The Realities of Success and Workload Expectations

The following is a message I sent to my students this week. Maybe it can help the Early Career Professionals, College Students, and others seeking to mature into responsibility.

I spent this weekend thinking about all of the feedback that I have gathered from 200 students about things that are going well and things that can be improved to help make classes more effective. One of the top things that students want, is NOT to have to do so much work. That makes sense. I suppose there isn't a ditch digger in the world that wouldnt like to put down the pick and shovel earlier and go and enjoy themselves somewhere. Or, maybe the other alternative is to start enjoying the digging of the ditch.

I suppose that from the earlier perspective, once a ditch is complete, the digger might mumble to him/herself something like, "Such back-breaking work, now they will make me go dig another." The latter alternative might find the digger finishing the one ditch and exclaiming, "Look at what I have accomplished! I am more able, wiser, and have grown my capacity, and now I will test it and expand it on another ditch!". This is the power of perception, beliefs, attitudes - the power of values.

I remember that Brigham Young once remarked something about death as being like unto passing from one room into another. Whatever we have with us in one room, character wise, we simply take with us as we walk into the other. I think that is like everything else in life. What we have with us tomorrow, we bring with us from today. What we have in ten years will trace its path back to what we possess in our hearts and minds, today.?

The work of a six-figure salary that so many hope to have coming out of business school is a busy and taxing work. When I moved from simply working a full-time job of 40 hours a week to being a white-collar professional whose contribution to work came from my intellect, I found it to be more than just passing from one room to another in my career - it was a leap across a great chasm! Like high school athletes that go on to compete at the college level, the competition, the performance requirements, and the intensity are multiple levels higher than what they experienced in high school. They must focus more, train more, sweat more, eat better, sleep better, and above all, desire and envision excellence in detail at a level they never imagined. Many don't make it. Many aren't up to the task.

I remember taking my place in the upper, mid-level of a global consulting firm. I was on the road for long weeks, away from my family, working with people whose values often found them in the bar every day at 6pm. E-v-e-r-y d-a-y.?My schedule started about 530 am, was packed with meetings all day, and I still had to deliver my personal work that was expected beyond my team's contributions. I had to master my schedule, say "no" to things that weren't important, spend extra time on skills and processes that I had not previously mastered, but should have. I arrived early, stayed late, and worked after dinner in my hotel until I had to shut the computer and sleep or risk not functioning the next day. I was uncertain, anxious, and uncomfortable much of the time. And I did this day after day, for years. But this was nothing compared to what was waiting for me when I became a business owner and operator.

Being a team member in a major corporation with the promise of rising in the ranks requires focus, commitment, and absolute excellence of effort. Being a business owner requires everything you have to give, and more. I've had nights of incredible anguish and distress, simply not able to give any more and screaming into the night about how I might not survive until morning, only to have to do it all again - "I can't do this anymore! It's too much!". The weight. The pressure. The stress. There were orders to fulfill, customers to soothe, employees to train, products and services to deliver, and too few hands to do any of it at the level needed to be done to keep the business alive.

And then you grow big shoulders and realize that you did it. And that you can do more. And then its terrible all over again, and then... you wake up one day and you have transformed - you can do ANYTHING (with God), and you welcome the challenge. Not everything is pleasant or fun, but you are a different person, you are closer to God because you see, for the first time, that YOUR LIFE is ENTIRELY ON YOU, and not on anyone else. Not on your friends or your spouse or your parents or your boss or your manager or the President or your Bishop or... your Professor.

To graduate from this university and have their stamp of approval on you means that you fulfilled a rigorous, often difficult, set of requirements. Through various accreditation bodies and standards of academic rigor and achievement, it is expected that one credit hour requires two to three hours of work outside of class time. Those are the standards. Anything less than that is simply not worthy of the distinction of "credit" or the eventual "university degree" that you are pursuing. Professors, instructors, and staff that lessen that level of work, reduce the learning, development, and quality of the education you are receiving. Send me the name of your favorite candy or snack in an email by midnight october ninth, and don't tell anyone else. For you to earn three credits for less than, at a minimum, six hours of work each week, cheapens the degree to the point that it loses its significance, its luster, its brand, and its value.?

Those who are taking large credit loads are already working the equivalent of a full-time job. And if you are working part-time on top of that, you are likely running faster than you have strength. My first year of graduate school I was also finishing my last semester of undergraduate school, and I took... ready for this? Okay, here it goes... Twenty-Seven credits. Yes. Two-seven. We just had our first child, and I sent my wife and new baby away to be with family while I worked all day, every day that I could, to knock out those 27 credits. I also worked out of town every other week, with significant clients consulting and delivering corporate training programs. Luckily, I was young. But I sacrificed. It was not fun. But I did it. I said no to many things to get my bigger "Yes."

So, at least from this professor, I will not reduce the rigor of my courses. To do so would be an insult to the institution, to my role and commitment to them, and to you—it would deny you the character-building weight required to wear your mental muscles down and build them up with more capacity and strength than before. I will not cheat you. But you may cheat yourselves.

Choose to win. To have a career of great contribution and great reward requires great discipline, commitment, sacrifice, and focus. It requires energy. It requires faith. And I have seen in each of you the potential to fulfill greatness. It's in you. It's part of who you are. It's your birthright. You are the children of God. Honor your name and live up to your potential. He will help you. He will guide you. You are precious to Him. If you commit, and partner with Him, you WILL ultimately reach the highest levels of success and happiness.