Life, Death, and Consulting
This comes from Victor Cheng. I thought this was very well written. Helps to keep some perspective.
Hi ________,
If you have been following the news, the death of Steve Jobs
has been everywhere.
Steve Jobs had an unusually big impact of my life and my
parent's lives. You see my parents started one of the very
first Apple dealers in my hometown of San Diego, California.
In 1977, Jobs co-invented the first mass market personal
computer, called the Apple II. In 1978, my parents started a
retail store to sell it. This was 33 years ago.
As a kid, I worked in almost every job in that business. I
did sales. I answered phones. I unpacked boxes. I counted
inventory. I fixed computers. I wired network cable through
the ceiling (8 years old can climb more easily).
In 1984, when the Mac was first introduced, I had one of the
first 500 Mac's ever made sitting on my family's dining room
table. It had this new thing called a word processor with a
graphical user interface and fonts. I wrote my first
"ransom" note - where every word had a different font face
or size.
My family has always followed Jobs from the very early days.
So when he died, it really was an end of an era for my
family.
In reflecting on Jobs' various speeches and quotes, I came
across one of my favorites. Its from a speech he gave at
Stanford University Commencement a few years ago.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone
else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living
with the results of other people's thinking.
Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own
inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary."
This quote is profoundly wise and particularly appropriate
for aspiring and new management consultants. One of the
potential risks of working in consulting, is the industry
(especially in the top firms) is quite dogmatic.
If we define dogma as living with the results of other's
people thinking, the prevailing dogma in consulting is
upward career advancement is a good thing.
In other words, if you are a new consultant at McKinsey, BCG
or Bain, consulting dogma says you should want to be a
partner at your firm.
It is one thing to be partner because you truly love it. It
is another to do it because it's the next most obvious
prestigious step.
The same dogmatic rationale applies to aspiring management
consultants.
When I was at Stanford, many of the most successful business
oriented students applied to either consulting firms or
investment banks. We did so because it was "the thing" to
do. The natural next step to a prestigious academic career.
In hindsight with much time to reflect, I've concluded that
this dogmatic thinking was absolutely absurd.
The reason everyone applied to the investment banks and
consulting firms was because these firms were extremely
aggressive in marketing themselves on campus, and conveying
the idea that it was the obvious next step.
But having worked in the global economy now for many years,
I can assure you our economy consists of more than 2
industries -- consulting and investment banking.
Yet aside from working in technology, the overwhelming
majority of students obsessed over working in two very small
industries that likely represent less than 0.01% of the
entire global economy.
This is dogma at work -- living with the results of other
people's thinking.
It is a VERY large world out there. The options are truly
limitless. And while I will be the first to say working in
consulting can be a wonderful step in one's career, it is
NOT the only option and it is NOT a good fit for everyone.
For example, if you have ENJOYED the case interview process,
you will most likely enjoy the day to day work that a
consultant does. Conversely, if you disliked the case
interview process, you will probably dislike the day-to-day
work as well.
Pick the path that is right for YOU--not the one the others
(your friends, your parents, your in laws) suggest. It is
YOUR decision, not anyone else's.
Time in life is very short.
The same week that Steve Jobs died, one of my first small
business consulting clients also passed away.
He was 71 years old and he too died from complications from
Pancreatic cancer. I was exchanging emails with him on a
Friday discussing how is treatment was going (and it was
going well), by Monday he was in and out of coma. Two weeks
later he died.
And in my final conversations with him before he died, do
you know what we talked about?
We did NOT talk about jobs, promotions, career
accomplishments.
We talked about two things:
1) the people who he was worried about (his wife, kids, and
grandkids), and
2) the things he always wanted to do in life... but was now
running out of time to do.
To use his words, "I getting taken off the playing field
before I'm done playing."
The tragedy of the situation is he ended his life on earth
with his "lifetime to do list" incomplete. And most of those
"to do" items left undone were things to benefit the people
around him.
In the end, he simply ran out of time.
Don't run out of time in your life. Decide what it is that
YOU want to do with the time you've been given.
In the final days of each of our lives, the only standard we
will use to evaluate our life is our own. Dogma pretty much
seems goes out of the window when you only have a few days
left. You have the benefit of much more time, don't waste it
living someone else's life.
Live your own. Choose wisely.
Thanks,
-Victor Cheng
This makes me want to forget about IB/S&T and slang crack to support myself and simply live in the moment
Justsaying....
That moment doesn't last very long for those that slang crack.
I disagree. Both these industries (and anything finance oriented) are places where you will work much harder than anywhere else (bar the top departments of the top companies in the world e.g. software engineer at Apple), have a steeper learning curve and better long term earning opportunities, even if this is temporarily down. Moving from consulting to industry was a shocker (although I had been prepared by seeing that at the clients'). Things are just SLOWER, way fewer people are driven and smart. Yes those firms are aggressive, but you can aggressively sell a restaurant and it will not become popular unless the food it serves is good and not too expensive. Where's Zune today? The reason students overwhelmingly want to work in those "prestigious" industries is that the risk/reward is better than elsewhere. Entrepreneurship is often touted as the better alternative but truth is few people have business ideas and fewer the balls to execute them. Consulting has the added advantage of a life that seems cool to those from a less wealthy background - 5* hotels, freshly cooked world-class food, S-class mercs as taxis (if you work in a good country/location), that stuff never gets old.
Nice myth. Especially at the junior level, you will do precious little thinking. At the senior level, you will be selling, and occasionally pretending to come up with brilliant insights which really are just the suggestions from the junior case team members who did all the work and know the case (you will turn up twice a week and pretend to run the place, then go home at 6pm and let the team work til 2am). Even the CTL mostly just organises slides into a massive, overwhelmingly dull presentation given to dumb the client's board so that the client's decisions are respected. There is some thinking of course but nowhere near the level e.g. a quant or prop trader at a bank would be doing, or any kind of investment role where you run your own book (I include the less structured PE groups in that). You will start thinking, most probably, once you leave consulting to work at a senior level at a client's. Either that, or you will move to a country run by an oligopoly or elite that will commission high level strategic thinking projects where you will have a lot of fun and nothing will ultimately be done. Dubai is good for this.
too long to read. sry.
Great post. Thanks for sharing
nice find
when i finished reading the piece i scrolled down to see comments by the regulars but found the usual fuckups posting their bullshit
This poem takes it home for me:
......Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
troll
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