floor that our son picks up and eat and gets sick, there is no surface in the house where a laptop can be put and worked on, her desk has everything from comb to dirty plate etc. I admit that I am not great either but the difference between her and me is that I give a fight before things go out of control. Usually, things go in following order - I get helpless and angry when things get out of control, resulting in some action from my wife. But these actions never sustain, leading to a cycle of long disorganized mess followed by a few days of cleanliness. When I get angry, my wife responds in two extremes - first she remains quite for extended periods of time with sullen face, leading to increase my pitch because I get the signal that my point is not getting across. But as soon as I increase my volume she either gets angry or starts crying, forcing me to step back. I have made her see extremities of these responses and how lack of communication is not helping us find solution together and also, coming to our original discussion, how sugar coated lies are not helping improve ourselves. Today we had one of those cleanliness days after prolonged disorganized mess that got our son sick. We have made a pact to do things differently but not the same way we made pacts before. I am hopeful it would work :)
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