"I never let my schooling interfere with my education."

How true!

My favorite Mark Twain quote is, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." I think this because tomorrow my schooling will interfere with everything in my life. I start my ninth out of thirteen, six week courses with University of Phoenix on line. I'm trying to get my MBA and it's turning out to be way harder than I thought it would be.

Recently I've been doing a lot of extra training and testing at work because I have been placed as a whole portfolio representative and have had to train and certify on three new drugs. Pfizer is where my education starts and my generous employer is sponsoring my schooling as well! Pfizer gives me access to an extensive library of training books on cd for the many hours I spend driving the 1,000 miles a week it takes to cover the Western Slope of Colorado. This education has been priceless. Most recently of note, Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and "Blink" have changed the way I look at people and myself. Covey's "The Four Principles of Execution" fundamentally change the way I organize my week and manage my territory. With wildly important goals (WIGs) for guidance and managing the Whirlwind of getting my job done. Jack Welch's "Winning" has been great career advice from an experienced mentor. I took, "The Stregthfinder2.0" strengths assessment profiler test and followed that up with reading "How Full is Your Bucket" and have since started maximizing my strengths and making my shortcomings irrelevant. My boss makes strengths based management his mission. I listened to, "Who Moved My Cheese" and "Peaks and Valleys" and it helped give me barrings and insight into my own motivations.

I now steel myself to take Operations Management in Technology four nights a week and then some. Between school, Pfizer and being a dumb dumb daddyo I may have less time for posting my father's "Wood Box Wisdom" but I will try because it has been so enjoyable.