WEBVTT 00:00:00.815 --> 00:00:04.913 What careers did you imagine for yourself when you were in grad school? 00:00:04.913 --> 00:00:07.415 When I was little, my mom said, 00:00:07.415 --> 00:00:08.349 "John K!" 00:00:08.349 --> 00:00:11.110 (My dad was Big John, I was John K.) 00:00:11.110 --> 00:00:12.982 "You'll make a great engineer." 00:00:12.982 --> 00:00:13.922 And so, for a long time, I was like, 00:00:13.922 --> 00:00:15.425 "Yeah, I'll make a great engineer." 00:00:15.425 --> 00:00:17.480 Sometimes I forgot what that word was 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:19.642 and I'd say, "Oh, my mom believes in me, 00:00:19.642 --> 00:00:20.734 I'll be something great." 00:00:20.734 --> 00:00:22.227 But I really didn't know what an engineer was, 00:00:22.227 --> 00:00:24.286 and I never really got the memo 00:00:24.286 --> 00:00:25.892 of how to become an engineer. 00:00:25.892 --> 00:00:26.746 I didn't know any engineers. 00:00:26.746 --> 00:00:28.140 My mom and dad were both lawyers, 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:29.460 everyone they knew were lawyers, 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:31.416 I didn't know what an engineer was. 00:00:31.416 --> 00:00:33.354 Turns out my uncle actually was an engineer, 00:00:33.354 --> 00:00:33.889 I've learned, 00:00:33.889 --> 00:00:35.231 but he lived in Schenectady, 00:00:35.231 --> 00:00:36.936 which I didn't know where that was. 00:00:36.936 --> 00:00:38.759 I didn't spend much time with him. 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:42.322 So, I went to high school and I graduated. 00:00:42.322 --> 00:00:45.032 I went to college and I graduated. 00:00:45.032 --> 00:00:47.331 But instead of diving into grad school, 00:00:47.331 --> 00:00:49.898 I just started being an entrepreneur. 00:00:49.898 --> 00:00:52.371 I went into education 00:00:52.371 --> 00:00:53.842 with all these other teachers 00:00:53.842 --> 00:00:55.325 and all these other clinicians 00:00:55.325 --> 00:00:58.309 and all these other MSWs, social workers. 00:00:58.309 --> 00:01:00.026 But I wasn't a clinician, 00:01:00.026 --> 00:01:01.666 I wasn't a teacher, 00:01:01.666 --> 00:01:03.184 I was an entrepreneur, 00:01:03.184 --> 00:01:07.182 and I wanted to change the next generation of schools, 00:01:07.182 --> 00:01:09.581 and I realized that by being a little different 00:01:09.581 --> 00:01:11.406 than the community, 00:01:11.406 --> 00:01:13.001 that was sort of my grad school. 00:01:13.001 --> 00:01:14.417 And so, I worked hard, 00:01:14.417 --> 00:01:16.089 I started an organization, 00:01:16.089 --> 00:01:17.493 I've grown it. 00:01:17.493 --> 00:01:18.753 You know, there are 500 people, 00:01:18.753 --> 00:01:20.154 $35 million operating budget, 00:01:20.154 --> 00:01:21.954 8 U.S. states. 00:01:21.954 --> 00:01:23.163 I still didn't go to graduate school. 00:01:23.163 --> 00:01:28.672 My graduate school was running an organization. 00:01:28.672 --> 00:01:32.165 And then in 2008, when I was an old man, 00:01:32.165 --> 00:01:34.277 I went to graduate school. 00:01:34.277 --> 00:01:35.339 I got a fellowship. 00:01:35.339 --> 00:01:37.583 I became an officer of an elite university, 00:01:37.583 --> 00:01:39.097 Harvard University, 00:01:39.097 --> 00:01:40.351 and I got to take courses 00:01:40.351 --> 00:01:41.882 in every single graduate school. 00:01:41.882 --> 00:01:43.835 I took seven classes at Harvard Business School, 00:01:43.835 --> 00:01:45.764 six classes at the Graduate School of Design, 00:01:45.764 --> 00:01:48.013 a class at the School of Public Health. 00:01:48.013 --> 00:01:51.607 I went and lived in Favelas in Mexico. 00:01:51.607 --> 00:01:53.587 So, I could have gone and got an MBA 00:01:53.587 --> 00:01:54.664 right out of college, 00:01:54.664 --> 00:01:56.134 but I would have been a dime a dozen. 00:01:56.134 --> 00:01:58.813 Instead, I was one of ten mid-careers 00:01:58.813 --> 00:02:00.444 at this great university, 00:02:00.444 --> 00:02:01.814 and I was seen as an asset, 00:02:01.814 --> 00:02:03.528 not just this, a lost leader, 00:02:03.528 --> 00:02:05.141 because the graduate school needed money 00:02:05.141 --> 00:02:07.186 to pay for the graduate students. 00:02:07.186 --> 00:02:10.070 So, if I were to give some advice on career stuff, 00:02:10.070 --> 00:02:13.130 don't just dive into graduate school to get a credential 00:02:13.130 --> 00:02:14.565 because you don't know what you want to do. 00:02:14.565 --> 00:02:16.896 My brother got a perfect score on the LSATs 00:02:16.896 --> 00:02:19.737 but took a year off going to law school 00:02:19.737 --> 00:02:20.744 because he didn't know why 00:02:20.744 --> 00:02:21.948 he wanted to go to law school. 00:02:21.948 --> 00:02:24.726 So, I just dove into education, 00:02:24.726 --> 00:02:26.410 built something really special. 00:02:26.410 --> 00:02:28.426 In doing so, I built up a network 00:02:28.426 --> 00:02:30.678 that was pretty freaking tremendous. 00:02:30.678 --> 00:02:33.164 And I think in the next generation, 00:02:33.164 --> 00:02:35.285 folks should think about 00:02:35.285 --> 00:02:37.033 how they can be a connector of people 00:02:37.033 --> 00:02:38.505 from different places. 00:02:38.505 --> 00:02:39.818 And graduate school, 00:02:39.818 --> 00:02:41.759 you can go there and build a network, 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:43.698 but build your social graph by activities 00:02:43.698 --> 00:02:44.940 and by your reputation 00:02:44.940 --> 00:02:46.303 and by collaborating. 00:02:46.303 --> 00:02:48.558 And graduate school can get in the way of that. 00:02:49.419 --> 00:02:51.550 Click any of these fortune cookies 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:54.237 to see your questions and follow-up questions explored. 00:02:54.237 --> 00:02:56.879 Click this cookie to return to the intro video 00:02:56.879 --> 00:02:59.107 and see what this series is all about, 00:02:59.107 --> 00:03:00.908 or click this cookie to suggest 00:03:00.908 --> 00:03:02.214 alternative questions, 00:03:02.214 --> 00:03:03.184 participants, 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