Why I got my MBA and why you shouldn't

When I graduated from college in 2008, I had no idea what I wanted to do.

While sitting on my couch in my parents house, my mom looks at me and goes, “Ok, you are done with school, what are you going to do?”

My response?

“I think I want to build furniture.”

Picture that scene for a moment. I had just graduated from the University of Colorado with a Major in Psychology and a minor in Philosophy. When asked my plans, I said I wanted to build furniture. You can easily see the foreshadowing here.

After that response, off I went to a small furniture school north of Atlanta where I learned the basics of furniture making. Soon after finishing several classes I landed an apprenticeship. To pay the bills I worked in a climbing gym.

One thing led to another and over the course of about 2 years I lived in my car for a while, climbing in various places throughout the southeast, built furniture, and worked in a couple of climbing gyms. At some point an idea began to germinate.

I wanted to start a company.

Not sure what that even meant for me, I embarked on a torturous journey to figure it out. First, I looked into starting a furniture business. All that really entailed would be building stuff I thought was cool, selling it, and then scaling as I created more demand. But I decided that I liked building furniture for its own sake, and had little interest in building furniture to scale into a manufacturing business. Custom furniture making appealed even less.

Second, I tried and briefly succeeded in launching a consulting company, helping universities and other institutions build climbing facilities and programs. We had two clients, which was great.

The best thing about starting a consultancy or agency is you literally need nothing. Just your intellectual capital.

Long story short, that did not go very far. But I did score a pair of really small khaki shorts and learned a lot about Augusta Georgia.

Then it was off to a lot of cockamamie nonsense that I thought was entrepreneurial. I did some multi-level marketing scheme. Major fail. I thought about writing a book or building an app or starting a clothing line or an alcohol delivery business. I searched for something to hold on to, but felt like outside of climbing I didn’t much know where to go.

After a lot of puttering, with the thought in my mind that I still wanted to start a company, I went back to school. To learn about business. To get my MBA.

I have to be honest. I loved it. All of my classes. I took extra classes. I saw it as an accelerated learning opportunity that would have otherwise taken years to accumulate the same knowledge in a corporate setting.

Strategy was my favorite class. Followed by operations. Negotiation was great fun too. But I digress.

After I earned my MBA, I got a job as an associate product manager at a medical device company. There, I moved up the ranks, jumped ship to another company, and finally, 5 years after getting my MBA, I started my own company.

It is cool to note that when “planning” my life, I said I would get my MBA, work for 5 years and then start a company.

So what the hell? I thought this was about why you shouldn’t get your MBA?

Standby.

I had a teacher in high school. I was not fond of him. Primarily because he did not like me based on a grudge he held against my older brother. But he did ask a great question once.

“Why are you going to college?”

Only one response was really valid in the room, though I have even become jaded on this response. “To get a better job to make more money.”

Because very few often go to college to learn English literature for its own sake.

The same question applies to an MBA. Why?

Why are you getting it in the first place? To get a raise at your job? To break into the corporate world for the first time? For the credibility? Feather in your cap?

Before you even consider getting an MBA, ask why? If its because you want to get a job, maybe. But I can think of way more ways to get a job without 2 more years of school and an extra $100K in debt.

To start a company? No. Don’t. Just go start a company. You will never learn more about starting and running a company than by just doing it.

To get more money? Mayyyybe, but only if you can find an executive or professional program and your company is going to pay for it. Or part of it and you think the return is worth it.

Because you want to learn about business? Hard pass. Go online. Go to the library. Get a job. Ask to do anything and everything in any job. Go hang with marketing. Learn about operations. Ask questions about finance. Get on special projects.

The best and most humble thing to do is go be someone’s assistant. Fly close to the sun so you can learn. You may think its all coffee and scheduling, but consider that John D. Rockefeller began as an apprentice and he would often make his assistants the future heads of his various companies.

What better way to learn about and what its like to be in business than to spend all your time with someone running a company all day?

Still not convinced? Consider this. Take your end state, the goal you want for yourself. Now go ask 10 people how they got there. Because inevitably there are that many people who have already achieved your goals or similar ones. If all 10 say, you need to get your MBA, then my bad. Go forth and master business administration. But you may just find many paths lead to the same and varied ends.

Here is what I would tell my 2008 self if I could reach back in time:

• Find a mentor — There is no substitute for this. If you want something, find someone who has it and ask them everything. Yes bring them value if you can, but there is probably someone out there willing to tell you what they know.
• Decide and then do something — I spent a lot of time thinking up new approaches, better approaches, business ideas, schemes, ways to not get anything done. Best advice ever, Yes. Yes, go do it. Need advice, go ask. need sales, go sell something. Need to grow your company, go earn more revenue. Its not easy, but its dead simple. And experience is the best teacher
• Network more — This leads to knowledge, to jobs, to meeting people who are awesome and some people who are full of hot air. But its a great learning experience. I have met mentors, investors, friends, and people I really didn’t like through networking. Go online, join groups, go to events. And don’t try to act cool. Just start talking and say it, “I have no idea why I am here, just trying something different.”
• Be way more shameless — I have a perfection mindset. Its terrible. I worry what people will think, what the results of my actions will be, if people will like me, etc. etc. Be shameless, be you. Your authenticity will lead to jobs, partnerships, mentorships and opportunity.
• Ask 1,000 times more questions — This ties to the above point. Don’t be afraid to ask. What does EBITA mean? Whats the difference between Net Revenue and Gross Revenue? What is stopping you from making a purchase decision today? Just ask. Is it a ridiculous idea for you to have coffee with me next week so I can learn more from you? Just ask. That’s how you learn
• Start investing — Download an app. Robinhood probably and invest. Or open a TIAA or Fidelity or some kind of account and invest. Low fee index funds. Don’t become Warren Buffet. Pick some index funds, some companies that have gone the distance, invest some money and let it ride. For as long as possible.
• Learn about investing — Again, don’t be Warren Buffet, unless that’s your goal, then move to Omaha and try to become his friend. Or find another investor you like, or 100 more and learn from them. Otherwise, cozy up to Investopedia and other resources to learn about investing. Read Warren Buffet’s letter to shareholders. You will learn more there than any MBA investing course.
• Start more businesses — What if your goal is to start a company? Step one, do it. I could have started a Tea company, sold gourmet cashews, continued on with my consulting company, found an engineer from Georgia Tech and launched a product, built an app or imported Balinese wood art. The list is endless. And guess what, if they all fail, so? You learned right. You learned the hard lessons the right way and early.
• Get a real sales job — Sales cure all. Learn how to sell. Some way. What better way than to learn how to sell with someone teaching you how to sell and paying you for it. You can sell for a company while starting yours on the side. Or just focus on sales, it will help you in every other job there is.
• Read more — I wish I had gained more perspective early. Imagine a way to learn about thousands of other peoples’ experience throughout time and space. Cool right? Read, that’s how you accomplish that trick of time and space travel.
• Jump on every new internet and social media platform — I look back at Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and kick myself. At the time I was like meh? But they are THE most powerful communication tools in the world. Literally no matter what I want to do with my life now, except for wander off into the woods to be a hermit, they are instrumental. I should have put so much time and energy into them from the beginning. For networking, for self-promotion, for learning, for marketing, for everything.
• Work harder — Plain and simple, there is no substitute for hard work. I tried to look for short cuts. There are ways to accelerate, but there are no shortcuts. I should have worked harder wherever I was, in all my jobs, in my pursuits, as I was trying to figure it out. Looking for the easy way destroys learning opportunities.
• Commit more — Zig Ziglar once said that people don’t have any time because they are always traveling. If you are at work, you should be home. At home, you should be working. Being present and committing more would have taken me so much farther. If I had just fully committed to one more year of building furniture, who knows what may be today. Or even if I had not spent a longer period but really committed while I was there, who knows the doors that would have opened. Be all in, wherever you are.

There is probably more advice I would give to myself. Eat a little better, climb a little more, watch less TV. Be nicer to your mother. But in the context of an MBA, that would have been my advice to myself.

If I had this advice and followed it, rest assured, no MBA. Probably no degree.

Sorry mom.

I started dreaming up my life in 2008. In 2013 I went back to school to “start.” I spent 2 more years starting. What could I have done in 7 years?

Don’t get your MBA.

Go start. Whatever it is you want, start doing it. The “How” is not important. It will come. Get your “Why” and get your “What.” Then start.