I spent an entire day today to think about why I need an MBA, to determine what I care about. It was actually a very scary proposition. All of a sudden, all my answers to the MBA application questions became unfounded. Stanford, for one, only asks, “What matters most to you and why?” Perseverance matters most to me. Why? Here are the life experiences that tell me why. But many more questions naturally follow from that one simple inquiry. How does perseverance motivate you exactly? Shouldn’t something else matter more, and since that other thing matters so much that’s going to motivate you to persevere through it all? And isn’t perseverance too reactionary? How have the big decisions you’ve made fall into that category? And how will that matter for the future goals that you are pursuing? And how in the world will an MBA, particularly an MBA at Stanford, be the one key difference between you achieving that goal and not?
To me, that is the beauty of that question. You can’t fake this answer, because if you do, you will not be able to substantiate what has motivated you in your past choices and what will motivate you in your future choices. With seven simple words, Stanford has managed to weed out people who only care about money. If you’ve been an investment banker and just need a break for a couple years or a hedge fund guy who wants to make enough money to retire by the time they’re 35, you can’t answer this question without faking it. The answer to this one question will determine whether you have and will continue to have the motivation to pursue your goals regardless of obstacles. Because the answer to the next question (“What are your career aspirations? What do you need to learn at Stanford to achieve them?”) will be incongruent to the answer to what has motivated you thus far. Stanford truly wants people who live out their motto: “Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.”
So how has all of this motivated me so far? Well, I had a business background, which I actually went into for a reason. My experience at Africa helped me determine what I deem to be the 4 necessities of a sustainable society: a, b, c, and d. I’m becoming ever so more interested in entrepreneurship. I went into IBM because I consider technology to be x…
This was the point where I started to wonder if I was trying to fit the Stanford mold and not answering the questions honestly. I had an idea what they were looking for, and I tried to answer the questions but things just didn’t fit together. Yeah sure perseverance mattered for you in the past and has helped you get a degree, but what the hell does that have anything to do with why you went into business? Technology sector specifically? Then you went into a marketing firm… why? And an MBA, to do what? If you wanna do something about the 4 necessities of a sustainable society, then why not a dual degree or even just forgo an MBA in lieu of something else? And again, what does perseverance have anything to do in any of these future endeavors?
It just didn’t fit. These questions, what matters most and how has that determined and will determine your future with an MBA as a natural via point, can be answered quite easily if answered in isolation. But taken together, the stories weren’t consistent and I felt like I was faking it. I think people sometimes say, “Family matters most to me,” and describe why but cannot then explain why an MBA. Or sometimes people would say, “Faith matters to me” and not be able to answer, “why not a graduate degree in theology, then?” Or sometimes people would say, “challenging myself matters most to me,” but cannot then substantiate how they choose which challenges to puruse, which probably means challenging yourself doesn’t matter to you after all… it’s probably what and why you chose to challenge yourself with consistently over time that matters most to you. The same issues arise about “being curious about the world matters most to me”, which then begs the question, then why not just go into teaching? Or why not jump around get a bunch of degrees. And if you do have a bunch of degrees already, then I can tell you right now an MBA isn’t there for you to put after your name as you continue on academia… they’re interested in people who will be in the front lines to change the world.
So I asked myself, how the hell does perseverance have anything to do with what’s motivated and will continue to motivate me? And I kept prodding at it and couldn’t answer it even to my own satisfaction. The answers came out really fake and inconsistent between my past career choices and my future career choices, and I felt that I was another guy faking his reasons to go to an MBA school. I started to wonder if I should just give up on pursuing an MBA. Then I would think, “see! You were thinking about giving up! Perseverance doesn’t matter most to you!”
So this was a very, very frustrating and sometimes demoralizing process. I started to really wonder, maybe perseverance doesn’t matter most to me after all. But I was pretty darn convinced that it does. I mean, where I am today could not have happened unless I overcame pretty big obstacles. But I had trouble answering why business, why technology, and why House Party question that was consistent. I also wondered, maybe I don’t need an MBA after all, maybe I just need a graduate degree in something else. But regardless of one of the four elements of sustainable society I was interested in, I was sure I needed an MBA, I just really needed to somehow tie it all together.
Then, looking to see how to best answer that question and brainstorm how I can better tell my story, I listened to a 45 minute lecture by Andy Goodman called “Storytelling for Good Causes” and I started to collect my ideas together. One website led to another, and I ended up listening to a 45 minute presentation by Scott Harrison on why he created Charity: Water. At first I was scolding myself for wasting my time when I should be writing my essays (actually, to brainstorm so that I can start to write my essays). But this process actually helped me brainstorm it all together. Suddenly, it started to all make sense. Of course! That’s why I chose technology. That’s why I chose IBM. That’s why I chose House Party. And that’s why I will choose an MBA! And of course, that’s why I’m drawn to stories like Scott Harrison in the first place! And yes, I was right, perseverance is right in the middle of it all!
And now my image is crystal clear. My answer is social entrepreneurship.
*I’m being very vague in case this post gets googled and my thoughts somehow gets plagiarized. I know it’s a long shot, and probably presumsuous to even think that a) I now have a complete, compelling story and b) that someone else would copy my idea, but if you’ve applied for an MBA before, you’d know paranoia reigns regardless of your best efforts.