What’s up, peoples. I hope you’re all doing well and looking forward to the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend (at least in the U.S.). For those of you about to start your MBA programs, make sure you do it up this weekend because you’re about to get hit with a waterhose’s worth of core curriculum in a few short weeks. This time of year always makes me nostalgic…I wish I could go back to 2004 and redo the beginning of my time at Stanford GSB

OK, now on to what i know you’re all waiting for…the content of this entry. You might notice that this one is different from the ones I’ve written in the past year because this one is about me and not about my answer to someone’s school, job, or life related question. I’ve received feedback from some longtime readers that they aren’t checkin’ for the content on here anymore because I don’t write about myself much anymore. This feedback had been on my mind for a while and then I received the following emails from a reader named “DB”. I’m going to present his emails in chronological order because the way he framed them really got my mind working…

So, DB’s first email is below and it’s basically a shout-out to me about the quality of what I’m offering to readers of this blog. Y’all know I don’t do this to get pats on the back, but I’ll be daggoned if it doesn’t feel good to get props from the people every now and then. I don’t let it get my head gassed up or anything, but it sure is cool. So, I’ll leave you guys to read his email below:

——-
DB wrote:

“Hi Marquis,
I am the type of guy that listens to a lot of radio talk shows (NPR mostly) but rarely calls in. So, as you can imagine, I’ve resisted sending you emails even though I am avid reader of your blog . (a) I imagine your inbox is flooded as it is and (b) there might people who need your help more than I do.

But after reading your last blog post, I just had to email you! You are da man! You are a full-time consultant but how you find time to answer questions – I’ll never know. This (http://marquisweblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/giving-advice-to-very-worried-mba-re.html) was one of the most friendly, thoughtful and comprehensive answers I’ve seen!

Congrats on your great work and thank you for setting the example for other (including myself) on being a great citizen! If the person you are is a product of GSB, then that in itself is a great endorsement for Stanford!

That’s all – I didn’t have any questions to ask . I might in the future but for now, ciao!

-DB”
——-

As you can imagine, DB’s email left your boy cheesin’ and feeling good about the impact that this blog is having on readers. One of my underlying goals for this blog has been to encourage folks to help others through sharing their stories (kinda like the youngster Josh, whose blog I posted recently), so I thought it would be cool to post DB’s email to show some of the positive feedback that comes in. At this point, I responded to DB’s email and asked if he would mind if I posted it up here on the site…that’s where he hit me with a follow-up question that kinda had me like “whoa!”. I’ll let y’all read it on your own below:

——-
DB wrote:

“Marquis,

Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. You are more than welcome to post my email.

One favor though – I’ve always wondered why you answer these questions on your blog? I know – it’s a strange question but it’s nearly impossible to come across anything done selflessly anymore – know what I mean? I am applying this year and I can count about 20 people I know that are “helping” someone ostensibly (whether it is tutoring, or Habitat for Humanity, or soup kitchen – you name it! and I sincerely doubt if they’d do if they were applying). Honestly, I think I am guilty of this myself, although in some remote corner, I do believe in good citizenship, and I don’t mean country-wise, I mean a good citizen of society. “Do unto others as you would” .. that stuff makes sense to me

So, when I do come across someone who is truly selfless – I feel compelled to ask why? You are done with MBA – from Stanford, no less!? You are now a consultant – which, based on your blog was your dream. So, at this point, you are doing this for no reason other than to help others? What drives you? What do you hope to get out of it? Were you helped at some point? I realize that it’s silly to preface a simple question such as this with so much background but I felt like I needed to explain why I was questioning your motives.

It doesn’t have to be now but whenever you have the time (I know – it’s hard to ever have the time so I guess what I mean is – if you the question is worth your time ). You can post my email first and then when you get a chance, post the motivations behind your blog.

Thanks,
-DB”
——-

So, as I said above, DB’s last email really caught me by surprise…not because he was coming at me out of pocket or anything, but moreso because he was actually asking a question about Marquis…Not Marquis the MBA grad, Marquis the consultant, or advice from Marquis the counselor. He just wanted to know something about what makes me tick and keeps me writing this blog, which is something I don’t get asked too often. I’m not saying that people should stop asking me general questions because I really do enjoy helping people through answering them. In fact, I accepted the fact that this blog wouldn’t be about myself a couple of years ago when I stopped putting all my business out in the street and started opening it up to those who matter most, the readers out there in cyberspace.

Given the aforementioned feedback I’d received, DB’s email made the gears in my head start turning and I decided to jump on a response to him. I usually work through these emails in an orderly queue based on when the emails come in, but I bumped his to the front of the queue because he caught me with the right questions at the right time. Plus, I’m the author of this joint, so I’m allowed to do that sometimes, right? At long last, here’s my response to DB:

——-
My response:

DB,

What’s going on, man. I’ve got to tell you that your email really hit me in a way that made me want to respond as soon as I could. I’ve received hundreds of emails with questions and requests for advice over the past couple of years, but you’re one of the first people to ask me why it is that I keep that blog going. Plus, something about the way you framed it all caught my attention too, so the other 15-20 emails ahead of yours in my Inbox will just have to wait a little longer while I work on a response to yours Your email gave me the impression that you are interested in how people tick, so I’ll try my best to give you some insight into how I look at the site and the service it offers.

1. Am I doing this for no other reason than to help others? What drives me?
–
In short, yes, I do maintain my blog for no other reason than to help others. As you stated in your email, I’ve already earned my MBA from my #1 choice school, started off with the post-MBA job that I wanted (it was something I wanted but wasn’t necessarily my “dream”), and gained the learning experience in business that I needed, so there isn’t necessarily an “end goal” I could leverage this blog to achieve, right? I could probably try to monetize the blog (as many have suggested to me), but I don’t feel right trying to make money for something that I’d do anyway (i.e. helping people). So, to answer your question, I thought long and hard about why I do what I do on the site and came up with the following:

a. Helping people is something that comes naturally to me –> I’m not sure when it started, but I’ve been helping people work through their issues for as long as I can remember. Over time, that has ranged from tutoring kids in math in middle school to listening to my friends talk about their dating drama and I seem to have a natural tendency toward looking out for folk…I guess I get it from my mother. According to my Meyers-Briggs profile, that’s a primary trait of my personality type, so it has started making more and more sense over the years. So, when people started emailing me with their issues, I couldn’t help but put some serious thought into them and attempt to be as thorough possible. And, the cool thing about posting my responses to the emails is that they can have impact on folks who might not have even thought to wonder about the questions that I’m addressing.

b. I’ve got something to offer to my readers –> It may be immodest to say this, but I honestly believe it…I’ve got a pretty good story to tell and have a lot of insights to share with people as a result. I imagine that most of y’all see the schools I’ve attended and the company I work for and assume that it was all predestined for me, but it definitely wasn’t…I’ve come a long way from my humble, “scraggly little dude from the country” roots and now I’m playing so far “above the rim” that I often don’t believe it myself. And, unlike most people in my position, I never had some preconceived plan for what I’ve accomplished way back in the day when I was younger. Rather, I’ve learned about different opportunities over time, decided that I wanted to achieve them, and worked like hell to make it happen. Plus, I’ve never really had much (read: “any”) specific guidance along my educational and professional path, so I’ve been figuring it out on my own for the past 20 years. I have been incredibly lucky over the years and things have turned out well, but I have messed up several times along the way too. The key is what one does during those bumps in the road and I seem to find ways to recover from them in a big way. Since I’ve learned so much from my own setbacks, I might as well help others not make the same missteps, right? People have told me that my story and advice are useful, so I’ll keep on putting them out there until that usefulness starts to fade away.

c. It feels good to know that people see me as a resource –> Back in the day, I offered to answer reader questions because I thought I’d get an email every now and then for a couple of months from people who had some simple questions about business school. I surely didn’t expect to still be getting questions regularly almost two years later…and these questions are often related to some in-depth, mission-critical, no-joke type of issue the person is facing. It’s somewhat humbling to know that people trust me with issues of such gravity, but it’s nice to know that they value my input and allow me to be a thought partner with them. I’d never refer to myself as an “expert”, but I’d had several of my readers do so and that’s hecka cool B-)

d. I find the whole blogging game to be somewhat theraputic –> When I started this blog, I did it to tell my story and, hopefully, help people through telling my story. An unexpected almost-immediate side effect was a feeling of relief that came from sharing the stresses of going through the application process. It was almost like therapy, except for the fact that the computer didn’t talk back to me with some in-depth analysis of my mind’s inner-workings. Throughout my years at the GSB, writing entries continued to provide relief from the worries of it the experience, particularly during my first-year summer internship experience. Nowadays, I write entries as a way to let my brain go on cruise control as a departure from my own stuff…it’s a good feeling to step back and analyze someone else’s issues and hit them with that truth & wisdom every now and then

I can’t front though…I’ve received some reader emails over the years that made me consider shutting the site down, but the above factors led me to push those thoughts aside for the foreseeable future. Eventually, I’ll stop maintaining the site, but, as long as it’s enjoyable to me, you’ll find me on there continuing to answer people’s questions and sharing some of my experiences.
–

2. What do I hope to get out of this?
–
Great question! Honestly, I hope to get a lot of out helping folks out with the blog, but not in the way that most people would expect. I don’t need to make money, get accolades/attention, or have people jock me as a result of the advice and guidance provided. This may be what drives some people and, in those cases, more power to them. If that’s what I really needed, I would have stopped writing this blog during my first year at the GSB when I literally received 100+ emails from people telling me that I was making Stanford, Princeton, and myself look bad with my struggles. Trust me, it hasn’t always been “motherhood and apple pie” with this joint.

So, what do I hope to get out of this? In short, I see this blog as my way to have true, long-term impact. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to change the world and leave some sort of legacy when it’s time for me to leave the world and head “upstairs”. Whenever I’d hear stories about history-makers, I’d get geeked up and wonder how I could have similar impact. The thing is that it’s not easy to have the sort of “big bang” impact, so, instead of going for the “big bang”, I’m more focused on a “pyramid scheme method” of changing the world. I know that the term “pyramid scheme” has a shady connotation, but I look at it in a different way than it is traditionally used. Usually, an ambitious person would work toward educational and professional achievements during their lives and would hopefully have impact on something during that time. In rare cases, that person would do it up HUGE and have world changing impact, but most people’s scope of impact is much smaller. That’s a great way to go, but I realized a few years ago that I could switch it up and widen my scope of impact by helping others achieve their goals.

My “pyramid scheme method” is pretty simple and relies on the idea of “paying it forward”. Let’s say that you’ve got some lofty goals and need some guidance from a thought partner on how to reach those goals. So, you seek me out and ask some questions that you hope will provide some clarity on your situation. I know that I’m busy, but I carve out some time to think through your situation and send you some advice that helps you reach those goals. Once you’ve figured out your situation, you’ll have a set of insights that will position you to provide advice to PersonA who needs help to determine his or her path. So, you take the time to help PersonA, who in turn helps PersonB figure out how to reach his or her goals. With that sequence, I would have a direct impact on you and an indirect impact on both PersonA and PersonB through you. Pretty simple, right? Now, let’s scale it out a little to see the possibilities. Let’s say that I help 10 blog readers with their career/educational paths and those people are inspired to help 10 people each, who each help 10 other people each go on to help 10 others. In the time it takes for me to respond to 10 emails, I could possibly have impact on 10,000 people and that doesn’t even account for those who see my responses to someone else and gain some kind of insight from it. And, imagine if one of those 10,000 people is destined to launch a bio-tech start-up that finds the cure to cancer…this could be something kinda major, right?

I acknowledge that my “pyramid scheme method” is imperfect and relies on some assumptions that might go against natural human nature, but I choose to think about the inherent possibilities here. The world would be a much better place if people took a little time every now and then to help someone else. Your immediate response to this idea is that I’m thinking waaaaaaaaay too big about all this, but that’s pretty much how I think about most things. I’ve probably got about three or four decades left on this planet, so I might just change the world before I’m done here
–

Wow, I don’t think I’ve written an email that long in a while. I hope I didn’t bore you by typing all of that out, but I figured that insightful questions like yours truly deserved a well thought-out response. Thanks for having the notion to ask me about these things because I found the required introspection to be particularly useful given some stuff I’m working through at the moment. Take care and good luck on your business school applications. And, once you’ve earned your own MBA, put some thought into using your experiences to help other kids out there who aspire to do the same thing…it might take some extra time and effort on your part, but it’s a good feeling to know that you’re having impact on people.

-Marquis