bpang

I did the program last summer and John was our team's mentor. He was really helpful in brainstorming idea and mentoring. We had a really good experience!

One more note: Working for a larger purpose creates happiness and meaning. This is why volunteer activities, caring for your family and friends, supporting a charity, or working to live up to your moral principals all feel so good. Ultimately, we all seek a continuing experience. We thrive on feeling that we matter, and that what we do matters. We also experience meaning when we have a sense of "congruence and coherence" between who we are and what we do.

It's great to see so many people are interested in this topic. To provide more color on some of the points above, here're some more details from research findings (most are direct quotes from her research article): How to reduce unhappiness? Overthinking can actually worsen sadness and make it harder to escape unhappiness. In ruminating, we just become stuck with our feelings. What do you do? Learn to disenage from overthinking about both major and minor negative experiences. Go for a walk, read, call a friend, etc. Or find distraction by thinking about something else. Thirdly, compartmentalize your feelings. Talking also helps you get over unhappiness. Often, shift thinking can help. That's also where meditation comes in. Socializing, exercising more and losing weight are more effective than watching TV. Someone asked why does deep, hard thinking make one happy? Research has found that "flow" often makes time seem to stand still. There's a strong correlation between the experience of flow in your brain and enduring levels of happiness. We experience flow when there's a good match between our strengths and the task we are engaged upon. A holistic view of life is critical to an ongoing level of happiness and meaning. Thinking of our lives holistically, as interconnected and overlapping domains, creates the possibility of multiplier effects. Finally, what's the impact of happiness to doing good business? Making your customers happy and your employees happy are crucial to building a strong business. Fostering a community and encouraging community services or charity are some ways to achieve so. Having a higher mission than pure profit pursuits has also been proven to make employees happier and businesses successful.

We all have to admit it. Network is important for one to succeed in business, in addition to raw talent and a great product. I'm not saying you can bypass the second two factors with just a network, but with a strong network, it only helps. Someone can help you introduce the product to the world and someone very smart can give you great advice, if you don't fool yourself into thinking you don't need mentoring from some of the best in the industry. I've learned a great deal by seeking advice from these leaders. I wasn't completely sold on a MBA before coming to GSB and that's why it took me longer to come than average classmates. I almost didn't come, with the same perspective you may have. However, having spent 1.5 years here, I think it's really worthwhile even though it used up all my savings prior to business school (yes, it's expensive). I did actually learn valuable lessons from many industry veterans who are sharing their many years of learning with us about sales, marketing, management, finance, entrepreneurship, VC, etc. Believe me, I'm a stronger believer in learning from doing it, as I'm currently building a business while in school. However, the learning and mentoring I receive is phenomenal to complement this and the network is extremely valuable.