A GSB-Genie in a Bottle
“If a genie could grant you the opportunity to pursue your dream, what would it be?” This was a reflection prompt from Graham Weaver a few weeks ago in MGE.
In full (non) disclosure, I am here at Stanford with the firm belief that the GSB is my genie, and maybe that’s what Graham was encouraging all of us to see. This education, the GSB network, the talented group of individuals that surround us — collectively, isn’t this a real-life genie?
I also believe that I am incredibly privileged to be here. Which prompts me to wonder: “If I come from a place of privilege, shouldn’t I use that privilege primarily to make an impact, and shouldn’t I start now?” That certainly sounds fulfilling, yet I only hear a subset of my peers talking about their careers this way.
Why do we differ?
Fulfillment is derived in many ways, and not all of them relate to having an impact on the world
One reason might be that fulfillment itself is subjective and varied. In a recent survey of 36 GSB students (Figure 1) every single respondent said they derive fulfillment primarily from family & relationships. The next most cited sources of fulfillment were work and hobbies.
Fulfillment — realizing our dreams, goals and aspirations — comes from lots of places: meaningful relationships, a sense of purpose, achieving goals, and growing as a person and leader, among others. This is good news as it provides us a diverse fulfillment portfolio and prevents us relying too much on one thing for meaning and purpose.
It’s also worth noting that even though work is fulfilling to most, it isn’t necessarily the medium through which people want to pursue the things they care about. There’s also the argument for “playing the long game” in which the work you choose to do right after the GSB may not be linked to what you care about (Figure 2), but it’s part of a larger picture in which you work your way toward being able to do that thing you care about most.
Obligations take precedence
Not all of us come to the GSB already having had privilege. And even though the GSB positions us well for a secure financial position after school, many of us will have significant debt to pay off or responsibilities towards others (parents, spouses, children) that take precedence. These very real obligations can limit the options we pursue immediately after graduation.
Where do we even start?
It’s tough to even know where to begin when you want to tackle your dreams, let alone a societal issue like climate change or human trafficking. Most GSB respondents say that they either lack a) the time, b) the knowledge or c) the freedom from other obligations to pursue their dream (Figure 3).
And these reasons are perhaps why some GSBers find themselves spending time on things other than their goals and aspirations (Figure 4).
Your joy and the world’s great hunger
It’s easy to rationalize why the GSB-Genie may stay in the bottle for many of us. But unlike a mythical creature that we can leave locked away and call on when we’re ready, the privilege the GSB grants us is already out and here.
Less than 5 percent of the 8,000 applicants to the GSB each year step foot in Town Square during Week 0. To add to that, post-graduation, we can expect to pull in an average annual base salary of $150,000. That’s 3x the amount of the national average income of $48,000 per year. Furthermore, as Graham shared with me, half of the people in the US live paycheck-to-paycheck and 67% of US citizens don’t have a savings account.
If that alone doesn’t convince you that we’re privileged, take the words of an entrepreneur who graduated from GSB several years ago. She reflects that “the privilege of being GSBers is that the downside is very limited. And as I look for what my next career steps might be after several years building a startup, it is easier than I expected because of the GSB network… I’m not trying to downplay the financial opportunity cost, but it does seem like that’s the only material downside of starting a company for GSBers.”
As I wrote this, a song came on that made me look suspiciously around as if some machine was tracking the thoughts in my brain and feeding them back to Spotify. The first line of the song is a quote by Kate Bornstein: “Your life’s work begins when your great joy meets the world’s great hunger.”
It gives me chills to think about what might happen in the world if every GSB student found the intersection of their joy and the world’s hunger while here. With the network, acumen and privilege we have, I can only imagine the positive force that would be.
Acknowledgements: Isabelle Fisher & Sawyer Clark were patient and helpful in brainstorming with me on these topics. Zuber Memon is a wizard of an editor. And, while I was wrestling with fulfillment & impact the past few weeks, Ben Daniels & Juan Valdez brought up the concepts of Ikigai and the Purpose Diagram, which nicely describe the intersections I’m keen to explore. I hope it’s helpful to many of you, too.
