Ben is the founder and COO of Omelas, a startup that is focused on using technology to fight propaganda. Ben’s journey, however, does not start there. His journey is a classic case of “do not try this at home” – as we walk through Ben’s story, I found myself impressed at the number of rejections and roadblocks he faced. Early in his career, he thought he landed his dream job, at the State Department, only to have the offer reneged. This led him to put his passion (which was diplomacy), to the side, while he pursued a “practical” career. A job from Google appeared just at the last minute, where he found himself in a role to help redirect terrorist search results. This helped re-awaken something he was passionate about and led to the founding of his current company.

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41k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here

The post Boundless Podcast: Ben Dubow On State Department Rejection To Propaganda-Fighting Startup Founder (Episode 10) appeared first on Boundless by Paul Millerd.

I only learned about consulting two months before being rejected by McKinsey. In the middle of my summer internship, my manager started telling me about consulting. That night I went home and lost several hours reading anything I could find about the consulting industry. I was filled with excitement. Getting to learn about different topics in a fast-paced way surrounded by great people? I knew this is what I wanted to do.

At the time, I had no idea how much time students at schools like Harvard, and Stanford had spent preparing just to get an interview. One friend who I later met at McKinsey told me he knew he wanted to work in consulting as a senior high school!

Given that none of my friends knew anything about consulting — I was preparing by practicing case studies in the mirror. When it came time to apply, I chose the brute force method. I found Vault’s Top 100 list of the best consulting firms and applied to every single one.

100+ rejections later, I ended up going back to work at GE. I had underestimated how much work and preparation it took.

I saved the rejection letter I got in 2006 from McKinsey.

Dear Paul,

Thank you for your interest in McKinsey & Company and your patience in awaiting our reply.

Unfortunately, we regret that we are unable to extend an interview to you at this time. Our team’s decision was a difficult one given the strength of our applicant pool and the limited number of positions available. In the event that our hiring needs change, we will get in touch with you directly.

On behalf of McKinsey & Company’s recruiting team, we wish you every success in your career.

All the best,

Recruiting Manager

McKinsey & Company

Rejection sucked — but it only added fuel to my determination. I didn’t see the rejection as an indication of my abilities, only as an obstacle to overcome. I kept reading and learning more about consulting and after working at my first job for almost a year, I started re-applying.

One day I was browsing jobs at my apartment when I stumbled upon a Manufacturing Research Analyst role on monster.com of all places (yes, really). As I read the job description I got more and more excited — I had a lot of the experience they were looking for from my time working in manufacturing in college. Holy crap, did they write this for me?

Later, I would find out that I had another moment of luck. The analyst who was hiring her replacement had recently been doing in-depth research on GE’s Six Sigma program when she came across my resume. Over the past year I had volunteered for multiple Six Sigma projects knowing that this might eventually help me land a job at a consulting firm.

Four months later, I walked into the McKinsey office and my life would never be the same.

When I walked into McKinsey in June 2008, I was on top of the world. I would later realize that I had, in fact, landed my dream job…

The two years I spent at McKinsey helped shape the person I am today and the leader I aspire to be. My time there was a period of unconstrained growth. McKinsey raised my expectations of what was possible for modern organizations. It made me realize that high-performing organizations were not only achievable but worth all the time and investment they took to sustain.

When I reflect back to my time — six fundamental things contributed to making this my “dream job”:

1. I gained an understanding of what “high performance” really meant: I had always been proud of the work I had done in the past but working at McKinsey changed the way I thought about creating something great. Through a healthy obsession (though some may argue otherwise) with logic, structure, and communication combined with iteration in teams of great people, I was always impressed with the result of the work I did at McKinsey. It was far better than anything I had done before. It has raised the bar for my own work and has raised my expectations of what is possible in the working world. (see related article: Decoding High-Performance At McKinsey)

2. I was surrounded by peers who did not see limits but saw tough problems to be solved: As I’ve gotten older, I have noticed that people in the business world seem to be very good at identifying why something cannot be done. To me, this is not an impressive skill. There are always 100 reasons why something cannot be done. While at McKinsey, I was surrounded by people that were hopeful and saw the world as something they wanted to help improve. When faced with a tough problem, I was surrounded by peers who would endlessly problem solve new ways of thinking about a problem or new ways to look at information. This may have been a factor of the relatively low age of most people, but I think it is inherent to the culture of the firm as well. It was fun.

3. I wasn’t the smartest person in the room, but I still held my own: I remember one project where I was working with a Rhodes Scholar who was a consultant and also happened to be a practicing surgeon on the side of consulting (not joking!). To say there were some impressive people would be an understatement. But there are also many more people who are not the next world leaders (and I mean that in the best way). While there, I found people did not pay much attention to where you went to school or what you did in your past. Everyone was treated as an equal and judged based on the quality of their ideas and thoughtfulness you brought to problem-solving. There is a cultural value of “the obligation to dissent” which I found to be terrifying at first (when Partners are asking you what you think on your first week), but wildly impressive after (I have not had many jobs where the leaders consistently ask ”what do you think?” and expect an honest answer.

4. Great mentors who believed in me: I had three different managers and a research team leader that was absolutely incredible. Whether they were a product of a system that knows how to develop people or they were just inspiring leaders (I think a bit of both) — the best thing they all did was give me space to learn, make mistakes, ask questions and develop. Looking back, my work product wasn’t the best, but they trusted me 100% and helped me build an incredible amount of confidence. I’ve realized that this is 90% of leading — finding good people and trusting them. I owe a lot to these people and was lucky to have these experiences

5. I knew I was lucky: While I was at McKinsey, I searched Harvard in the internal database and found 1000 employees that had some affiliation with the school. I searched the University of Connecticut (my school) and found six. This made me incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work there. As with every job — there were things to complain about. Given my perspective — I was able to look at these things with rose-colored glasses.

6. ”NAKC”: I worked at NAKC aka the North American Knowledge Center. Mckinsey started really investing in its knowledge network (much earlier than most other companies) and had an open and collaborative space in Boston. It was a collection of a lot of young (and all young at heart) researchers who also came from schools that didn’t typically have a shot working at McKinsey in the past. That office and the collection of inspiring people is by far the best environment I have ever been a part of.

I’ve turned my 10 years of experience in strategy consulting into a course. Curious to learn the “secrets of strategy consulting? Come join me at StrategyU.

41k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here

The post Getting rejected and then landing my dream job at McKinsey & Company appeared first on Boundless by Paul Millerd.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a coffee shop when I was taken over by a feeling. It was a feeling that the person I was talking to could accomplish anything. I was lucky to be talking to this person. Only nine months ago, he sought me out for advice.

But now I was learning from him. Over the next thirty minutes, I became inspired by Mike*, who recounted his path to breaking into investment banking, against the odds.

It dawned on me. Mike had a superpower.

I like being provocative. My favorite question to ask people is “What is your goal?” (I am the best guest at parties!). A lot of people will say “I want X.” My next question is a bit of a trap, but I’ll ask “how much time have you spent working toward that goal this week?” They answers are usually “none” or “very little.” This usually triggers an “a-ha” moment for many.

For Mike, I never needed to ask him this question. He knew what he wanted and was willing to put in the work to make it happen

As Mike told his story over coffee (well, tea for me — I love tea!) — I was impressed to hear that his story really started as a freshman in college. He knew from the beginning his path would not be easy — he didn’t have the advantage of being at Wharton or Harvard where the banks recruit large numbers of students each year. He would have to take a different approach — outworking them and taking several steps to get there.

As he recounted his path to landing multiple finance internships that set him up for achieving his ultimate goal, I realized Mike was like me. He enjoyed the journey and all the ups and downs that went with it. And, like in most stories of this nature, there were more downs than ups.

He walked me through his past year. To say it sounded frustrating would be an understatement. He applied to ten banks; at seven of these he had networked and developed solid contacts . Of the ten, only five even responded to him. One specific Managing Director was a fan and said “let’s get you in here for an interview day” in November. But before Mike was officially invited in for an interview, that connection disappeared. Mike followed up in December and January and got no response. He was starting to get worried. However, he decided it was worth one final push — he made one more call in February and left a message. He was either going to embarrass himself or finally break through.

After two more brutal weeks of waiting, that bank finally contacted him to bring him in for an interview. The Managing Director said he was impressed with Mike’s persistence. He nailed the interview and got the job in April.

As I listened to him talk more about his summer role, he was filled with joy. His eyes lit up as he went deep into his perspective on quick-serve restaurant industry, which he covers as an analyst. He was so passionate that I wanted to ask him for a job.

Mike faced a lot of rejection. He could have easily taken that as an indictment of his skills and abilities and stopped trying. However, he had a special superpower. It’s known as a “growth” mindset. This means that instead of a “fixed” view of his abilities, he believed anything could be learned. For these people rejection is not in fact, rejection. It becomes just another obstacle to overcome. I’ve seen this mindset in many successful people. They love learning and are the type of people you are energized to be around them. Just like Mike.

Walking out of that tea shop, I realized this is why I love connecting with people and helping them achieve their goals. What did I tell him when we first chatted nine months ago? Honestly, I don’t remember. It probably didn’t matter anyway. People like Mike enjoy the journey and know it’s filled with ups, downs and failures. But they keep going. For them, the power is in the journey.

*Real name disguised to protect the innocent

41k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here

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The post How to overcome rejection: harnessing your superpowers appeared first on Boundless by Paul Millerd.