Journal 3.5 – Value Framework – 9/21/08

So when one prepares for consulting interviews, suddenly there is a need to put everything into a framework. As such, below is the evidence of my illness.

While I identified the four core values blow that make up who I am when looking at the things that are most important to me, I came up with seven buckets.

1. Honesty
2. Caring
3. Results Oriented / Darwinism
4. Loyalty
   

As can be seen above the most important bucket is Relationships. This is made up of my relationships with my family, friends, and hopefully my future wife. As noted in times of crises I spend as much time and energy as possible in this bucket, however in good times, I often get busy and do not spend the proper amount of time.

Outside of the first bucket the remaining buckets are not necessarily shown in order of importance. The next bucket is health. While my health is important and I do typically eat fairly healthy, I do not workout. I have often said that the outside of playing sports the only exercise I enjoy is dance dance revolution and sex. Hey, I am who I am :)

The third bucket financial security / “having enough money”. “Enough money” is obviously a relative thing but what is important to this exercise is that I am spending an extraordinary amount of resources (time / energy / money) on this activity, primarily due to B-school.

Next is Respect – which is broken down into two sections. There is the results oriented part of me, which drives my success in school and work. The second part can be bucketed with relationships and is obviously very important, but again energy in this area is primarily used during times of crises.

Education follows – again tons of time/energy due to my B-school activities but there is a real question about how much time / energy I would be spending in this area if I wasn’t in school.

Making a difference – again I do whatever possible to make a difference in the lives of my friends and family but otherwise there is not much here. This leads to my questioning if I should ultimately devote my time to life in industry or if the professor goal outlined in an earlier entry is the better option.

Finally, last but certainly not least is Michigan Football. I know that it “is just a game”, but not when you are raised as I was. I understand that from a logic perspective I should not care so much, however much like my love life, logic tends to have no place in my feelings for Michigan Football. Needless to say, I spend WAY more time / energy following Michigan Football than I should but I know that this is one area that will not change! :)