The AltMBA: How 13 projects, 4 weeks, and 80+ hrs of work helped me level up.
First, What is the AltMBA?
The AltMBA is a 4-week leadership workshop where you meet with 100 other professionals around the world that help you level up and produce your best work.
This is done through 3–4 group and solo projects per week that challenge you to consistently articulate your ideas in writing. This equates to shipping a new project every 72 hours on top of working full-time. This forces you to ruthlessly manage your time and energy. Pushing you to the edge of what you thought possible.
In addition to sharing work publicly, the workshop challenges you to help others discover deeper insights about their work while also making time to reflect on the work you produce.
If this sounds exciting to you, watch this short video on the AltMBA home page. In the video others share their experience along with the impact the workshop made on how they lead now.
So What Did I Learn Over This 4-week Sprint?
Buzzer Management: Press the buzzer before you know the answer
Seth Godin talks about this idea of buzzer management. Think about being on a show like Jeopardy. Seth argues that the best way to win is to press your buzzer before you know the answer. This contrary idea that you might come up with the answer as a result of pressing the buzzer, instead of the other way around.
Takeaway: Don’t wait until you think you have the right answer to execute.
Through the act of execution is where we grow. Where we make mistakes. Where we get new information that contributes to making better decisions.
Here’s how I’ve put this into practice. I now have a google doc for each of the goals I’m committed to. I realized Trello and every other productivity app is for record keeping, NOT DEEP HIGH-LEVEL THINKING .
So now I have blank google docs where I constantly revisit these questions for projects that are meaningful to me
- Why does this project matter?
- Who is it for?
- What am I afraid of?
- What does better look like? What does good enough look like?
- What do I seek to learn?
- How can I get feedback this week?
- What have I learned this week?
Progress happens when we CONSISTENTLY ask these questions of ourselves. In the past I didn’t ask these questions at all OR I failed to revisit them on a consistent basis.
THE WORK = embracing the tension of answering these questions daily!
The AltMBA gave me new energy and focus around the questions we typically enjoy hiding from. The work is in dancing with our fears. Dancing with the resistant voice in our heads that makes us procrastinate on the surface.
We have gifts we need to share often. We’re doing ourselves and the world a disservice by not sharing our gifts often.
Show Up Often: Spend less time judging your work
Just start typing, it’s really that simple. With many of the projects I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say or what point I wanted to get across. But every 72 hours I had to ship something. So there was no room for, “I’m stuck or I don’t know”.
We have so many amazing insights that hide because we’re too afraid to take action. Writing can help us discover these gems.
Writing has a new purpose in my life. My goal now is to determine, “What is it that I noticed this week?”
If we can consistently show up every day, every week and answer this question ,we put ourselves in a position to lead better. To lead in a way that brings others along for our journey. It give us the space to come up for air and see what might be a blindspot for us.
There’s no progress without reflection.
I saw that when I just started to type, my subconscious started to give me answers. Almost like a form of self-therapy. I didn’t judge my ideas. I didn’t question how I was feeling. My thoughts were what I was thinking at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.
When we realize that there’s no penalty for “wrong answers” we can truly be free. The more bad ideas we can come up with, the closer we get to the good ones. Those nuggets of wisdom & creativity that we all yearn for.
I’m excited to see what I produce when I continue to show up consistently.
Here’s a gift. Work that I produced during the AltMBA which was designed to help others facing career transitions to redefine their idea of success.
If you have any questions on the AltMBA or would like advice on how you might be able to level up, feel free to reach out to me at llcholloway@gmail.
What will you be shipping this week? What did you notice last week? What are you seeking to learn this week? What gifts do you plan to share with others?
