The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

by Braun, Adam

  At the greatest levels of affluence, and the deepest levels of poverty, parents share the same desire for their children to have a better future. The willingness to sacrifice their own well-being for the betterment of their children is the common thread I witnessed across mothers and fathers from vastly different cultures. And yet, the playing field remains completely uneven.

  During those four months in Central and South America, I thought often about Joel. Each night, as I tossed and turned in search of sleep, I wondered if he was sitting up in his bed listening to those cassette tapes. He showed me the essence of leadership by forging into the unknown so that others could follow. He taught me to approach each new person I met with the dignity he or she deserves. And he proved once and for all that Will Ferrell is funny in every single language.

  On our last morning together I promised Joel and his father that I would return one day. Perhaps I could start something in the future that would support their region in Guatemala. I explained to them that at the end of my journey throughout Latin America, New York City awaited. I’d trade backpacks and buses for skyscrapers and subway rides.

  The city that never sleeps was about to add one more nightwalker to its masses.

  Mantra 7

  ASKING FOR PERMISSION IS ASKING FOR DENIAL

  Bain & Company, the consulting firm that had just offered me a dream job and FedExed a contract that I had yet to sign, flew me and more than twenty other prospects to New York City, put us up in fancy hotels, and invited us to an opulent weekend of extravagant events to learn more about the company and ideally commit to working there. The capstone affair was on Saturday night, a private dinner at BLT Fish, one of the hottest restaurants in the Meatpacking District. I traded my T-shirt and shorts for a dress shirt and slacks and congregated with other prospects on the top floor, where we gathered to accept our job offers in front of the company’s most esteemed partners.

  The scene looked much like you’d imagine Wall Street did in the 1980s, with top-shelf liquor and flowing champagne. Periodically throughout the meal, the head of recruitment stood up and honored the individuals who had already committed to Bain.

  “From Harvard, congratulations to Steven Thompson. From Princeton, a warm welcome to Maria Akadia,” she shouted as she handed out bottles of champagne to each new official employee. “Anyone else want to commit?”

  Well-dressed soon-to-be college graduates rose out of their seats, declaring, “I’ll commit!” More champagne bottles popped, and everyone in the room cheered. The Bain employees at my table watched me closely as the other prospects rose from their seats, one after another.

  I had decided that I would pick Bain over my other offers, but like most of the people there, I waited for the ceremonial dinner to make it official. Toward the end, I stood up to announce that I would join as well. Cheers went up from across the room, and a flute of golden champagne was placed in my hand. The whole scene felt foreign, but it felt good.

  In the months leading up to this dinner, I had been operating on a tight budget, which had me staying in youth hostels abroad and eating a diet of ramen noodles. But tonight I was enjoying a fantastic steak I didn’t have to pay for. It was the best food I’d had in months.

  I was sitting to the right of Bain NY’s youngest female partner, and I noticed that although she ordered the filet mignon, she didn’t touch it; she only ate the vegetables. I had finished mine within five minutes, but her perfect steak remained untouched. Perhaps the alcohol emboldened me to get a little too comfortable, but when she waved her hand for the server to clear her plate and went back to her conversation with the person on her left, I discreetly stabbed her steak with my fork and placed it on my plate.

  Yes, it was an idiot move. And apparently I wasn’t discreet at all.

  “Did you just take my steak?” she asked, turning to face me.

  The entire table—partners and prospective colleagues—looked at me. Someone else echoed incredulously, “Seriously? Did you just take her steak?”

  My face filled with prickly heat. I could feel myself turning bright red. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. I definitely shouldn’t have had that last glass of champagne. Or the one before it. “I’ve been backpacking for so long and this is just too good to let it go to waste. I don’t know what I was thinking, but that was totally inappropriate. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, now you have to eat it,” said the partner across the table, smiling. For the next several minutes, everyone’s eyes remained fixed on me as I polished off my second steak of the evening. It was as delicious as the first, but I felt the dissonance between backpacking culture and corporate privilege with each bite. One thing was clear: if I was going to do well at this company, I needed to change more than just my clothes.

  * * *

  I was ecstatic to land the Bain offer, but accepting it had not been an easy decision. The best firms decide on candidates during the same few weeks each fall, and I’d been through interviews with five investment banks, five consulting firms, and one private equity shop during two frantic, rapid-fire weeks.

  At my Goldman Sachs interview they asked questions designed to rattle me. “What’s the sum of all the numbers between one and one hundred?” they asked on a whim (answer: 5,050). Blackstone Private Equity had eight different employees put me through the wringer, requesting that I build balance sheets and financial models from scratch. When I thought I’d crushed my interviews at a boutique consulting firm that I’d viewed as my “safety” job, they called to tell me that I didn’t impress them whatsoever.

  I began to understand clearly that I could never make assumptions about how others perceive me. Each day several doors closed, and others opened, some more promising than others. First rounds became second rounds, which became final rounds, but nothing was guaranteed until I had an offer in hand.

  After I completed the interviews and returned home, I waited nervously to hear back from each company. I received a call from Bain (my top choice) the day before my birthday. After several white-knuckled minutes of small talk, they made an official job offer, and along with the contract, they sent a massive chocolate cake with the Bain logo and “Happy Birthday Adam” written in frosting on top. It was a terrific birthday present and I was thrilled, but I also received an offer from Lehman Brothers in its esteemed investment bank division.

  Lehman was appealing since the pay as an investment banker was considerably higher, but the drawback was that it would require me to work like a dog. While the hours in consulting weren’t insubstantial—I was told I’d be in the office from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.—the hours in banking were more demanding, and all the first-year investment bankers I knew hated their jobs. At Lehman I would learn how to manage capital but at Bain I would learn how to manage the operations of a company. My plan was to take one of these jobs for a few years and then go to a hedge fund or private equity shop, where the real money was. Once I had a deep enough bank account, I could go off to start my dream nonprofit organization. But first I needed money and I needed experience, which meant I planned to work in finance for the next fifteen to twenty years.

  I hoped that one of my mentors who ran a successful financial-management firm, George Stanton, could help me make the right decision.

  “There actually will be times in life when you should choose money over experience,” he said with a stern voice, “but make that choice when the margin is much bigger, when the margin is millions of dollars, not thousands. Although fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money to you right now, in the grand scheme of things, experience will be much more valuable in the long run.”

  George’s advice rang in my ears that night at BLT Fish when I committed to Bain. I decided I would view my time at the company as a form of paid business school. They could work me as hard as they wanted, as long as I learned along the way. Compensation comes in many forms, and if you define your expectations up front, you’ll gain far more than just money from the jobs you take.

  After severa
l weeks of rigorous training, my first project was to help design the real estate growth strategy for a well-known retailer. I ended up working for the partner whose steak I stole. Fortunately, she laughed about it at our first meeting. “It was a bold move. Ridiculous, but bold too,” she teased.

  The work at Bain was intriguing during the first few months because the learning curve was so steep. The training was intense and I was gaining new skills that I knew would be valuable throughout my career. Building financial models and impressive PowerPoint presentations was fun at the outset, but by the end of my first year I couldn’t look at Excel spreadsheets for twelve hours a day and not lose my mind—so I found other ways to make the environment more entertaining.

  As a middle child I’d honed my skills as a prankster, and this became my calling at the company. I would fill the printer with pink paper, turn my coworkers’ cubicles into newspaper-covered forts, and constantly mess with my closest friend, Priya. I’d fill her gloves with paper clips, reverse everything on her desk to create a mirror image of how it was supposed to look, and place face lotion on her phone headset before calling her extension.

  Although I genuinely liked the people I worked with, I lacked passion for the work itself. I couldn’t get excited about making credit-card companies more money by reevaluating their customer-acquisition process, investigating long-term disability insurance for insurance giants, and so forth. As an associate consultant, my job included taking notes in client meetings. In the first few months I diligently recorded the statements of the attendees, but soon I found myself nodding apathetically while writing personal journal entries in my spiral notebook. I scribbled, I wish I was more interested in this work, but it’s just not for me. Find your passion, and you’ll find your strength.

  Instead, I spent my first year in New York City drinking and chasing girls. I went out partying five to six nights per week, every single week. I’d often guzzle ten to fifteen drinks in a night, bouncing from bars to clubs until sunrise—whatever it took to get me to feel happy, free, and alive.

  I began to detest putting on my consultant’s outfit of slacks and a tucked-in button-down. I felt as if I were wearing someone else’s uniform. When it came to my year-end review, I was told that my work was error-free and my contributions to the team were valued, but there was a major issue. I looked as if I didn’t care in client meetings.

  I shrugged off the review and told them that I would try harder. But I knew it was a lie, just as they did.

  * * *

  A little more than a year into my job at Bain, in September 2008, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. What would have happened if I’d gone right instead of left and chosen Lehman over Bain? The offer that appeared financially better ended up being far less secure. I realized how easily material things could be taken away. I really began to evaluate what I was doing. I was partying nearly every night. When my doctor asked me how many drinks I consumed per week, I answered honestly, guessing about fifty. He looked up from his clipboard in shock. “Are you kidding? You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up!”

  I recognized that my liver couldn’t sustain my drinking habit much longer. Worse, when I evaluated my life, I didn’t like whom I had become. I was completely self-absorbed, only chasing things that benefited me personally. I hadn’t done anything truly nice for anyone else since I’d moved to New York. Although I lived in a beautiful apartment and had access to parties, girls, and everything I thought I desired, I felt empty and awful inside.

  When I sat with my parents, I told them, “I want to work on things that I’m more passionate about.”

  “You can’t. First you need real-world experience,” they said. I was on a safe path to financial security, and they didn’t want me off it.

  “But I don’t feel like myself,” I complained.

  “That’s what it means to do a job!” yelled my dad. “Grow up, and stop being such a baby.”

  * * *

  He was right. It was time to grow up. A few months before, one of the world’s leading nonprofit foundations became a pro bono client at Bain, and I politely emailed the manager running the case to ask if I could join her team. She didn’t select me, and probably with good reason. During the annual company meeting, it was announced in front of every partner and manager that I was voted “Most likely to be sleeping in the wellness room,” which everyone knew was the spot for a nap after a big night out. The award itself was a playful gag, but it was a wake-up call for me about the reputation I was building within the company.

  I clearly needed to change things fast, and I couldn’t do so by waiting around for someone else to clean up my act. I needed to take charge of my own fate. I started by focusing on my health, spending less time at bars and a lot more time at the gym. My energy levels increased, and I found myself feeling more confident and alert in meetings. When another opportunity arose to work on a case with the leading nonprofit delivering poverty services within New York City, this time I didn’t ask.

  I sought out the person managing the case, my friend Priya, whom I used to prank all the time, and told her outright that I was going to join her team. I was serious about the work, and there would be no fooling around when it came to delivering results. When I told her I was prepared to start showing up in team meetings whether I was assigned to the case or not, she knew that she had no choice.

  Asking for permission opens the door for denial, and in this instance I would not be denied. The willingness to aggressively go after what I wanted most had become the other personality trait that I was known for at the company, so she was aware that I would do whatever it took to get on the case. I guess stealing a steak off a partner’s plate earns you that reputation.

  In the months ahead, working alongside Priya to help improve the operations of an organization that I wanted to see succeed allowed me to put everything I’d learned at Bain into action. The late nights building Excel models paid off, as did all those meetings where I reluctantly took notes. I now knew how to quickly crunch numbers and present effectively in front of others. I could feel my old sense of self start to reemerge. My work wasn’t perfectly aligned with my passion yet, but I now knew that when an opportunity presented itself, I would seize it without hesitation.

  Mantra 8

  EMBRACE THE LIGHTNING MOMENTS

  Just as I started to settle into the rhythm of New York City living, I found out that I was nearly eligible to apply for the Bain “externship,” a six-month leave where I could work at a company of my choice and then return to the security of my job at Bain. I wouldn’t be an official Bain employee during my leave; I would be paid by the company that hired me for those six months, but having a safety net to return to gave me all the confidence I needed to step out on a limb and try something new.

  While most people externed at start-ups, hedge funds, or private equity firms, some did use their time to work at nonprofits. This could be my chance to work more formally with Scott Neeson at the Cambodian Children’s Fund. In addition to expanding its child-sponsorship program, I could use part of my time away from Bain to backpack throughout Southeast Asia. This was exactly the type of life I’d been dreaming about, and I became completely focused on getting everything in order to secure my externship.

  As my attention started shifting away from Bain, I started looking more deeply at my life beyond work. I was meeting some extraordinary people in New York and having more inspired conversations. My friend Dennis from SAS had put me in touch with his friend Jen Williams, who was working at a nonprofit. Dennis thought we would become fast friends, so on a Saturday morning in late September, Jen and I met for brunch. She told me about her work with the Linus Foundation, a nonprofit started by students in the Washington University class of 2006 to offer service and support to homeless youth. Over a stack of pancakes and orange juice, she explained how she managed teams across seventeen campus chapters via monthly board calls.

  “How many employees do you have?” I asked.

&n
bsp; “No, this isn’t my job,” she clarified. “I work in marketing at a strategic PR firm. Linus is something I do on the side.”

  “Oh. But what about the guys who started it? Don’t they do this full-time?”

  “No, this is on the side for them too. Everyone has a regular, full-time job. We do it as volunteers because we love it.”

  This was a revolutionary idea to me. Since I’d moved into New York City, my life had consisted of working at Bain and drinking after hours. Sometimes those two overlapped, but I’d never considered doing anything else. The concept of having any kind of extracurricular life had been buried after college. I didn’t do clubs. Or take classes. Or engage in anything besides work and play.

  “How can I get involved?” I asked.

  * * *

  After brunch, I met up with Dennis to walk through Central Park. It was a beautiful, warm September afternoon, the last gasp of summer; the leaves had yet to change. But a tense feeling was in the city. We were on the cusp of a total economic meltdown. Lehman Brothers had declared bankruptcy, and Bear Stearns had gone under months earlier. Layoffs were rampant. Some of my friends who had just started working were getting fired and returning home to live with their parents.

  Dennis had chosen to leave his job at Bank of New York to build a start-up that allowed individuals to crowdsource funding for movie-studio films. He and Zach, the two friends I had traveled to Southeast Asia with years earlier, had successfully raised money from venture capital investors to chase their dream.

  “I admire your courage to leave a secure job,” I said as we meandered through the park. “But my plan is to work for the next twenty years, make as much money as possible, and then use that affluence and network to build schools throughout the developing world. But I’ll only take the risk once I’m financially set.” I was convinced I had it all figured out.