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One piece of feedback I received about last week’s post brought up the role of inspiration versus intention, serendipity versus planning. A day structured and planned to the minute allows no opportunity for the wondrous unexpected. It is this consideration that forms the basis of this post.
As I navigate this journey of business school, my career, and life, I head towards the destination at differing speeds depending on the situation. At times I can be firing on all cylinders pulling all-nighters to finish up a big project, other times, I’m barely doing more than eating and lulling myself to sleep, relaxing on a beach.
What happens during times where the situation itself is as turbulent as can be. Often, I wait for the turbulence to stop, I can heave to and wait it out. But what happens if there is no option but to charge forward, to sail through the stormy seas. Without the protection of a port or harbor, stopping and anchoring in that position leaves you intensely vulnerable to oncoming swells. Just as dangerous would be to committing unyielding to one direction, one course, without adapting. These strategies lead to being overpowered, tossed and turned, and even capsized.
The same is true for business school. There is so much being thrown at you, it can at times seem overwhelming. Much like the GMAT’s content was really not that hard, but rather a test in time management, so too is business school. Classes condensed, group projects, clubs, networking, social activities, homework, tests, traveling, add up to a lot in a short period of time.
One option is to protect yourself, to stop and anchor, to focus simply on one area like academics. Go from lecture to lecture, project to test. All goes well until the time comes to graduate and you realize that grades don’t automatically equate to a job, and you’re not sure what to do. Uh oh.
Another option could also be to be so focused, so committed to one industry that you do nothing else. You become president of that industry’s club, go to all those industry’s events, talk to all those alumns from that industry. You get a summer internship (which by the wway is the biggest goal in your first year), and then you find out you don’t like it. You ignored the other clubs, the other alumns, the other classes. Uh oh.
So what should you do?
I propose using drogues. As Wikipedia puts it, a drogue is used “to slow the boat down in a storm to keep the hull perpendicular to the waves. The boat will not speed excessively down the slope of a wave and crash into the next one nor will it broach. By slowing the vessel in heavy weather, the drogue can make it easier to control”
You setup systems, triggers, and behaviors that help slow down the onslaught of activity, demands, and opportunities that emerge every day in business school. These behaviors don’t slow you to a halt, don’t anchor you in one place, nor prevent you from adjusting and adapting to the situation at hand. Rather, they provide you the ability to navigate appropriately at a manageable pace. They give you control to navigate.
With a drogue, you have the ability to navigate which opportunity you want to take advantage of at the pace you want to go, and more importantly, which ones you don’t want to. Fear of missing out is about as strong a force as anything in business school which can lead to significant overwhelm and drifting.
So set out in business school, and in life, with a drogue when the situation calls for it. Be intentional, setup your triggers, but don’t be anchored by them. One of the biggest opportunities presented at the very center of business–at business school, is the opportunity for chance encounters, for Black Swans: the unexpected, unplanned occurrences that yield far greater impact to life than the numerous small planned occurrences.
- We have an extensive focus on what we know and can measure and avoid anything that is abstract
- What you know and what you think you know is a dangerous gap
- What you don’t know becomes far more relevant than what you do
- Many of the major inventions in life come from accident, or looking for other things, or toys to help with other toys that creates a new wave of discovery not original sought
- Seize any opportunity or anything that looks like an opportunity, drop everything and go because they will have more impact on your life than anything else
- Be in a big city to increase these chance encounters
For a fuller and more insightful understanding, read Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan.
I believe that the way to navigate life, and business school, is to set up a lifestyle of intentionality that accounts for and is designed to foster and harness the power of black swans so that you both increase the possibility of their occurrence AND more importantly, having the ability to seize that opportunity and navigate it to its full potential.
I suggest to you to setup life when in stormy seas not to anchor in safe harbors, not to crash about drifting unprepared and unable to direct your course, but rather to setup a life drogue-ing for black swans.