Tiger Sisters - 4 Life Planning Hacks to Get Into Harvard & Stanford | Secret Pleasures, Fears & Vision Boards: EP 3

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Jean and I'm Sheree. And we're the Tiger Sisters. Energy, energy, more energy, more energy, more energy. In this episode of the Tiger Sisters podcast, we're going to be talking about how we manifested getting into Stanford's Graduate School of Business and Harvard's Business School. And to how we plan out our life in general, because it's the same method. So I graduated from Stanford's Business School program one month ago. And I graduated from Harvard Business School seven years ago.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Cheers. Cheers. Cheers to you. Maybe we can do some ASMR. I can gulp loudly. Okay. Okay. Now, starting off, Gene, would you like to kick us off with your Rose and Thorn for the week?

Starting point is 00:01:02 Okay. Coming out of my COVID quarantine, I was actually pretty social this past week, and it was awesome. So I got to catch up with, like, a few of my different friends. So, one, my best friend, Jamie, you know, Jamie, she, actually just moved to L.A. this week after having planned to move here for like the last seven years. So we got brunch together at Squirrel out in Silver Lake. And it was just like so, like, you know when you have like an old friend that you can like talk to about anything. And like she's just like the type of person where we like totally reveal ourselves to each other and like really talk about

Starting point is 00:01:40 our like fears and like hopes and dreams. And like it was just like really nice. So I was really happy to see her. And then also, I, so you know how I've been taking tennis lessons. And I've always meaning to like play tennis outside of the lesson, but I almost never do. So finally, I played tennis with my friend Ryan. Good job. Thank you. So I'm really proud of myself. And he used to play on the like tennis team in high school. And I was able to keep up. So like, I'm actually like, oh, that's like pretty good. Yeah, good job. Yeah. That was really fun. And then I also got set up. up on a, like, a friend date by my friend Josh with this girl named Sarah, who, like, we were supposed to just grab coffee. And we ended up talking for, like, almost two and a half hours. And we were

Starting point is 00:02:27 just, like, in a really similar place where she's also growing a similar business to what we're doing with double she and tiger sisters. We both just, like, learned so much from each other. And then at the end, also, we were like, had this turned into, like, also a therapy session. Like, we were, like, laughing. It was really great. And then, okay, I have another one. Well, I'm glad you're hanging out with people because you were quarantined for like a week or so. I know, you were so strict about it. Like, she wouldn't even let me, like, hang out. I didn't even sit on the couch for over a week.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Okay. I literally did not put my butt on the couch. Why would you sit on the couch when you have COVID? You are contagious and I had to try very hard not to get. I know. She didn't get it, though. So it had to be props to me. Props to me.

Starting point is 00:03:12 Props to me. Props to me. Props to me first. Okay. No, because you got COVID. Props to me because I cooked her meal. Oh, that's true. That's true.

Starting point is 00:03:20 And gave her food, supplied her with nutrition. But also, I had my best friend's wedding this past weekend, and I couldn't get COVID before being a bridesmaid. So, which is why I was extra careful. And even after she had tested negative, I still didn't want to be around her. We love a COVID-conscious queen. I'm very careful with COVID. I know.

Starting point is 00:03:41 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then the other one I want to talk about is that while you were gone, As you know, I went thrift shopping. It's like a secret thrill of mine. It's hard to find good stuff. Sometimes at thrift stores, like, you have to be in the mood to like dive into a pile and like use your brain to be like yes, no, yes, no. It takes a lot of energy. But when you find a good piece, it's very rewarding. Well, okay, but you know I like love a deal. Yeah. So the reason I finally did it this again is because the Salvation Army apparently has this like twice a year sale where all clothes are $2.99. Hello, this top right now, $2.99.

Starting point is 00:04:18 Yeah, so I got her that top, and then I also bought this shirt. $2.99. No, no, that was from the boutique. Oh. So that was $4.99. Because it was new. So those are my highlight. Well, we love thrift shopping slash Goodwill Salvation Army.

Starting point is 00:04:33 A good deal is a good deal. I was doing a case study for class because the... Oh, where? Stanford. At Stanford. As Stanford. As Stanford. And the founder of Thrift.

Starting point is 00:04:45 readup came to class and talked about how he started his business. Yeah. And in reading the details and doing the homework before the class, understanding like goodwill makes billions of dollars. Yeah. Capital B. It is a money generating company because we think it, I think of it as like, oh my God, that's just a company where everyone donates all their old stuff.

Starting point is 00:05:06 And like it's junk, it's trash. No, this. It generates billions in revenue. Yeah. So those are my highlights. And then. Can we do one little bit? I only want low light. So the low light is that on the flip side, I kind of like overextended myself a little bit and I over-scheduled myself because I was like so excited to be out of my quarantine.

Starting point is 00:05:27 Yeah. I had this event that I was previously had been scheduled to go to for months, which was I was a judge for the like Boston University Media Venture, like graduate students thesis project presentation. Hello? So like a bunch of these grad students were all presenting these media ventures and like startups that they had ideated and we were supposed to like judge them. So I had agreed to go ages ago. I was done with COVID, but I was just still really like tired throughout the week. I didn't want to like back out because I had committed. And so I still went. But I could just tell that I was like not fully myself.

Starting point is 00:06:08 Like I just didn't show up the way I really wanted to. Like I stayed and did all the like judging and stuff and like was socializing with people before. But afterwards I just like left right away, which usually I would stay and like do more meeting than talking to people. So that was kind of I guess a low like. But I learned from it because I was supposed to go to another event on Sunday, which was Dartmouth College because I went to Dartmouth undergrad. Like welcome event in L.A. for the class of 2028. I'm on the board of the Dartmouth club of L.A. I was supposed to go. But then Jamie was like, she basically convinced me. She's like, no, like you could just not go. She's like, give yourself permission to. I'm so bad at canceling stuff. I feel so, so guilty. Well, maybe then don't commit to it in the first place.

Starting point is 00:06:59 It won't be committing to dinner tonight. Okay. It won't be honest being. I think, I mean, that's like, it's a hard place to be. Like, if you don't feel. feel well, especially as you're recovering. I'd say give yourself as much grace as you need so that you are fully recovered and you can show up as your best self. Because I'm like, you don't want to show up in a way that you're not happy with. And you know, you don't want to give people that like impression either. And also like if I was like completely well,

Starting point is 00:07:27 it would have been fine. But it was just like, you know, ramping back up. Yeah, totally. So great podcast. And that's it, folks. See you next time. on this episode of Jeans, Highlights, and Lowlands, Jeans, Roses, and Thorne. I guess we did this segment last week, and we had a lot of feedback from people who watched the podcast episode, who's like, please continue doing roses and thorns. Yeah. Because you guys, I think, enjoy hearing about our day-to-day and what's going on in our lives. And I think it just really, like, shows the more human aspect of just, like, the stuff that we talk about.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Okay, how about you? What's your roses and thorns? So my thorn is a continuation of what I mentioned last week is that I felt weird about my birthday, but I thought about it a little bit more and figured out like why I felt weird. It was because I was going to San Francisco and I was hanging out with my friends for my birthday. And I just felt like I never want to be a burden to people. I don't know why, but it's like deeply ingrained in me that I'm just like, oh, like if I'm going on a trip or if I'm like hanging out with folks, like I want to be helpful. Like I don't want to be a burden.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Like I was just like, oh, it's my birthday. people even really want to celebrate. So I was just feeling weird and it was just like, burgeoning me with your low light right now. Okay, well, that's what I felt. Just kidding. I was also feeling weird because two of my friends had told me, like, they couldn't make it. You know who you are. Their names are beep and beep. Actually, they have the same name. Oh. Beep. Like I said, beep and beep. I just, like, spiraled in my head. I'm like, am I a burden to people, especially, like, my closest friends? It was just, like, not a good place to be in last week. What the hell?

Starting point is 00:09:05 I don't know. So I was like spiraling and feeling sad. And then I told my friend Maddie about this. And she's just like, and I was like, I don't want to get in the way. And she's like, are you kidding me. Like she's like, you're not getting in the way. And so she like reassured me. But I think it's just like a deep seated fear that I have. Like I burden people. So that was a low light. And then of course I had my birthday dinner and it was like fantastic. It was so fabulous. And my friends came out and like made me feel really special and really loved. So we're starting a new segment. We're going to experiment. with it and it is called book club. Yay. Book club, the provenance is that Shari and I are basically in this like book race where every book we read, we write down and then we basically compete against each other. See who can read the most books for the year. And this is something I've been doing for a really long time, not against Shari, but like against my friends and my ex.

Starting point is 00:09:59 And then separately, I just love reading. and I've been obsessed with reading from a very young age. Like literally my mom used to say to me, like, stop reading so much. Like when I was a child, she'd be like, stop reading. Like, you're reading too much. And I've spent, we spent many summers in the public library. Yeah, love the public library. Love Barnes & Nobles.

Starting point is 00:10:25 Fun fact, my college admissions essay was written about my public library. Oh, I totally forgot that. But yeah, and then I also sort of like run a book club. of my friends. It's a bunch of HBS Girlfriends. It's been just like a great source of joy in my life for the last five, six, seven years. So just providing some context. Like Gene is like very into reading. It's my thing. It's for the thing. It's just kidding. It's everyone's thing. It's it's everyone's thing. But like the thing is like I'm part of this book race and I'm going to try and catch up to Jean. But it just provides motivation for me because I know she's reading like a new book

Starting point is 00:11:02 every single week. That's an exaggeration. But like, like, I'm a new book. I'm a I hadn't read a book for like months. So just providing some context there. Reading is for everyone, but everyone goes at their own pace. Well, also you were in business school, so you were reading cases all the time. And that's different. Yeah. It's different types of reading.

Starting point is 00:11:18 Yeah, you're in a different environment. So we wanted to bring this love of books and readings to everyone and like kind of share it together. So what was the book that you read most recently? Okay, so most recently I read Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan, who is the author of Crazy rich Asians and that entire series of books. So what would your rating for this book be? I gave it an A-minus. Would you recommend it to someone else? I would. It's a very fun read. It's a very specific read. It's like if you've ever read a Kevin Kwan book, it feels very voyeuristic where you're like looking in on people's lives. Glossy. Yeah, it's like super glossy, like very sexy, like who you know

Starting point is 00:11:56 type style. Kind of like gossip girlie. Yes, exactly. And then I also love it because his characters are almost always like Asian or partially Asian. Okay, what have you read recently? I read, A Woman Makes a Plan by May Musk. This is a book report? May Musk is the mother of Elon Musk. It is her memoir slash biography of the trials and tribulations of her life and how she ended up where she is. Hear about her life, a really horrible divorce that she's been through, some of the trauma, like physical abuse, emotional abuse that she's went through, hearing about the strength. of women is really inspiring to me and some of the strength that she's instilled into her children. And I just love memoirs. If there's a genre that I really enjoy, it is memoir slash biography.

Starting point is 00:12:45 I feel like I'm getting an inside look into people's lives. And I'm like, what is the juicy drama? Yeah. I love biographies and memoirs too. Yeah. What is your rating? And would you recommend it? I would give this a strong B. I would say this is more of an enjoyable like beach read. Oh, great. Yeah. And it's quite short as well for the summer. Yeah. So now let's dive into our next section. How we manifested Harvard and Stanford. And then also in general, like how we plan our lives and the different methods that we use. Okay, what is something that you do, Sheree, every year without fail? I create a vision board usually around the new year. So like around January time, this is something that Jean has inspired me to do and something that she's

Starting point is 00:13:33 taught me. Basically, we get a bunch of magazines and a poster board and you just go through the magazine, you have your scissors, and you cut out everything that inspires you. It's like a gut instinct. You're like flipping through a magazine. It could be a photo. It could be a word, a phrase, whatever it is. Cut it out. You place it on your board and then you create a vision board for how you want to see your next year. I think it's nice to revisit and also like reinvent and then reinvest. Like, whoa, whoa, what? Like drop.

Starting point is 00:14:08 What? Re-what? Revisit, reinvent, and reinvest. Oh. Like multiple times a year because things change and you want to check in with your vision if it's still something that you're going towards. How many vision boards do you have there? This is not even all of it.

Starting point is 00:14:24 These are just a subset that I pulled out. This board from 2015, it's like very word heavy. Mm-hmm. And there's just like a lot of words on it that are very like career driven, career focus because like I was just so nervous about not getting a job when I was in college in 2015. So cute. This is one that I did in 2017. And I also write like a little, I wrote a little message to myself. Wow.

Starting point is 00:14:51 She's really iterating on the format. I'm going to share mine quickly. And then we can get into like, I don't know. How do you actually use this? It's just like pictures, question mark? Mine is mostly photos. I don't know. Like, it doesn't have to be, like, super, like, driven or anything like that.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Like, you don't need to have, like, words, like, succeed or, like, thrive or anything like that. Like, most of mine were just... These are just things that I, like, love. This is actually, I feel like this is, like, very, like, revealing to, like, show everyone. Oh, it is probably vulnerable, huh? Yeah. Are you okay with sharing this?

Starting point is 00:15:24 I guess. I hadn't really thought about it. Just kind of went with it. Wait, what's private? No, nothing's private. It's just like... It is very vulnerable, actually. Yeah, it's vulnerable because it's like a visualization of all of your hopes and dreams. This is like the one that I made at the very end of last year, like heading into this year.

Starting point is 00:15:45 And then this is the one that I made, which was new, the second one I made this year, which I'd never done before, is to make a new one. I always believed the question was, did anybody else believe? But I knew I was right. It's very vulnerable, okay? That's an amazing quote. And then here's a petech belief. Like she said, very vulnerable. She's just like opening up about her life.

Starting point is 00:16:17 Yeah. It's also really fun when you do it with friends to see what your friends make because you'll be really surprised. And everyone goes at it in a different way too. Okay, so what does this have to do with anything? All of this to say is that this is part of a larger exercise. that Gene and I have infused into our lives. Yeah. It's a larger set of exercises.

Starting point is 00:16:40 These are exercises that help us figure out our plan and our vision for our lives. Figure out what your goals are. Understand them. Visualize them and then work backwards and figure out a plan of how you can get there. After you compile the whole thing and you can like share it with your friends and stuff, that's also part of the fun, is that you're supposed to put it up in a spot where you actually look at it every day. And that's like part of the power of it is that pretty much every single day you have a visual reminder of what you set out for your life to look like. And also I'm just a super visual person.

Starting point is 00:17:17 Getting a little bit more tactical, something that I did to figure out business school, to figure out my like career in my life was I created a spreadsheet called Cherie's adult planned out life. Yeah. Like that sounds basically like a journal or like a diary entry. Yeah. but I made it into like a Google sheet so that I can have a column for how old I am, the thing that I want to accomplish, and also the timeline by which I would need to do something by. So for example, if I were to graduate from business school in 2024, that means I would have

Starting point is 00:17:51 to enroll in 2022. I would graduate when I was 28. I would enroll when I was 26, 27. And working backwards from there, that means I need to take the GRE about this time period in this month. Right. You have to submit your application the year before. Exactly. Right? Even almost more than a year before. Yeah. And then ahead of that, you need to take the GMAT or GRE. Ahead of that, you need to study for it. Plus, you need to get all your recommendation letters. And putting it in a spreadsheet that's very organized so then I can work backwards

Starting point is 00:18:23 from the goal. The first step is to have the goal. Right. So like if you don't have the goal, then you don't have anything to work towards. And it doesn't have to be a goal that's fixed in, that's set in stone at all, right? Because things change. Yeah. Like if you had asked me when I was 21 years old in my first job out of school, what my goal was, I was working at Goldman Sachs at the time as an analyst. And I would have told you, like, my goal in life is to become a partner at Goldman Sachs.

Starting point is 00:18:54 I was like, this is amazing. Like, this is, I'm a finance girlie. like I'm going to be, I want to be like an MD, a partner, like, et cetera, at Goldman. And then like two years later, I was like, get me out of here. This is not my lot in life. Like, this is not what I'm meant to do. So, yeah, like I've changed my goals both on like a macro and a micro level many, many times. And also sometimes the things are not always in your control.

Starting point is 00:19:23 Oh, yeah. Right? So like sometimes your goal gets changed for you when you, when you, when, like, Life comes at you. Yeah. Hard. Exactly. Having those goals is very powerful just because you can, like, visualize yourself in a different way in the future.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Like, you can visualize yourself being successful. I took a class called Engineering A Remarkable Life. Oh, yeah. And it was one of the most interesting slash, like, non-business school business classes. I wish we had had that class at HBS. It was taught by Professor Joel Peterson, who's 77 years old, always says, have a plan. And plans are written in pencil. Things will change, like you said, but you always need a plan. The final assignment was to write a 10-page paper on our life plan. And that includes what does

Starting point is 00:20:11 our career look like, our family with our potential spouse and our potential children. Like, how do we factor in all these things into our life? Yeah. So that we can have and we can engineer a remarkable life on our own. So what are other ways or tactics tools that you use to manifest and or planned out your life. Oh, okay. I do do this other thing. It is a little bit potentially crazy. What is it? Do I know about it? Yeah. Oh. So what I do is every year, I write out a list of like all different things that I want to accomplish in that year. Like some of them would be really easy lifts. And then I started to add some that are more like recurring things like go to the gym, three times a week and then I would like actually keep track of it and then some of them were more

Starting point is 00:21:01 stretch goals. I actually make a list of like 70 items and then that way if I achieve up to 35 then it's like 100%. So I like great. I score myself out of the 35 but I give myself tons of different options. And then I also started doing another thing where I make like a bucket list. I like items that I know I will not achieve in the year, but are just things that I want to achieve or do, you know, over the course of time. I love that. Are there some examples that you can share of, like, some things? Because I know you organize it into different categories of your life, too.

Starting point is 00:21:40 And I think that's really helpful to, like, focus on, like, friendships, relationships, career. Yeah, exactly. So that's what I started to do is that I have different sections. One is, like, health and wellness. Yeah. One is family. One is like friendships and relationships.

Starting point is 00:21:58 I write out all the months and I leave it empty. And then through the course of the year, write out like major events that I know are going to happen in each month. And I still fill it out like as the months get closer just so that I like have a list of like things that I'm looking forward to from month to month, especially when sometimes like in the winter you get kind of dreary. So I'm like, oh, I can look forward to this. I'm looking forward to this. And it's just like, I don't know, it's just fun to keep track of things and have like an account of your life and like have things to look forward to. Yeah. What would you call this, this exercise?

Starting point is 00:22:33 It like yearly goal setting, but. But it's not like, goal setting sounds so like scary. Yeah. It's just like bucket list items for the year. It's like a menu of things that you would be like thrilled to do or achieve. Yeah. It's like aspirations. setting actually.

Starting point is 00:22:53 Yeah. That's more what it is. But aspiration also feels like very woo-woo. Like I love how this exercise, because I've copied it as well. Oh, you have? I have. And I love how tangible it feels because you used to have it printed out in your bathroom at your old place.

Starting point is 00:23:11 And then sometimes when I would go in and like use your blush or something next to your makeup, I would see your list. Like, and your like annotations on it and like things you've added, things you've like checked Oh, freaking spy. And, like, I would kind of, like, look at it. Like, not, like, read it intently, but I would, like, see all the stuff that you wrote when I would, like, borrow your makeup. She was, like, I didn't read it intently, but I memorized. But it's just, like, it's not really aspirations, because I kind of want to word smith this.

Starting point is 00:23:39 It's not really aspiration. It's not really goals. Because, like, those just seem like, what are your five-year goals and what are your aspirations? These are just, like, in the next year, I want to have dinner with, like, Sarah, like, five times. Oh yeah, I did have stuff like that. Yeah, and I bought it with that as well because it's just so much more tangible. And every time you have dinner with Sarah, you'll like mark it off. And like, you'll be like, okay, like I'm moving towards because like I want to spend quality time with Sarah.

Starting point is 00:24:03 She's very close. And if I don't write it down, I'm not going to remember that like I should be scheduling dinners with Sarah, for example. Yeah. It's more just like being intentional about the things that you already know that you want. So like going back to my book club example, I knew that the book club made me so. happy and just brought me so much joy. So like one of the things I've had for a long time is like do X number of book club meetings throughout the year. Every time I have a book club meeting, I fill it in with the date and you can like sort of track it over. Yeah. Again, they don't have to be

Starting point is 00:24:35 habitual items and they also don't have to be like as lofty as running a half marathon. Like sometimes it's literally just like go try out this like bakery that I've been meaning to go to. And like literally will write down the name of the bakery. And then like once you go, you can check. it off and it's like an easy win for yourself. This is, I've never shared this being intentional. I wonder if we could create some sort of template or some sort of if people are into it. If you guys want to see shareable where people could then also create it for themselves. Yeah. Because like I know what it looks like because I've seen it but I think it could be hard to visualize the different categories and like how you like set it up like with checkboxes and everything. Yeah. And the other thing that could be helpful is to even

Starting point is 00:25:18 almost like pre-populate it with like different examples of what we have had and done. And then people can like pick and choose and like pull from things that we've. We can even have like a backlog of ideas too that people can like look at. And like it could be like go skiing in Tahoe or like that is one of mine, not skiing, but one of mine is like go on a hike once a month. Yeah. So I have like 12 little boxes to like fill in the dates of when I go on a hike. If you can print it out and like put it somewhere where you see all the time, whether it's in your closet, in your bathroom. It's just so helpful to have it in your face. Wow, you got me to share a lot.

Starting point is 00:25:57 Is there anything else you do that you want to talk about? Like any other methods? I think the last thing I'll say is that if it's in your head, it's just going to be swirling around up there. You have to take things out of your head and put them down. Either you can write it in a document or you can write it down on a physical, like, to-do list or something. way that I am able to be super efficient and then also like manifest and visualize all this stuff is that I have to take it out of my head and put it down somewhere. I would say that is my like

Starting point is 00:26:27 parting recommendation and advice for you all. I write everything down. If I don't write it down, it like floats out of my head and it's gone forever. And also it's just like stressful to try to, I don't know how people like try to remember things in their head all the time. Maybe they're like, you know, wired differently. But not I. Not I. I am not to like that. Yeah. Thank you. guys so much for tuning in to this episode of Tiger Sisters. If you enjoyed it, please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. And we'd also really appreciate it if you could share this episode with someone who you might think might enjoy it. Thanks and we'll see you next time. Bye.

Tiger Sisters - 4 Life Planning Hacks to Get Into Harvard & Stanford | Secret Pleasures, Fears & Vision Boards: EP 3

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