GMAT with CJ

The Law of Wasted Effort Lions succeed in only a quarter of their hunting attempts. This means that they fail in 75% of their attempts and succeed in only 25% of them. Despite this low success rate, shared by most predators, they don't despair in their pursuit and hunting attempts. The main reason for this is that the understanding of the “Law of Wasted Efforts” has been instinctively built into them by nature. Half of the eggs of fishes are eaten; half of the baby bears die before puberty; most of the world's rains fall in oceans, and most of the seeds of trees are eaten by birds. Only humans think that the lack of success in a few attempts means failure, but the truth is that we fail only when we stop trying. Success doesn't mean having a smooth journey. Rather, success is to learn from your mistakes and continue making efforts, some of which are bound to not yield a favourable result. The point is to persist. Understanding this law may help you in doing so!

"Listening is more a mindset than a checklist of dos and don'ts", Kate Murphy says in her book "You're not listening". Quite similarly, learning is more a mindset than a list of processes and tools. A good teacher can give you the tools and processes to assist your learning; however, these things cannot replace the need for a learning mindset. If you have only a limited desire to learn, no matter how good processes and tools a teacher gives you, you're going to misuse them, i.e. use them not to learn but to take you to your target score somehow directly. And thus, you'll fail.

"I become impatient after spending some time with the argument in the question. I know that I should be spending much more time with the argument. How do I overcome this impatience?" a student asked me. I said: You must understand that you can't change your present propensity to rush. That's a result of how you've lived in the past. If you have been impatient, you will have a strong desire to rush in the present. What is in your hand is what you do with that propensity: succumb to it OR observe it and try to go against it. Going against it will be hard but will be worth the effort. Not only will you be able to improve your GMAT score despite your impatient past, but you'll also change your future propensity. Just as your present propensity is a result of your past choices, your future will be impacted by the choices you make in the present.

Yesterday, as I watched the live telecast from Golden Temple, I looked at the Granthi Sahib and wondered whether he'd be aiming for and thinking about becoming 'Head Granthi'. Immediately, I thought about how ungrateful and disrespectful it would be for a person sitting inside Golden Temple not to be wholly absorbed in what he was doing and instead think about career growth. It was very clear to me that for him, being not 100% involved in his current work and thinking about the next thing he wants to achieve would be very ungrateful and disrespectful. However, as I thought about it, I wondered about myself. Isn't it also ungrateful and disrespectful for a person given the tremendous gift of life not to be 100% involved in what he is doing and keep worrying about the next thing he wants to achieve? How minuscule is any achievement compared to this grand gift called life? But here I am, spending my life disengaged in the present moment, worrying about the little thing I want to achieve. It is as if achieving that thing would fill my life with beauty and meaning, which achievements so far have been unable to do!

Thinking negative thoughts is like smoking. Even though you may get short-term pleasure, in reality, it's destroying you from within. Just as every cigarette you smoke not only harms you health-wise but also makes you even more addicted to smoking, every negative thought not only harms you directly physically, psychologically, and spiritually but also sends you down a bigger spiral of negativity by increasing your propensity to think negative thoughts in the future.

To get the shade of a tree, we need to plant the tree. That's hard work. Or that's a beautiful engagement! Depends on how we look at it. While we may cherish the outcome and eagerly wait for the same, we may also cherish the path that leads to it. Rather than seeing the path as an obstacle between us and our goal and only grudgingly working hard through it, we can choose to see the path as a dear friend that leads us to our goal. If we make this choice, our resistance to the path may end, and 'hard work' may transform into 'beautiful meaningful engagement'. What we attain in life may or may not change, but our quality of life will. Quite dramatically. And isn't that the thing that matters the most?

🎅 Ho Ho Ho! Playing Santa this Christmas! 🎄 In the spirit of giving, I'm offering a special holiday gift (of course, FREE) to up to four individuals: Up to two individuals will get 2-hour GMAT coaching sessions Up to two individuals will get 1-hour slots to discuss life, success, or spirituality Interested? Here's how you can apply: Send me an email explaining: Which session you're interested in (GMAT coaching or life conversation) Why this opportunity would make a meaningful difference in your life What makes you the right recipient for this holiday gift Email me at cj@GMATwithcj.com with the subject line "Christmas Gift 2024" Deadline: Dec 26, 2024 23:59:59

Have you heard of the monkey trap story? It's very simple to trap monkeys. You dig a hole in the earth large enough that a monkey can put in his hand but not large enough to take out its fist. You put some monkey food into the hole. Monkey comes, sees the food, puts his hand in, grabs the food in its fist, and realizes it can't get its hand out. It panics and cries, but to no avail. Then, it's caught and put in a cage. It never realized it was always free to drop the food and regain its freedom. What do you learn from this story? What are you holding onto, dropping which you can regain your freedom?

This is about a student who lacked verbal skills but had life skills. More than ten students in the GMAT 350-450 score range have come to me. Each one of them gave up within a couple of months. Except for a couple of students. Why did these two students persist and succeed while others gave up soon? Let me tell you about K. K is one of these two students. He came to me after scoring a 440 on an actual GMAT attempt; he was in the bottom 10 percent in the Verbal section. There used to be sessions where he'd get every question wrong. At the end of those sessions, he would say, "I'm learning, Sir. It's great. I'll do it." Instead of looking up to me to prop him up at the end of such sessions, he'd try to pump me up. I used to be inspired by this person. Many people get dispirited when they answer a few questions incorrectly, but here, I had a student who would answer everything incorrectly and still have faith in himself. K has started scoring in the 60th to 70th percentile in the verbal section in the mocks and is on his way to scoring much higher. I told him recently, "You did not have the verbal skills. However, you had much more fundamental skills - life skills of positivity, hope, and perseverance, which have helped you build the verbal skills."

It's a story of forgiving myself. Last night, my wife got irritated with me for a reason. As is my habit, I got irritated and spoke with her at a higher-than-normal pitch. For years, I have carried Stephen Covey's words within me: We should not let others' weaknesses control us. However, I have failed yet again to implement these words. My wife's weakness was not expressing her disagreement politely, and I let her weakness control me and dictate my response. When I woke up this morning, I felt guilty for failing again to make a better choice and succumbing to my past habits. I apologized to my wife. However, guilt persisted, especially since I wanted to write about life and spirituality. I wondered, "Do I deserve to write about spirituality when I am at this level?" As I sat down to meditate, I thought, "Forgive yourself, just as God forgives all mistakes. Even though you could not align with divinity last night, you can align now by forgiving yourself." As I began to meditate, I let go of the guilt and forgave myself. I have often seen people not forgive themselves for fear that they will repeat their mistakes in the future if they are easily forgiven. I beg to differ. I believe that by suffering more under the feelings of guilt, you only increase suffering in this world. Only by bringing joy within can you bring joy outside. When you forgive yourself easily and genuinely, you'll find it easier to forgive others quickly and genuinely. Thereby, you'll add value and joy to the lives of others.

A very accomplished girl cried in her second session with me. When I asked her why, she said, "You must be thinking I'm so dumb." I was surprised. The thought had not even crossed my mind. She answered most of the questions correctly, but as I would expect from a student, she answered a few incorrectly. However, she probably didn't expect to get those questions wrong. Thus, she was judging herself and expecting me to do the same. I told her that I didn't judge her and that it did not make sense for me, as a teacher, to judge her. However, she didn't believe me. For the remaining session, she remained unsettled and felt judged. It was a learning experience for me. How she superimposed her expectations (of judgment) on me! How difficult or impossible it was for her to believe that I didn't judge her even after my saying so! Perhaps, the same applies to many of us in many other situations in life. We keep superimposing our own ideas on others! If we stop judging ourselves and others, we'd probably be also free from the suffering of being judged.

Do you go blank under timing pressure on the GMAT? A student recently shared that when he has just 10 minutes left to complete the verbal section in a mock exam, his mind stops comprehending the questions. This is a common problem I have heard from students. They get so stressed out that their mind goes blank while taking the exam. I told this student: When you have 10 minutes left on the clock and a few questions left, you have a problem. However, the way you react to the problem magnifies the problem. Thus, rather than solving your problem, you are adding to your problem. Here are a few things you can do: 1. Put GMAT into perspective - The more you make GMAT a life-and-death scenario, the more you'll panic. Thus, understand that while the GMAT is important, you can do great things even without a GMAT or MBA. In addition, you can always take the GMAT again. 2. Understand what is and what is not in your control - The score you get is not in your control; it doesn't matter how much you want to control it. Only giving your best to the question on the screen is in your hands. 3. Use your power of imagination - Imagine taking a mock and having just 10 minutes left. Imagine how you'd like to respond. Keep imagining it as vividly as possible.

One of my students was a top academic performer until Class 10th. And then, she started facing difficulties in Math. Used to succeeding 'easily,' she suddenly found that she would have to struggle like everybody else to understand. She realized that she was not special. Her self-image broke. Since then, over the last 15 years, she has developed a phobia of math. Her mind goes blank in the middle of solving a question. She started preparing for the GMAT last year. She got so depressed after seeing her repeated struggles with the quant section that she had to take therapy. She has been in therapy since then. As we started our quant sessions, I told her: "The next time you do a quant question, instead of feeling nervous, you can feel proud of yourself for not giving up and for 'choosing' to undertake this journey of self-improvement; you could have given up, but you did not. It'll help you to view quant not as an enemy to beat but as an area to excel in. Be patient with yourself as you'd be with a younger sister, who is emotionally vulnerable as she tries yet again to succeed at a thing on which she has failed for a long time. You can expect that patience from me. I believe you can succeed, and the journey will be enriching and fun."

Within a span of a few days, two of my students, N and A, took the GMAT. N scored in the 94th percentile, and A scored in the 90th percentile. The commonality between the two is that these attempts were their 7th attempts. Yes! 7th! While A came to me after her 6th attempt, N came to me after her 3rd attempt. Thus, N had to take four attempts even after starting with me. While some people may judge these two negatively since they took so many attempts to get their target scores, I hold both of them in high regard. They may not have had as much critical thinking or quantitative skills as others when they began. However, they clearly had much more significant skills - the skill of perseverance, the skill of not giving up, the skill of continuing to believe in themselves in spite of much evidence to the contrary. And by using these skills, not only have they built critical thinking or quantitative skills, but they can also build any other skill in the future. If you are struggling with the GMAT or, rather, any other challenging venture in your life right now, it may be time to use and grow your skill of not giving up and believing in yourself! You can get there! It's just a matter of time and perspective!

The first question you need to ask is not “Am I fast enough?” but “Am I in the right direction?”. The point is that if you are fast enough but your direction is wrong, you’ll reach the wrong place faster. On the other hand, if your direction is right, you’ll reach your destination sooner or later. Besides, speed naturally builds up as you consistently do the same thing. However, direction doesn’t get corrected by itself. I feel sad when people contact me saying they have practiced a ton of resources for GMAT without any success. I simply ask them to change their direction – their approach.

A student had a doubt whether she had the capability to get her desired score in GMAT quant. As she struggled with a question in her first session with me, I asked her how she generally went about a question she got wrong. Her answer was the same I get from many people who continue to struggle with GMAT quant for a long time. She said that she redid the entire question. I asked her to change her process and suggested that whenever she got a question wrong, she should retrace her steps of the solution and figure out 'exactly' where she went wrong. She replied that she already knew this way but never followed it. When I asked 'why', she said that it was too 'unnatural' for her. She 'liked' solving more questions rather than analyzing fewer questions in greater detail. It was then I told her something that I believe is applicable to most of us in a lot of ways. I told her, "Don't tell me ever that you don't have 'capability' to score your desired score. Tell me that you would rather prefer to follow your existing habits than get your desired score. Be honest with yourself. Accept that you 'choose' to stick to your habits at the cost of your goals, knowing fully well that your existing habits prevent you from achieving your goals."

"What's your target GMAT score?" I asked as I regularly ask in my initial calls with prospective students. The answer I got surprised me pleasantly and reflected the maturity of the person. "Sir, I don't have a target score. I just want to get the best I can. I just want to realize my potential, not sure what score it corresponds to." Rarely, if at all, had I heard this answer before. But that is not where the uniqueness of this person ended since never before had I come across a Tesla Engineer wanting to do his MBA from ISB. "Why ISB?" I asked him. He replied, "I want to be with my parents who are in India. And I have realized that one can make enough money in any domain in which a person is genuinely interested."

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. - Wendell Philips One of my students scored a V82 a week back and has his next attempt in about a week. As we discussed a few hard SC questions yesterday, he got 5 wrong in a streak. I could sense his frustration and despondence. I told him that he could look at this situation in his life the way he was looking at it, or he could see it in a way that whatever questions he was getting wrong were reducing his chances of going wrong in the actual exam. I told him that he had a choice to pick any perspective. I asked him not to reject the second perspective as just a consolation because I could also reject the first perspective as just a self-damaging way of looking at things. Neither perspective is intrinsically more correct than the other. The question is: which one helps us? Which one helps us continue to work towards our goals? Which question brings out the best in us?

After seeing my Verbal score on the GMAT, some people have asked me how I am this good at Verbal and whether I have always been an avid reader. No, I have not 'always' been an avid reader. Rather, I started reading beyond the textbooks only in the second year of my MBA. Then, how could I become reasonably good at Verbal? The answer, I believe, lies in my relationship with my studies. I thoroughly enjoyed math and science in school and any subject that involved conceptual understanding in my graduation. Since I truly enjoyed my studies, I was very engaged and curious to figure out everything 'exactly'. This pursuit of understanding things exactly or precisely, coupled with the fact that education was delivered in English, made me precise in English. This precision of language happens to be one of the primary skills tested on GMAT Verbal. Precision means that when you read a sentence, you get the exact meaning of the sentence. I have never come across a single individual who is very good at language precision but is struggling with GMAT Verbal. How do I help my students build this skill? One way is by making them engaged in the learning process and helping them see that this process can be enjoyed.

The biggest downside of building a top floor without foundations is not that it will collapse but that after a few collapses, someone may start thinking that a house can ‘never’ be built there. I had a student who came to me after studying with a couple of other GMAT teachers. She was on the verge of believing that she could ‘never’ learn quant. Why? At both places, the teachers had started with hard questions. They would try to explain those questions to her, but she would get more and more terrified when she tried to solve them on her own and found her mind going blank. However, when we started from the very basics, she found quant within her reach and gradually started feeling more and more confident in her ability to do quant. It came to a point she started enjoying math. I think it always happens that way. Once you start getting hold of something that has been your biggest weakness, you start loving it. The case made me wonder how many others would be out there thinking that they can ‘never’ do something just because they haven’t got the right approach. It’s a shout-out to everyone: Don’t ever accept that you can ‘never’ learn something. Everything is within reach. Be on the lookout. Persist. You’ll find the right approach.