To start I want to say I am not sure I have fully developed my mission statement but I figured this is why I am here, to gain feedback and continue to develop myself through these “assignments.” When I sat down to work on this, I really struggled to get going, but I believe I have at least a good starting point for a decent mission statement. A big focus in my statement comes from something I have heard multiple times as a young professional, and that is to never stop learning. However I also wanted to focus on things that mean a lot to me such as supporting others. In my mission statement I could elaborate a lot more, but for the sake of not making this blog look like a novel, here it is.
“I will continue to learn and grow in all aspects of my life. I will strive to progress in my current positions, but never turn my nose to a new opportunity. I will do this all while adding value and support to the people I am surrounded by.”
Now I don’t believe that answers the question Kevin asked of “have you found your purpose in life?” But if I continue to learn, grow and support others on the way, I think my path will be narrowed down in the near future.
by Kevin
Trevor, I think this is a great start to identifying your purpose--or mission--in life! Well done!
Here are some questions to both help me understand your mission and, perhaps, to help you dig a little deeper: how will you learn and grow?, what does progressing look like, (new title, more pay)?, how do you expect to add value?, and which of the words you chose has special meaning to you, maybe “value” or “support”? Make sure you embed words within your mission statement that motivate you. I don’t think your mission statement needs to expand on any of these questions, but I would like to understand your meaning a little better gain, this is a great start!
As I mentioned before, your mission statement needs to be exciting to you, so even though you may not know exactly what the results will be, learning and growing is most definitely exciting! If you continue to focus on learning, growing, adding value and supporting the people around you, I do believe you have an exciting journey ahead of you that will result in plenty of opportunities. The key is to never stop reflecting and following your mission!
by Adam
Hi Trevor! Mostly, I’d echo what Kevin said. I really like your focus on growth and development. It can be tough, especially earlier in your career, to translate general aspirations into a more specific mission. To echo Kevin, I think they key will be to understand what “growth” means to you. Is it developing a good professional reputation? Reaping the tangible and monetary benefits of a prosperous career? Is it self-discovery through overcoming adversity? Is it having successes to look back on, to know you “left your mark?” Understanding the dimensions along which growth is most important to you can go a long way toward focusing your efforts in a productive way. Regardless of your views on that, I salute you for having such a strong growth mindset! That will serve you well, and provide a foundation for success, however you choose to define it.
By Trevor
I believe that some of the questions you posed me with can really be wrapped into a single response. In my current positions I am confident that I can continue learning and growing possibly by taking on more responsibilities, but also by pursuing new opportunities. And I don’t necessarily mean new opportunities outside of where I hold my current positions. I think that I have mentioned it previously, but I have never really stayed with one employer for longer than a year, and not that I think that that is a bad thing, but I think longevity adds value and support like I mentioned in my statement. So, I would say that by taking on more responsibilities or taking advantage of a new opportunity that presents itself at my current job can cover how I will continue to learn, grow, progress and provide value to my employer. I also want to reference what Adam was saying about what growth actually means to me, and I think his first two points hit the nail right on the head…at least for me. More of the first being about professional reputation because I have always wanted to be someone that anyone can rely on in whatever situation arises and out of that I think is where the tangible and monetary benefits come from. If I can be the first person that my boss turns to or a co-worker comes to with a question then that just lays the bricks for the tangible and monetary benefits to come. Now I definitely will have to work on my patience in that, because I know it’s not always the right time for a promotion or raise, but by working towards my main points in my mission statement those should come with time.
There is no better way to create opportunities for yourself than growing--and developing--your network! My friend Jacob Cooper (currently a partner at Ernst & Young) and I continually joke about a book I read several years ago that has greatly influenced my thinking on networking…”Never Eat Alone”. Jacob takes the position that you don’t actually need to read the book to understand the value....just read the title! Although I will never admit it to his face, he is exactly right! The title says it all.
I learned the value of networking (and not eating alone) directly when I received a voicemail from a recruiter in 2013 to interview for the CFO position at BancFirst, where I am currently employed. I was aware of the opening (it was a public bank and I was a bank auditor, so of course i knew of the open position!), but I was 33 at the time and assumed they had dialed the wrong number. I hesitantly returned the phone call to let the recruiter know who he really called, but to my pleasure, I was, in fact, the candidate worth calling. I didn’t fully comprehend how I came to be included on the call list until a couple years later.
You see, over the prior several years (which was about five years into my career at EY...and following my reading of “Never Eat Alone”), I began reaching out to bank executives (primarily CFO’s) and bank providers (auditors, examiners, etc), hoping to build business at EY (see post on reputation). One of these lunches was with a couple of partners at BKD, a public accounting firm. BKD has a large banking practice (in fact, they audit BancFirst), so I was hoping to gather some techniques to build banking clients. That conversation went well, but i really didn’t know where it would lead...until later. As I later learned, BancFirst was struggling to find the right candidate, so they contacted BKD looking for applicants to fill their CFO position. BKD must have also thought our conversation went well, because they recommended that BancFirst contact me. After a few successful interviews with the management team at BancFirst, they offered me a job! After 7 years, I am still working for BancFirst. Glad I wasn’t eating alone that day I met with BKD!
There are several techniques to networking, but I will list a few that have been most beneficial to me.
Be strategic: plan the prospects you want to meet with. How will they add value to your goals (remember those goals we discussed earlier?). Try to schedule your lunches out a month or two in advance. You will find that the calendars of the executives you want to meet with open up after a month or two down the road. If you go to a conference, get a list of attendees and identify beforehand who you will introduce yourself to during the coffee breaks.
Provide a commonality: I have always found it is helpful to identify something you might have in common in the initial contact. Perhaps it is a friend, church, university, location...just find something you have in common. It really helps separate you from all of the other requests for meetings.
Approach it as a learning opportunity: approach every meeting as an opportunity to learn something new and grow yourself. Don’t think of meetings as sales calls, but relationship building. There is so much less pressure and intimidation if you think of it that way. I always found it helpful, especially as a young auditor, to not worry about a specific outcome, but as an opportunity to learn.
Ask questions: have a list of questions ready to ask, which might take a little homework. Write them down, if necessary (I still do this). I like to think of meetings as an opportunity to learn about their life and successes. I have never talked with anyone who didn’t mind talking about themselves, although sometimes it takes a little warming up.
Be persistent: Executives are busy, there is no doubt about that. Just because you don’t get a quick response, doesn’t mean they aren’t interested. They just need a follow up...and then again, and again...you get the idea.
Your next opportunity is waiting for you, you just need to take the initiative to set up the meeting!
As you will read in Adam’s post, not everyone has the same take on networking as I do, which is okay. I think it is worthwhile to hear (or read in this case) more than one view. Adam, how do you feel about networking?
By Adam
As I write this, I’m a little worried what Kevin is going to think. That’s because...I used to have a very contrarian opinion on “networking.” In college, there was nothing that could more reliably solicit an eye-roll from me than a fellow student talking about “networking opportunities.”
There were a few reasons I had this view. First, I (somewhat naively?) felt that it was a perversion of the natural order of things to seek success based on something other than my special list of things I thought to be important: talent, work ethic, ability to work collaboratively, and ultimately the value you’re able to produce. But, second, those earliest exposures to “networking” felt like a grotesquely superficial, nakedly transaction affair. To me, it felt like a bunch of blowhards gathering together in a room to see how much value they could extract from one another via association.
Now, because I’m going for broke here, I’ll share what I thought was a very shrewd turn-of-phrase you could have heard me saying circa senior year in college: “Networking is like making friends for sociopaths.”
WOW. So, you’re probably thinking, this guy is obviously not going to have anything productive to say on the topic. But, let me see if I can successfully backpedal from the precipice (if I haven’t already fallen over).
Fast forward several years, and I now appreciate and understand the value of networking. And, maybe this is because I’m stubborn, but I don’t think I was entirely wrong back in college. As I’ve progressed in my professional life, I’ve come to realize that my initial views of networking weren’t views of the “real deal.” My wholesale condemnation of the idea based on these first impressions was like going to the state fair and deciding that Disney World is lame. It’s just…well... not the same thing.
In reality, networking is least valuable (and, in my opinion, hardly even qualifies as networking) when it's purely transactional. Networking is not about attending a particular event, although attending events can be valuable. It’s not about something you can measure, score, or readily quantity, but that doesn't make it any less “real.” It’s about taking a genuine interest in other people, paying it forward, and finding “win-win” situations wherever you can. It’s about weaving these activities into your daily life, and into your interactions with other human beings. It’s about internalizing these attitudes to the point where the line between “networking,” and living, is blurred to the point of invisibility.
I discovered this because… well… I (GASP) started networking myself! It was an honest mistake: I promise! At first I didn’t realize what I was doing. I was just asking for advice when I thought I needed it, taking an interest in other people and their professional lives, and when possible, trying to help other people as much as I could. It was all very innocent. But, lo and behold, I began to develop what could only be accurately called: a network! Uh oh. Was I a sociopath now, too?
No (at least, I hope not). And ever since, I’ve really moderated my views on the topic.
It’s just that, networking really isn’t a transactional affair. It’s a natural part of life, like eating or exercising. But, like both of those things, they can be done with more or less intentionality, and can be carried out in more or less alignment with your goals.
I’ll go even further: it’s OK to be strategic in the relationships you cultivate. But, make it genuine! If you happen to meet someone with a shared career interest, or whose further acquaintance may help you achieve your goals… go for it! Find something you can both relate to, a common interest you share, or a common goal you can work toward.
Just, don’t… and, I mean it...please don’t… go shake their hand, extract their contact information with clinical precision, and start mentally quantifying the value you can attain from your newly expanded “network.” Firstly, because it’s obvious; to you, to them, to everyone. People can tell when you’re playing the short game. When, you’re trying to “cash in.” And, the most “valuable” contacts out in the world will be so used to this charade that they’ll spot it before you even say hello. But, secondly, and most importantly, there is a more profound reason not to conduct yourself this way. Because, as I said earlier, that really would make networking seem more like making friends for sociopaths.
With all that being said, take it from a converted skeptic: networking, done the right way, is an invaluable (and personally gratifying!) component of a good career, and a good life.
Our next guest article comes from Peter Miller, Network Engineer at 38th Cyber Installation Group at Tinker Air Force Base.
Peter has recently transitioned from his college life to the working world. One of the challenges of this transition (among many) is dealing with social isolation, especially during a pandemic. How can a young professional attempt to maintain past friendships while building new relationships? Therefore, I asked Peter to describe these challenges in more detail and provide tips on building a fulfilling social life post college.
by Peter
Like every good question, the answer to this blog’s title is not a simple yes or no. You will lose touch with many friends, and even some of your closest friends right now. That is a weird and lonely process, but I think it’s kind of inevitable to the life changes you go through after college. On the other hand, you can also make new, lifelong friends after college, who you share important goals and life experiences with. After 18 months or so out of college, I think it may be helpful to record some of my experiences, surprises and advice.
I hope to achieve two goals in this blog:
1) I want to reassure you that the social dread you feel is completely normal, and there will be some loss of your existing friendships. That’s also normal, and not a personal failure.
2) I want to encourage you about your own possibilities. It’s definitely a new kind of friendship, but post-college social life can be fulfilling in new and exciting ways!
To point 1 (the bad news):
You will lose touch with a lot of people. I don’t think I quite appreciated how different the student daily routine is from the working adult life. This has been exaggerated for me, as my job had a lot of business travel for the first year, and then a pandemic in my second! But the central idea here is still true: you simply will not meet and talk to a hundred people every single day across classes and extracurriculars. The effort of keeping all those social ties by texting or setting up coffee dates is just not feasible for more than a few months.
Here’s my advice: Start thinking now about which relationships are really, really important to you. Who is it that you share everything with, that gives you good advice, and will always help you out of any mess you put yourself in? For me, that’s about four people, and at first I thought “Oh no, I only have four friends!” But it’s more than enough, in reality. Close friends are special, and take a lot of investment. Put an absolute priority on continuing to share life with those few people. It will still hurt to lose a lot of the casual friendships built on video games, social clubs, or study groups. But it will hurt a lot less if the most important parts of your emotional life don’t lose support.
To point 2 (the good news):
Finding a place to fit in as an adult, not a “kid” or “student”, has been really exciting and meaningful to me. I would never have guessed two years ago that most of my friendly conversations would be about the mayor’s school board appointment or the best mortgage broker. But it’s kind of cool to see yourself have new concerns, ideas, and challenges to overcome. It’s even better to share those milestones with your (previously mentioned) best friends and coworkers.
My advice here is this: Make friends at work!
You’re gonna be spending a lot of time there, and these are people you will naturally build a lot of memories with. I have been very blessed to work in an office with some really amazing, inspiring people. My work friend group has a wider range of ages, backgrounds, and life goals than my college friend group. I definitely wish I had been less intimidated by my office job at first. Ultimately, everyone there wants to enjoy their work hours, share some gossip, and unwind with weekend hangouts. This seems obvious, but it definitely took down my anxiety of inviting myself into those existing groups. I have learned a lot from my mentors and peers at work, and it’s so exciting to think that for years still, those connections will get deeper.
In summary, social life after college is very different, but completely worth it. I personally have made some mistakes in this transition. I still am working on trying to maintain some friendships I shouldn’t have let slide. I sometimes feel lonely and isolated at the end of a day, especially working from home this year. But I have made some amazing lifelong friends in just my first two years at work, and I can’t wait to see those relationships blossom for a long time! I have continued to share life with my closest and most caring friends from college. It takes a lot of initiative, just like the transition from high school to college. But the possibilities for deep, lifelong friendships are just around the corner. Go get them!
Our next guest article comes from Christian Stewart, Aeronautical Engineer Associate at Lockheed Martin. Christian began working at Lockheed full time in January of 2020 after graduating from Oklahoma Christian University with an Engineering degree.
Christian is currently going through the mentoring program. During one of our conversations he mentioned something he termed, “the imposter syndrome.” Although the term was not something I had heard often, the symptoms certainly sounded familiar (negative self talk, feeling of unworthiness, etc). I asked Christian to describe this issue in more detail and provide a few tips that he has found helpful in dealing with this negativity. I believe many other young professionals will relate to Christian’s experience and will find his advice worthwhile.
by Christian
In the spring of 2014, I found myself sitting in the office of the Dean of Admissions of my dream college. My mother had a friend that worked for the school that had kindly arranged a meeting with him to discuss the school, as it was my top choice at the time for my undergraduate engineering studies. At some point during the discussion, the topic of career fields came up, and the dean asked me if I had an idea of where I wanted to work after college. I told him that I really wanted to work for Lockheed Martin, as I had several good friends whose dads worked there. I had even had the opportunity to tour the Waterton Canyon facility a year earlier for the unveiling of a Mars spacecraft, so I was certainly intrigued and excited for the possibility of working there one day. The dean’s response is one I haven’t forgotten to this day, and it had an impact I didn’t fully understand until years later. He said, “Lockheed Martin takes the cream of the crop each year.”
I highly doubt that the dean meant any ill intent with his statement, he was simply noting the highly competitive nature of positions at the company. But the second I heard that, I wrote myself off. There was no motivational bell that went off in my head that spurred me on towards getting really focused and giving my best effort towards getting a job at Lockheed. All that went through my head at that moment was a subtle, but unequivocal cementing of my identity as being not smart enough to get a job at Lockheed.
Throughout high school and college, I struggled constantly with comparing myself to others in nearly every area of my life. High school is perhaps the best example of this. I went to a highly competitive public high school in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. It felt like a gauntlet of rankings everywhere I looked. I was good friends with the kid who finished 5th in our class out of 480, along with several others who finished school with above 4.00 GPA and 33-35’s on their ACT tests. I did perfectly fine for myself academically (I won’t share the numbers, as that would distract from my point here), but there was always an underlying assumption in my mind that I was not “one of the smart kids”. I accepted that I did well in school and even that I was smart, to a degree. But when it came to the 4.00 GPA/35 ACT students, I simply was not that student. I can distinctly remember multiple occasions when I would think to myself, “If I just tried I could be one of the smart kids.” This thought, ironically enough, was completely accurate. But every time I thought it, something within me rose up and smothered it, reminding me that I was not smart enough to be “one of them”. These constant comparisons became my identity, and it manifested itself empirically in my grades. In fact, I believe this negative self talk and constant comparison is the very reason that I did not attain the grades that I so desperately wanted. The comparing and negative self talk didn’t stop with academics, however.
In the athletic realm, arguably the quintessential high school hierarchy, I was far from a standout performer. I tried out for the high school soccer team my freshman year, and I was cut. This was for good reason, as I was mediocre at best on the field. However, I rarely, if ever, took practice seriously enough to ever see significant improvement. If I look back and am honest with myself, soccer wasn’t really my biggest passion at the time. I was mostly doing it because my friends were trying out too, and I wanted to establish some sort of “identity” for myself as high school started up. I’ll come back and address how my perspective on practice/training has changed since those high school days. As with academics, though, I was not motivated to train and practice to improve and attempt to make the team the following year. I simply attributed my getting cut from the team to me not being good at soccer, and coupling that with a middling level of passion for the sport, I ended up never again trying out for the soccer team. (An aside: I did end up playing ultimate frisbee for my high school my senior year. It remains one of very few sports I think I have some level of natural talent for. I enjoy it greatly and it motivated me to train/practice and improve my skills. The summer after I graduated I was actually invited to play on my coaches summer league team, where we won the Denver city league season. Point of the aside: find what you enjoy doing, it will motivate you to practice and improve at it, which builds confidence, which builds motivation, etc.)
I want to get briefly into some research that's been conducted on the power of negative thinking. Trevor Moawad is a leading peak performance coach, and has coached hundreds of top teams/players across multiple collegiate and professional sports. Here are some facts about negativity that he gave on a podcast episode I listened to recently: 1) Your increase in errors can go up by over 30%, 2) 83% of illnesses are facilitated, exacerbated, or started from negative thinking, 3) Consumption of negativity (news consumption) for 3 minutes is a 27% increase in the likelihood that we’ll say we had a terrible day. Those are some pretty crazy numbers. But even crazier...studies have shown that negative thoughts are 4-7x more powerful than their equivalent positive thought. In addition, thoughts that are spoken out loud are 10x more powerful than if we merely think them. When we couple these together, a frightening multiple emerges. A negative thought, when spoken out loud, is 40-70x more powerful than its equivalent positive thought. Perhaps the most infamous example of the power of a spoken negative thought comes from the 1986 World Series, which featured the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. The Red Sox were up 3-2 in the Series against the favored Mets, and Game 6 was tied after 9 innings. With two outs in the 10th inning, first baseman Bill Buckner rushed a routine ground ball hit towards him, causing the ball to roll off the side of his glove and into shallow right field. This allowed the winning run to score from second base, sending the Series to Game 7, which the Red Sox lost 8-5. This is one of the most infamous errors in World Series history, but not merely due to the botched ground ball. 19 days before Game 6, Buckner was interviewed by a Boston news station about the upcoming World Series. In the interview, he said the following: "The dreams are that you're gonna have a great series and win. The nightmares are that you're gonna let the winning run score on a ground ball through your legs. Those things happen, you know. I think a lot of it is just fate." Now, Bill Buckner foreshadowing that scenario didn’t invalidate the years of Major League experience he had under his belt. But by speaking it, he created a subconscious plant in his mind. These subconscious plants become a subtle part of our identities, sometimes lying undetected until a certain scenario arises. When Bill Buckner was faced with that ground ball, his mind reverted to that plant and he misplayed the ball, allowing it to roll past him and causing his team to lose the game.
Looking back at my high school and college years, I realized that I had a consistent pattern of negative thinking that very likely had significant effects on my academic and athletic performances. They were subtle, repetitive sentiments that over time came to define my identity. Over the past year or so as I’ve begun my post-college adult life, I’ve (thankfully) realized that those thoughts are not what define me. One of the best examples I can share from my own life of breaking through negative subconscious plants is running. Through high school and college, I tried to get into running several different times, and the longest I ever held a consistent running routine was maybe 3 months. I had a long held belief that I was not built for running, and I wasn’t good at it. The reason I wasn’t good at running had nothing to do with me not being built for running, it was entirely due to the fact that I never stuck with running long enough to see significant improvement. This created a negative feedback loop every time I tried to get into running, because I would attribute it to me not being built for running, lose motivation, and then drop the habit. This year, however, I broke through that limiting belief. I set a huge goal for myself of running a sub-25 minute 5k (3.11 miles). I had originally set this goal in the summer of 2018, and it had fallen by the wayside a couple of times. I started running in March, and ran my first 5k of the year on April 10. My time: a 29:29. 13 weeks later, I finally achieved the sub-25 minute 5k with a time of 24:50. After breaking this long-sought after goal, I decided to continue on with my training, and I reset my goal to a sub-20 minute 5k. As I write this in mid-November, my current PR is 22:30. In 7 months, I’ve dropped 7 minutes off of my 5k time. I share this progress with you because it showcases what happens when you remove the negative mental barriers and focus all your energy on improving on something you’re passionate about. Through achieving the 25 minute 5k, and continuing to get closer to the 20 minute barrier, I have been able to prove to myself that my running performance has nothing to do with “being a runner” or not. That is not an identity that I was born with, it’s something that I have created for myself through action, learning, failure, re-learning, and more action. Each time I go out and run, I cast a vote towards my identity as a runner. This leads me to a key point: you’re not unworthy of your goals in life, you’re simply inexperienced. I got better at running by running...a lot. You can achieve whatever you’re passionate about, but it’s crucial to acknowledge the work that it will take to gain experience and confidence in that area of your life. Even more important, it is paramount to fall in love with the process of improving. When we get into a reductionist mindset and focus on our results, we can easily fall into the trap of defining ourselves based on our achievements. Our achievements are amazing, yes, but we are so much more than our achievements. We are the source of those achievements, so we should celebrate us, not simply what we achieve.
This leads me to my final point. One of the foundational truths that I’ve been working very hard at accepting and believing is that worthiness is not something we can achieve. I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I felt unworthy to work at Lockheed Martin coming into college. I ended up interning there for three summers and getting a job working on the F-35 fighter jet program in January. I was elated to have gotten my dream job, until I started working, and the negative thoughts came rushing right back in. “Am I smart enough to be here?” “I don’t know as much as these other engineers know.” “I feel like a total imposter.” Here I was, at my dream job, and I still didn’t feel content or happy. I quickly realized that getting good at my job would take time, humility, constant curiosity, and hard work. There is no transcript, athletic accomplishment, dream job, relationship, or salary we can have that will suddenly check enough boxes for us to “be worthy”. Worthiness is something that we are all born with as created beings, an innate gift from God that is undeniable. So I implore you, acknowledge the gift of worthiness each and every day. From that foundation of worthiness and self-confidence, find your passions and pursue them. When you fail, acknowledge it as part of the process. If you’re not failing, you’re not setting big enough goals. Take the information from the failure, analyze it, and turn it into motivation and focus points going forward. As you gain more experience in your passions, you will gain confidence and skill, which will build motivation, which leads to learning how to improve, which leads to more confidence, and the cycle goes on. Fall in love with this moment and the process of learning and experiencing life to the fullest.
