We are all aware of “junk mail.”
It appears in our letter-boxes or on front door carpets on a regular basis, if not daily then at least once a week. Like me you probably put it straight into the waste-paper basket – or at least that is what I used to do. I now take the time to look briefly at each item, and as you will have noticed the promoters have become quite sophisticated in their design, bold colors and general lay-out of their flyers.
What changed my habit? In 1977 I was living in Huntington Beach, California, and in the junk mail one day I saw a promotion for an MBA degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu just north of Los Angeles.
I made contact and was invited to join the next class of their PKE (Presidential Key Executive) Program. This was designed for owners of businesses or senior managers of companies, who simply did not have the time to devote two years of their lives to regular university study. It was a well established Program and was copied by many other universities, including some Ivy League schools on the East Coast.
I became a member of PKE-35 and we were 15 in number. We engaged in various industries, such as Radio Station, TV series, Aeronautical Engineering, Pilot, Accountancy, Legal and others. Every month we would meet at the place of business of one of the group and had a full curriculum to fulfil with a written Thesis at the end of the 18 month program.
We became close and many of us invested in each others business development, and I am still in contact with some in the class to this day.
It was very clear to me that obtaining a MBA degree was for my own ego, but it did change my life in a major way. At that time as I was working on a major real estate assemblage in downtown Los Angeles, and I was fast running out of time with options expiring and escrows due to close. I gave a presentation to a Director of two Public Companies in Hong Kong, who took a copy of my Thesis and copied it for all the Directors, and based on that they bought my assemblage – which was the first multi-million dollar transaction I closed. After graduation I was invited to join as a Founder Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of the School of Business and Management, which I served for over ten years.
