Letter to an MBA

8/6/2019 Letter to an MBA

1/16

Letter To An MBA

Dear MBA Student,

These are my thoughts as a 2007 Stanford GSB grad after sitting on a career panel at The Columbia Graduate

School of Business. Let me know what you think.

This has not been checked for grammar. Its a freewrite. Thanks for reading.

MBAs are risk averse.

Business school students are among the smartest and hardest working, but they are some of the most risk averse

people in the world. Many of us were driven by fear of not having, not succeeding, and not making it. Were

running as hard as we can, but were not necessarily sure where were running to. Sometimes its best to just stop,

be still, and listen to your voice within. The greatest risk in the world is not taking any risk at all.

(Most MBAs wouldnt do this with their career unless a lot of other MBAs were doing it too.)

MBAs are some of the most underemployed people in the world.


2/16

Underemployment is the biggest issue facing MBAs and the world. Underemployment is when youre working

below your full potential. Anyone who has said they hate their job is likely underemployed. Underemployment has

nothing to do with income. Its about how passionate you are about your daily work.

Imagine having a sample economy of 100 people where 10 are unemployed and the other 90 are only 50%

engaged or underemployed. 90 x 50% ~ 45 people being unemployed which makes it 4.5 times bigger of an issue

than unemployment. In addition to being some of the smartest and hardworking, MBAs are equipped with an

amazing set of leadership and business skills that position them to building teams and solve the worlds greatest

problems. The sad part is that most MBAs dont seek professional paths that tackle the worlds greatest problem. If

not us, then who?

(Underemployment has nothing to do with income. Its about passion.)

MBAs make you money, not happy.

I even have classmates who are unemployed right now, but it is because they would rather be unemployed than

underemployed. Their self-confidence gives them the strength to hold out so that they can find the perfect

opportunity instead of potentially missing it because they are caught up somewhere else. Whenever someone is

underemployed, not only are they unhappy, but the what they produce is not top quality, therefore the customer

is unhappy, and then the company is unhappy. Everybody loses. Full employment means the perfect alignment of

your passions and purpose with your profession. In a recent US job survey of 7.000+ workers, researchers found

that:

Only 45% of workers say they are satisfied (33 percent) or extremely satisfied (12 percent) with their jobs. Only 20% feel very passionate about their jobs; less than 15 percent agree that they feel strongly energized by

their work

Only 31% (strongly or moderately) believe that their employer inspires the best in them.Your purpose and passion are too big to fit into a single profession or job title. Your career is just one avenue to

exercise and fulfill them. Underemployment, unemployment, or full employment. You choose.


3/16

(These guys probably think their job is the $#!+)

MBAs should focus on creating value.

MBA programs, even online MBA programs, focus more on capturing value (business models) than creating value.

Whereas leadership is the process of taking smart risk and creating value, management is the process of sucking

risks out of a business and capturing value. Keep in mind that entrepreneurs dont love riskthey actually hate

risk. True entrepreneurs are just willing to take the risk necessary to achieve a larger purpose. The Masters in

Business Administration (MBA) should be changed to an Masters in Business Leadership (MBL) or Masters in Value

Creation (MVC). This would change the focus of the curriculum, students, and programming. Though most people

go to business school to change careers, it has the power to change the world.

Do you realize that if you figured out how to create and capture 25 cents ($0.25) worth of value every minute of

the day for a year, you would earn $131,400. Thats more than the average starting salary of a recent business

school grad? What if you just focused on increasing this number instead of working like crazy for someone else for

40 years?

MBAs are taught to believe in the law of scarcity.

I think MBAs get it from economics which is based on the law of scarcity. Scarcity of natural resources. Scarcity of

jobs (Get in where you fit in). Scarcity of great talent (the whole premise of business school). Scarcity of idea


4/16

(someones going to take my business idea). The perception that things that are scarce are more valuable (i.e. MBA

admssions) is killing usliterally. Mother Earth produces more than enough food for everyone in the world to eat,

yet there is still starvation. Why? If the world is abundant, but everyone believes that it isnt, then people tend to

hoard or capture what they can get. People take more than they need and others are left without.

(Is that water in the background?)

MBAs should learn to value time over money.

The only scarce resource that really exist is your time, thus making it your most valuable resource. You choose how

to spend and invest it, not your company, not your parents, not your family or friends. Anyone not in control of

their own time is a __________________ (Ill let you fill in the blank). You probably know exactly whats in your

bank account right now, but nobody knows how much time is in their time account. Whoever said time is money

was all wrong. Time IS LIKE money in that you can spend it, lose it, waste it, invest it, and run out of it, but Time IS

NOT LIKE money in that you cant get it back or make more of it, or measure how much you have left. Even Bill

Gates cant buy another second of time. Everything costs time (not money). An iPhone priced at $300 cost the CEO

who makes $100/hour 3 hours, but it cost the entry level employee who make $30/hr 10 hours. The CEO and

employee are paid based on others perceptions of their ability to create value. We should embrace the law of

abundance given our capacity to innovate and create value.


5/16

(Time is NOT money)

MBAs can create value by saving others time.

You cant really save time as in store it, but if you can help people save time by getting them to where they want

to go faster, safer, and easier, you can create extreme value for others and capture some of that value in the form

of money. The reason a personal trainer is able to make a living doing what they love is because they can helpsomeone move from 300 lbs. (point A) to 250 lbs. (Point B) faster than the person could have done it on their own.

The reaon the iPhone is doing so well is because it helps people navigate their music, the internet, contacts, and

other data faster and easier than the individual could do it on their own. Its pretty simple. I call this your

professional velocity. Your professional velocity is your ability to close the distance between point A and B for

other people and organizations. The higher your professional velocity, the more value you will create and capture.

(Save time and create value)

MBAs shouldnt seek jobs, they should create them.Instead of focusing on job loss, lets focus on job creation. Its a little known fact that more millionaires were made

during The Great Depression than in any other time in U.S. history when resources are supposed to be most

scarce. How is that? Value creation! Billion dollar companies like Microsoft and Google grew out of free ideas. But

you can only get free ideas when you believe they exists. But capturing value only last for so long and thats where

scarcity applies. Once a leader creates value through innovation, then the focus shifts to capturing that value and


6/16

thats where management comes in. Managements job is to suck all of the risk out of the business. Entrepreneurs

arent risk loversits just that their vision and sense of purpose transcends the perceived risk. Fearlessness

doesnt mean having no fear, it means having less fear than courage. Yet, they respect all of the people like Phil

Knight, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin & Larry Page, and Steve Jobs who took risks to develop and create major value.

Together, these 5 people have created $666,000,000,000 in value and created 175,000 jobs. Imagine if Bill Gates

followed the rest of his classmates to McKinsey or Sergey and Larry worked as engineers at HP. None of this value

or these jobs would exist today.

(Squeeze the worlds sourest problems

Passion is the GMAT of Success

Youve probably heard of Good To Great and Built To Last, but have you read Success Built To Last? In the book,

Success Built to Last, Jerry Porras (coauthor of Built To Last), Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson, interviewed

hundreds of successful peopleincluding some of the names mentioned above, many Nobel Laureates,

government and community service leaders, teachers, scientists, and Olympians, as well as Pulitzer, Grammy,

Peabody, and Academy Award winnersto identify common characteristics among them. Success was defined as

having at least two decades of impact in ones industry, field, or lane.

They discovered that successful people dont obsess over what other people may think about their work. They also

found that enduringly successful people are more concerned with doing what they love than being loved. They

dont treat their passions like a trivial pursuits or low-priority items. Successful people focus on being good at what

is meaningful to them, and do thatnot whatever just comes along. They understand their unique passions and

allocate their view of the right amount of time to each, according to their own individually chosen preference. In

summary, excelling at your passion is a pre-requiste to success in the same way that excelling on the GMAT is a

pre-requiste for MBA admissions.


7/16

(Take your passion as seriously as you took the GMAT)

So how do I find my passions?

First and foremost, I dont believe that you dont know your passion. Its an easy excuse. Youve likely been using

your passion all of your life whether you know it or not, but youve probably never thought about it in a

professional context. For example, I think Bobby Fisher, one of the greatest chess players to ever. But what if chess

was only a manifestation of his true passion for strategic thinking? Lets say he didnt want to become a

professional chess player. What else could he do with that passion? I think he would make one hell of a strategy

consultant, sports coach, or military general. Why? Because the same mind set required to be a great chess player

is required to be great at those other things. If he could see those careers as one big chess board, the transition

wouldnt be that hard. In the same way, there is no difference between someone who is passionate about bargain

shopping and someone who does mergers and acquisitions for a living. Its the same game on a larger scale.

List all of your favorite activities, projects, books, movies, TV shows, and discussion topics from childhood to now.

After that, ask yourself what part of this thing did I love. For instance, lets say that you used to want to be an

archeologist when you were younger. That may indicate your passion for digging for information, studying history,

or comparing cultures. Once you complete this list, youll be able start to see patterns and uncover your true

passion because all of the things you engaged with.


8/16

(Sir Richard Branson, Founder & CEO of Virgin at work)

Can I make money with my passion?

You can monetize any passion if youre passionate enough and (you get) other people (to) love it too. Its more of

marketing question than a money question. Tony Sheih of Zappos has monetized studying happiness. Ben & Jerry

monetized their passion for ice cream. Walt Disney monetized his passion for art and animation. Herb Keller, CEO

of Southwest as passionate about injustice, but law wasnt the only way to manifest that. He saw an injustice in the

airline industry that the average American could fly so he set out to create the lowest cost airlines ever. Ivan

Chounards passion for rock climbing has become Pategonia. Phil Knight monetized running and athleticism. He

didnt have to be a professional runner to pursue his passions. The deeper you delve into your passions, the more

business opportunities you will see. Dont expect to put your big toe in the kiddie pool and expect to find hidden

treasure at the bottom of the sea. Immerse yourself in your passions.

(Ben & Jerry sharing their passion for ice cream)

So if I follow my passions, the money will come?

Not quite. Youve probably heard the saying Follow your passion and the money will come. They skipped a step.

Its follow your passion, get great at it (meaning crystallize it into a skill), and then the money will come. The only


9/16

difference between a professional athlete and an amateur is that they are able to replicate success at a given

activity more than an amateur. Do you realize that you be great at almost anything you want if you commit to it?

Unfortunately, many millennials are non-commital and self-discipline is a scare resource. But, the worst thing you

can do is get great at something you hate. In Hollywood, its called typecasting. You take a role that dont like and

you do well. All of a sudden, those are the only roles that come your way. Breaking out of that mold is 10 times

harder than starting off on the right path.

(Murder mediocrity and sharp shoot for your dreams)

How do I crystallize my passion into a skill?

Since finding your passion is all about exposure and the recruiting process only exposes you to a limited menu of

options, you can start your own 30 Day Do It group with classmates. This will help you crystallize your passion into

skill during school. We have structure and accountability at work and school, but for some reason, we dont have

them for our personal goals. A 30 Day Do It is a group meets every 30 days to set goals and hold each other

accountable to last months goals. The self-discovery process needs structure just like school has structure and

work has structure. Thats why I wrote The 8 Cylinders of Success and Good Excuse Goals. Together, both books will

show you how to answer the life questions school doesnt ask and setup structure and accountability to find

answers. Imagine if you and 4 other classmates spent your first 6 months of schools doing deep dives into different

career paths. At the end of 6 months (around February) you would be open to 30 (5 people x 6 months) career

paths that you never considered before.

Once you find your passion, you have to commit to greatness at it. As Malcolm Gladwell states in his book Outliers,

to become an expert at almost anything requires at least 10,000 hours of practice. Thats 20 hours a week, 50

weeks a year, for 10 years. Luckily, youve probably already accumulated time toward a particular passion, but

despite classes and other activities, you have to create at least 20 hours of space in your week to practice your

passion. Since, were not playing a sport, practice can be hard to define, but it can include anything related to your

passion such as additional reading, networking with people who share your passion, meeting with professors who

are experts, conducting passion related research, creating a company related to your passion, leading a student


10/16

group, or interning among other things. Ask yourself, what can I do today to be the best I can be at my passion

tomorrow?

(What do you love doing and why?)

What about on-campus recruiting? Avoid it!

Avoid on-campus recruiting. It creates career tunnel vision and the time line is screwed up. Have you ever been in

a crowd an experienced everyone just start running. Youre not sure why people are running, but you figure that

you better run too. Thats exactly what on-campus recruiting is. Just because the companies are ready to hire

doesnt mean youre ready to be hired. A successful on-campus recruiting season is not measured by the number

of offers you get. Its actually measured by how FEW interviews if takes for you to find your fit. Since business

schoolers like to golf, you understand that hole-in-ones are better than bogies. There are more jobs in the world

where you could create (and capture) extreme value than the limited number of ones that come to campus. Get

off campus and go find them.

Dont be recruited by a company. They will never know you the way you know you. All they are really look for is a

huge ball of clay talent to mold. You can try to fit in, but you are who you are. Therefore, recruit the company you

want. Find the company that will fit you by thoroughly researching opportunities (usually off-campus). I would

recruit like an archer instead of machine gun. Rather than shooting everywhere hoping something hits, I would

take my time, take aim, and release. You save a lot of rejection, inauthenic conversations, and stress that way.

When I went to business school, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. When I failed to position myself as an

entrepreneur post-MBA due to some poor leadership choices, product delays, and lack of funding, I knew myself

so well that I interviewed with one company and got the job.


11/16

(Dont be recruited. Recruit the company you want.)

Wont business school help me find what I love?

Business school is simply a space for you find yourself and what you love if you choose. Most people come to

business school or grad school in general to hide out for two years because they hated their previous job and dont

know what they want to do yet. Everyone is hoping that business school will help them find IT, but in reality, they

must find IT using business as a time and tool. What sucks is that recruiting starts right after mid-terms as if the

student has had time to do real self-discovery between the time they left their previous job and started school.

The problem is that grad school buys you more time, but it doesnt guarantee self-discovery. Most people graduate

from grad with a masters degree but no mastery of self. If you know who you are and what you have to offer, you

will always be able to find a place to fit and a way to contribute and create value. If you simply know your options,

but dont know who you are, the likelihood of you finding a fit is a shot in the dark.

A masters degree doesnt mean self-mastery. You have to make time for that just like you would a class or else

youll end up in the exact same situation you were in after undergrad in a new company and perhaps industry with

a new title making more money. I repeat, school does not promise to help you discover your passions, purpose, or

profession. Maybe youre okay with that. How is that hundreds of the worlds best and brightest all want to do the

exact same few jobs? consulting, banking, and brand management. Do you really know that that is what you want

to be? Why? How do you do know? How many people have you talked to that do that? Do any of your mentors do

that? How did you decide on this? What other (non-traditional) career opportunities did you explore? What made

this one the best? Dont lead on a an employer who wants to get married when you arent even engaged. They

will find out. You can only fake love for so long.


12/16

(A masters degree doesnt mean self-mastery)

So what should I do in business school?

Do everything you couldnt do if you werent in business school. Fail BIG. Travel EVERYWHERE. Create VALUE (from

scratch). Be GREAT.

Finish unfinished business.

First and foremost, do what you didnt do in undergrad. If youre in a good business school, you likely did well in

undergrad, but if you could do it all over again knowing what you know now, you might flip undergrad a little

differently. Check out this list of 66 things every college student must do before graduation. Though it was written

with undergrads in mind, you may have some unfinished business to handle in graduate school. The list was

designed to help you maximize your personal, intellectual, social, and financial capital while in school using the

schools intellectual, social, and financial capital as well as your time outside of class. Since I finished undergrad in

3 years, I didnt get a chance to study abroad, so thats one thing I regret. Business school affords you the time to

travel all over the worldsome even require it.

Fail BIG while trying to create extreme value.

Usually starting a company is the best way to fail. When I say fail big, I dont mean fail intentionally. Try to succeed.

But do something that youre not sure you can do. Stretch yourself. Even if you fail and you dont get the outcome

or income you expected, you will still have stretched and expanded your idea of whats possible. I failed at two

businesses while in business schoolan online green products store and a people-based search engine. These

were the greatest leadership lessons I could ever have. The process of trying to create value from scratch and

building a team challenged me in a way that a classroom couldnt. Most people in the world, even MBAs havent

made more than $1,000 on their own outside of a company. Try to create value (innovation) and capture it(business model) whether you intend to be an entrepreneur or not. People who have an entrepreneurial mind will

lead in the 21st century because they know how to identify problems, develop iterative solutions, and execute.

The world is evolving too quickly for you to think youre going to be able to hide inside a company and take an

elevator to the C-level suite without solving a major problem. Any company not solving a major problem in the

world will not last and likewise, any employee now solving a major problem for a company wont last either.


13/16

(Escape the cubile. Dig within. Smell freedom

Declare your greatness.

Like I said before, you can be great at anything so why not get great at the thing that you want to be great at.

Declare what you are committed to being the worlds greatest at. As talented as MBAs are, if I asked everyone in

this room the question, What is the one thing you are committed to being the worlds greatest at? many people

wouldnt have an answer. Weve become comfortable with good enough. We were good enough to get into b-

school. We were good enough to get that grade or GMAT score. We were good enough to get that job or

internship. But what are you great enough to do?

Take a second. Think about it. If you had to choose one thing to be great at, what would it be? If it immediately

comes to mind, then write it down. If not, then write the question down until you choose an answer that resonates

with you. with the exception of biological feats like the worlds tallest person, nobody in the Guinness book of

world records got there by luck. Everyone made a conscious choice as some point in their lives to be the best. And

no matter how obscure the thing they chose, most of them are making a living doing what they love. Now keep in

mind that I when I say best, I dont mean better. This is not a competition with anyone else. This all about you. You

can be your best without being the best and your can be the best without being your best.

Is entrepreneurship the only way to find the perfect career?

No. Im confident that if I wasnt an entrepreneur, I would be perfectly fit for a leadership position in HR at a

company I cared about or student life and admissions at a major university. How many people MBAs do you know

would even consider that as a career option? Too many people are looking for the sexy jobs when the ones they

should marry are right around them. There are more companies than the 50+ that recruit on campus and there are

more paths out of business school than 5.

Im not saying that you have to be an entrepreneur. You can also be an intrapreneur. Instead of trying to fit into a

job description on a companys website, you can propose an entrepreneurial idea that will solve a huge problem in


14/16

their company or industry. We do it in our case studies in class all the time. After railing on an entrepreneur for

decisions in the past (even though their company is worth billions today) we come up with these great ideas for

companies that we could actually propose as jobs, not just ideas. Dissect the company or industry you want to

work for and make a proposal. As long as you can demonstrate that it will create more value than the cost of your

salary, youre a go. But again, most people havent gone through the process of creating value and capturing it on

your own. Thats why I highly recommend taking on a project or entrepreneurial venture that will allow you to

explore that during business school.

(Understanding how to create and capture value will make you forever rich)

What if you hate your summer internship or first job out of school?

Look at your all of your work experience thus far like it was just more school (with a scholarship to cover living

expenses). But heres the catch, you have to set your graduation date. When you set a graduation or departure

date it will force you to maximize your experience by building relationship and developing skills. I call it a bridge

job. A bridge job is a time-constrained career move you use as a stepping stone to get to your next job that doesnt

take up more that 50 hours/week. Its almost impossible to build a bridge if you spend all of your time on one side

fo the career river. You commit to leaving the bridge job at the 18 month mark or once youve saved up 6 months

of basic living experensewhichever comes first. This keeps you from not get too comfortable in a situation you

dont want to be in. Knowing that this is just a bridge job forces you to keep your living expenses low so that you

dont trap yourself. Increasing your living expenses, is the worst thing you can do (no matter how much money

youre making) if youre in a job you hate. I have friends who hate their job but bought houses. Now they are stuck

because they have to pay the bills. Hold off on that stuff into you find something you love. I took a bridge job

after school when my companies didnt work out and 17 months later I saved up and started a new one. I gained

some invaluable intellectual, social, and financial capital while there and created extreme value while I was there.


15/16

(Sometimes bridge jobs are necessary to get where you want to go)

At the end of the day it comes down to this. If you were in an abusive relationship, but they were paying you

$10,000/month to stay, would you? Leave! Its your time and your life. Dont believe the lie that work sucks no

matter where you work so you might as well just stay where you are. Keep in mind that there are known

possibilities, options, and unknown possibilities. Up until this poin, you have been operating in the ream of known

possibilities and your options within those possibilities. There are literally 100,000s of possibile career paths and

companies, but they are only available to you if youre open to them.

What do you think about making money and then giving back?

I dont believe in philanthropy or charity as a solution to the worlds greatest problems. I believe you are the

solution to worlds greatest problems. Philanthropy and charity are nice-to-haves, but how many charities or

foundations do you know have obviated themselves because they solved the particular problem they were created

to address? Ive heard the quote I cant give back to the poor if Im one of them. Thats B.S. Has it every cross

your mind that its not money that the poor needits actually financing for all of the million dollar ideas theyve

thought of because theyve been undercapitalized (not poor) for so long. (Shout to my classmate Jessica Jackley,

co-founder of Kiva.org). Gandhi proved you dont need money to make HUGE impact. Bill Gates proves that even

with a lot of money impact isnt guaranteed. The world needs you now! As stated earlier, your time is your most

valuable asset, not your money.

In his book The Monk and the Riddle Randy Komisar talks about the Deferred Life Plan in which there are two steps

1. Do what you have to do and then hopefully 2. Do what you want to do. According to Komisar, most people stay

in step one unaware that they can freely move to step two (or even skip step one) once theyve discovered their

passion. In avoiding the Deferred Life Plan, he makes a clear distinction between passion and drive. Passion pulls

you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to

do. If you know nothing about yourself, you cant tell the difference. Once you gain a modicum of self-knowledge,


16/16

you can express your passion. But it isnt just the desire to achieve some goal or payoff, and its not about quotas

or bonuses or cashing out. Its not about jumping through someone elses hoops. Thats drive.

In conclusion

In closing, I hope that Ive created life changing value for you. Though youre reading this online and accessing it for

free, it cost me to create this. Ive invested years of disciplined study, spiritual practice, self-evaluation and

reflection to produce this insights for you. I believe that the wisdom Ive shared with you will bring you abundance

personally and professionally, otherwise I wouldnt have written it.

Documents

Letter to an MBA