Find Your Reason to Hustle

My Wood Splitting Zen Moment

I recently had a tree cut down in my back yard, a large silver maple.  It had become diseased in a spot that I feared would make it more susceptible to falling one day, and it was close enough to my house to be a concern.  When the tree service cut it down, most of the wood was in excellent shape, but we don't burn wood at our house.  My neighbor told me he had a friend who did, and I told him his friend could have the wood for free.  Cord wood isn't cheap anymore; the man showed up at my house within an hour of being offered the wood.

At its thickest parts, the maple was over two feet thick.  I worked at my desk by a window as the man worked on splitting some sections that were about 20 inches across.  He was driving two metal wedges into the piece using a sledgehammer to get it to split apart, and taking a lot of swings to do so.  Then, when he got it to split in half, he would split those pieces using a maul.

My father's voice crept into my ear. 

"You gotta' hit it right on the edge.  Once it pops, you're all set."

I spent a fair amount of my youth cutting wood with my father.  We always had a wood stove growing up, and Dad loved to work in the woods and harvest our own fuel.  He loved the money he saved from not having to buy as much oil, but he also loved the work itself.  I hated it.  It was boring and hard and not fun at all to me.  Even now, as I looked out the window, I fought the urge to go out, but just couldn't resist.  I threw on some shoes and a sweatshirt and headed out back.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"These lower portions are so big... really tough to get apart" he replied.

"Let me show you something" I said.  "You're putting your wedges inside too much.  In fact, you really don't even need the wedges.  You just need to hit it right on the edge and pop the outside layer."  He looked at me incredulously.  My neighbor had told me he was an engineer.  He saw his use of the wedges as a reasonable arrangement of force and leverage and all that.

I picked up the maul, took a swing, and landed a bit too much on the inside of the piece.  It left a mark, but bounced.  My next swing landed right next to it.  Another bounce.  The third swing, though, caught the piece right on the outside edge, and a loud pop rang out from the wood.  A ten inch crack appeared from where I struck the wood into the center.  I struck another blow on the other side of the piece, and it fell into two halves.  In four swings I had done what took him over twenty using the two wedges.  The look on his face was priceless.  I repeated the process on two more pieces, just to show him it wasn't a fluke.  It took even less swings on those.  Then I headed back inside.

Fathers teach their sons a lot of things, and they don't always explain why.  Often times it's just "do this."  In my youth, I got angry in these moments, but today I understand that my father was trying to give me a wide array of skills so that I could do things for myself.  Cutting wood has always been a good example of that.  Very few people cut their own wood today, but those who do save a lot of money and provide themselves and their families with heat.  Choosing to invest your time and energy instead of your money is hustling, and it frees up your money to go to something else. 

Thanks, Dad.

Finding Money for College

The recession has some states reducing their funding of college programs, and shrinking endowments have tightened the purse strings at many schools, as well.  Families have taken the hit on their investment funds, so there's less money to pay tuition.  It can be pretty scary if you're a college student right now.  How do you pay the bills?

U.S. News and World Report has put together an article that gives you some helpful advice.  Read it, use it, and keep hustling!

Who Gets a Degree in Four Years? Who Gets a Degree?

A great article by the Boston Globe dispels the myth of the four-year degree.  Yes, people are still going to college right out of high school and getting a Bachelor's in four years, but not as much as they used to.  And when you're in the bubble that is college, it's easy to feel like you're part of the mainstream of society, but the reality is that people who complete degrees are still in the minority.

The path of higher education has changed.  If you want to get a degree, don't assume that you have to stop whatever you're doing and devote four years of your life to the process.  There's more flexibility than you might think.  If you're willing to hustle, you can find a way to make it happen.

Loan Forgiveness Programs Drying Up

This article in the New York Times online reports that more and more loan forgiveness programs are reducing the amount of forgiveness being given, and some are stopping altogether.  It puts the people who took the loans and participated in these programs in a really difficult position because they often took low-paying jobs as part of the deal in the first place.

You can't count on programs like these to take care of your debt.  Make sure you're staying aware of how much debt you're taking on and how you can pay it off if you have to.  Life always brings changes, and the occasional curveball, your way.

Playing By the Rules, Part One: Go to school and get a degree

I earned a Bachelor's degree in 1996.  I earned my Master's in 2002.  Then, in 2004 I pretty much abandoned both degrees and began my career as a hypnotist.  And that, as Mr. Frost would say, was the path less traveled that made all the difference in my life.  When I stopped playing by other people's rules, I got happy.

I was a rule follower ever since I was a kid.  I still am, for the most part.  I believe that having rules is an important part of keeping social order.  But there are these other rules, and they're not really rules, but ideas that get told and taught and dictated to us when we're children that we perceive to have the gravity of rules.  They're not exactly the same for everyone, but most of us will find that we have some in common with some folks, and others in common with other folks. That makes them seem even more like real rules, when we hear other folks saying they've heard of them.

Go to school and get a degree.
I did that.  Twice.  It didn't make me happy.  It taught me how to think better.  It gave me a skill set around learning that has served me in life.  I went through a lot of personal development while I was in college, so I wouldn't say that it was a waste of my time, but it just wasn't the expressway to security and happiness that grown-ups told me it would be.  My parents told me it would be, my teachers told me it would be.  My college-bound friends all shared the same opinion.  Lots of them aren't using their degrees anymore, either.

My best friend from high school went into business with his father.  He has made more money than me every single year since we graduated high school.  He makes his own schedule, has no boss, and has never complained about his career.  No college degree means no college loan debt.  He hustles, sometimes working seven days a week for two or three weeks in a row, but he also takes a couple of vacations every year.  He didn't play by the rules our teachers told us, and he's done just fine.

Schools are failing young people.  It's just that simple.  Educators mean well.  I am completely convinced of that, but having been there, in the trenches, working with students, I know that it just isn't working.  The students coming out of the system successfully are the ones who are highly intelligent, purpose-driven, and rules oriented.  They like structure and the idea that following the structure, i.e. "playing by the rules" will get them the end result they desire.

Unfortunately, that's not most of the population.  Most of the population feels like they don't fit in the system, so school is, at best, a social arrangement.  It's a chance to be with friends.  It's a place to hang out.  It's a place to pass the time.

You'd think college would be different, but you'd be wrong.  College is the ultimate social experiment.  In high school you only passed the time for what, seven or eight hours?  In college you live in the social experiment.  24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Why do you think more and more college students aren't getting their degrees in four years anymore?  Because the degree programs have become more rigorous?  Please.  It's because the whole culture of college has changed.  It's a consumer-driven experience now, not one defined by educational parameters.  And the consumers want to keep enjoying their experience.  They're not focused on getting the degree; they're focused on the social experiment.

What's the purpose of getting a degree? 

Has your college taught you how to network?

This article from the Boston Herald online does a nice job of discussing the importance of networking.  I wonder how many colleges are making explicit efforts to teach their students about this set of skills.  When I went to college from 1992-1996 I got no coaching on this at all.  I'm betting most schools today still aren't helping their students learn how to do it.

The outlook for college seniors is still grim.

"I don't think you can look anywhere right now and not see panic (among students)." 
     -Michael Petrecca, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP

Undergraduates continue to struggle with employment leads and job fairs.  This article from Columbus Business First gives a perspective from domestic and international students attending college in the Ohio area.  It also shares some thoughts from potential employers like Petrecca.

Here's what older generations are saying about you Millenials.

"I wouldn't hire a 'Millenial' and would look hard at anybody under 35. Why that age? It's that group and below where it appears training and education began to slide while individual expectations of individual entitlement increased."
     -Anonymous poster in response to "The Perils of Graduating in 2009" by Michael Stahl

"Wow... I am amazed at your exceptional ability to stereotype."
     -Anonymous poster in response to the above poster's comments.

The generation gap is nothing new.  Older generations tend to think that the younger generations are lazy and spoiled.  It seems, though, that the Millenials are drawing a little more heat than usual from members of the older generations, and since boomers and Gen X'ers are still doing most of the hiring in this down economy, it might be wise for Millenials/Gen Y folks to do a little listening, and a little reflecting on what it's all about.

Shannon Otto seems to have done just that.  Her piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shares her own experience preparing to leave the college world for the working world:

"I have friends who have interned at NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and Reader’s Digest. Personally, I’ve had four internships in New York City over the course of three different summers.

And we’re all still facing unemployment come May."

Otto goes on to explain the frustration her peers are voicing when faced with the reality that they will probably have to take lower positions than they expected upon graduating:

"'After all our internship and hands-on experience, now we’re told to be assistants to some executive?' many of my peers ask."

This voice wonderfully captures the sense of entitlement that some students are caught up in, that very quality the critical poster at the beginning of the blog was alluding to.  Stereotypes are often based in some level of observable reality, and while they cannot be held up to each individual within the group, the group itself creates that representation, not the outside observers.  If you're in the Millenial generation, and you don't feel that these kinds of assertions apply to you, then you may very well be right.  Certainly some of you will defy the stereotype of your generation.

My whole point in this blog today is that if you're part of the group, then you've got to figure out where you fit in the group.  If you've got that entitlement thing going, then you better work on it, not rationalize it.  If you don't have that entitlement thing going, you have to figure out how you're going to clearly show potential employees that you don't, because clearly it's an issue for them.  Are you willing to start in a lower position and work your way up?  How do you communicate that you're not just working for a paycheck?  How do you demonstrate the qualities that older folks think people in your generation are deficient in?  What are those qualities?

Having the degree and the resume isn't enough.  You've got to win the job, not just apply for it.  Whether people's assumptions and perceptions about you are fair and accurate is not the point.  The point is that they have decision-making power, not you, so you've got to get a sense of how to deal with these folks, how to show them that you're the person they want to bring on board.

What are college students thinking?

This article from Ypulse may sum it up.

You've gotta' be a bit nervous if you're graduating this May.  And if you already graduated this past December or last May, I wonder if you're getting a bit angry.  I keep thinking about the comment in the article about how parents and teachers are always telling students that college is the way to assure yourself of future security.

Will Graduate Studies Benefit Those Graduating in a Recession?

As jobs become harder and harder to find for college grads, one piece of advice that's on the increase is for them to go back to school and get a graduate degree. Is this good advice?  You'd have to ask the graduates...

The Guardian just published this article in which the author interviewed two graduates who have struggled to find the work they originally thought they would get into.  Both are now pursuing advanced degrees as they wait for the storm of recession to pass.  Their experiences are, of course, anecdotal, but provide an insight into what it's like to be in such a position.

Is the extra debt worth it?  Will it provide them with extra earning power when it's all done?  I think the key with the examples of the two guys in the article is that they have a sense of where they want to go, so it will probably work out for them.  But I bet a lot of college grads will go to graduate school in the next year or so just because they don't know what else to do, and many of those folks will be saddled with even more debt without coming out of the experience ready to accel professionally and pay off that debt.  I'd love to be wrong about that.