Beki Fraser: 0:01

What would make a small-town girl from Wisconsin leave her fiancé an offer on a house and move halfway across the country? For me, it was an opportunity to attend Yale University. Going to Yale taught me more than book smarts. It taught me risk-taking and what planning really means in real-life situations, which helped lead me to where I am today. That's the short story. Hi, I'm Beki Fraser, an award-winning coach, author and entrepreneur. I'm also a leader shaped by decades of experience inviting others on a journey towards adaptable leadership and fulfilled potential. Welcome to Short Story Long.

Beki Fraser: 0:42

In this podcast, I share stories of inflection points in my life that changed who I am, what I do and how I do it. It seems we're all encouraged to create big goals and build plans to achieve them. They talk about smart goals, they talk about building out five-year plans and they talk about all of these kinds of things, and the fact is is that works for some people and it doesn't always work for everybody. There's a quote, I think, from Winston Churchill plans are of little importance, but planning is essential. What I like about that is that I'm a leap then look kind of person. So for me, it's really hard to think about this stagnant plan that sits on a shelf collecting dust. I want to be the person who's planning and responding to new ideas and new kinds of things. I'm the one who stands off to the side talking to people going hey, I have a cool idea and, admittedly, sometimes people look a little afraid when I say that kind of thing. And, admittedly, sometimes people look a little afraid when I say that kind of thing. But my plans, if you could call them that, are really in a constant state of change.

Beki Fraser: 1:51

Earlier I told you the short story, and this is the long version. I mentioned that there was this small-town Wisconsin girl. What I didn't necessarily mention was that she had finally finished her degree and was figuring out what was next in her life. Yep, that was me, and my professional life was a little bit dreary because that degree that I had gotten wasn't actually very marketable, and so I was sitting there looking at all of these opportunities going yeah, I don't think anybody's going to hire me for that and I had to really think about what was going to be the plan, and ultimately I did recognize that my plan had to include graduate school at some point in time, and so that was really part of that not now, but next part of my professional planning I had a job sort of it was a limited term employment kind of position. The pay wasn't great and the benefits were zero and it was on soft funding, which meant that I didn't really have an opportunity to stay there forever, because it's just not the way that that position was designed.

Beki Fraser: 3:13

Meanwhile, in my personal life, things had gone forward a little bit and I did have a bit more of a solid kind of plan built there. I was engaged to be married. I'd been dating the guy from shortly before I graduated from school. We had decided to get married. We'd even put down an offer on a house. You know, here I am with this steady, job-ish and moving forward, trying to figure things out, and ultimately one of the things that I did was I did trade out that limited term employment position. I actually worked with someone who'd been a vendor for us and all of a sudden I was getting a little bit more money and even yay benefits, and so I had this movement forward. But I still knew that there needed to be more in front of me. But that was for future me, that wasn't for current me, and ultimately one of the things that I decided to do with that future.

Beki Fraser: 4:14

Me sort of plan was I took the GMAT. I wanted to go to business school and I knew that mostly because many of the graduate programs that you have well, you need to write a thesis paper and I didn't want to do that. So for me it was business or it was law, and I had been working at the law library throughout my university career. I recognized I really didn't want to go through that experience. So business it was and off I went to take the GMAT. It turns out I'm actually pretty good at taking those standardized exams and I know that they can be stressful for a lot of people, but for me, for some reason, it just was one of those things that I'd study a bit. I understood the concepts behind it and I could be successful at narrowing down those multiple choice questions into well, you know, sometimes C is for cookie and that's what you choose, but other times I felt like I was pretty confident making those choices and taking those answers.

Beki Fraser: 5:14

And so with that, as I moved forward, one of the things that happened was I started getting all of these catalogs for all of these business school programs and here I am in my apartment sitting with all of these paper catalogs, because at that time they were all paper catalogs. Internet did not exist At least it did not exist nearly like it does now and so I'm surrounded by all of this paper and of course I'm curious, I'm flipping through them, I'm looking at them, but I'm getting married this fall, so I'm not looking for applying to any of them yet, but I'm sort of dreaming to the next year or two when maybe then I'll be able to apply and find a school that fits. Well, there's risk in that kind of thing. Right, you're sitting there, you're tempting yourself with all of these different opportunities to be able to see these different programs, and, lo and behold, temptation came and I fell. I saw Yale University's School of Management program and naturally it was pretty and glossy, like all of the rest of them, but it also had a program that was teaching in terms of public, private and nonprofit, and for some reason that really appealed to me, that that was the kind of program that I thought was really kind of cool. Wow, you could really take that and you could explore going into careers in a variety of different ways. After seeing that particular catalog and a couple of others, I would say.

Beki Fraser: 6:52

I sat down with my fiance and I said, hey, I think this looks kind of cool, right, like this program. I mean, these are a couple of them that call to me, but while this one I have to say this just seems like a really cool opportunity, I feel like I maybe want to apply to this one, I have to say this just seems like a really cool opportunity, I feel like I maybe want to apply to this one. I mean, let's face it, they're not going to let me in. That's not what's going to happen. But at least you know I can say that I put my toe in the water. I've tried writing an application, I've done an essay, that kind of stuff, and then later on, when I'm actually doing it for real, I have a little bit of experience and it might work out for me. And he was like, yeah, I mean, what could possibly go wrong, right? And so we decided that, yeah, okay, I'll apply for this, and you know, when I get the rejection letter, then it's no big thing and we'll just keep on going and we'll plan our lives together, we'll be living in the house and we'll do all the fun things that we are planning to do with our lives. Well, you know, when you take a risk like that and you think that you're going to fail, sometimes life offers you an inflection point and I have to say the inflection point showed up in bright, shiny colors.

Beki Fraser: 8:00

I had been telling my friends and my family, my fiance, my employer and oh hey, yes, myself. I had been telling me they aren't going to accept me. It doesn't matter, and all of the sudden the mail comes and it's the fat envelope. If you've gone to university, you know the fat envelope. That's the acceptance one, because they're giving you more information. The thin one, those are the ones that give you fear. I see this fat envelope and I'm thinking, ah, okay, good, I'm alone. And so I open up this envelope and I see this acceptance letter and it's like the world stopped for a second. And I'm sitting there thinking I have to go, like this is super exciting, this is a big deal. And all of the sudden my world flipped. My whole focus was I must do this.

Beki Fraser: 8:57

It's not like it was such an easy choice. I mean, really, one of the things that was available to me was to follow the existing plan. I think I've told you I'm not really great with the plan. I'm better with the planning. Whew, I had a cool idea. I think I'm going to go to Yale. Nothing else in that former plan had a chance.

Beki Fraser: 9:17

And so what ended up happening is I'm all excited. I'm going to tell my fiancé that didn't really go to plan either. He wasn't nearly as excited as I was. I just couldn't get it. I'm like why wouldn't I go? This is such a great opportunity, this seems like a really cool opportunity for me to move forward and live this new dream that we hadn't thought of yet.

Beki Fraser: 9:42

And his response was it's going to cost a lot of money and you're going to get all of this student debt. And you must recognize, throughout my undergraduate degree, I had already accumulated some pretty significant, admittedly, student debt and I was already in a place where I was in the job. That was not necessarily a career, it was really this is going to pay my bills for now, and it wasn't a career opportunity. So the hopes and dreams and, let's say, the plan that I had for going to university at all, had somewhat developed but hadn't really come to its full fruition. And here I am saying I know I'll go to school, I'll get, I don't know, probably five times the debt On top of this. You know, in some ways it was reasonable for him to have that question and he didn't want us to be facing that kind of debt if I couldn't get that really financially rewarding role post-Yale that's current Becky saying that Becky back then she wasn't so understanding and so I did not react well. I can absolutely admit I did not react well and I left that engagement. I left that man behind because he was a good guy but he wasn't the right guy, and I left the house behind because you can't have the house when you're living halfway across the country. So I had to leave that behind. I also had the golden opportunity to talk to my employer, who was not as concerned but not particularly happy that after just a couple of months of working for him, I was telling him that in a couple of months I would be leaving. To his credit, he actually took it pretty well. He was a really good guy who understood the opportunity that was in front of me.

Beki Fraser: 11:48

It feels like the right thing to highlight right now is how many changes I was actually going through. I'm this small town, wisconsin girl goes to university. All of the sudden, I have this plan and now it's changing. The man I thought I was going to marry turns out he's a good guy but not the right guy. The role that I had, the job opportunity I was in. It was a good job and it had a place to go, but it was no longer the vision and the potential that I saw for myself going forward. And the house was a first house and I could have gotten a first house anywhere, and so this was an opportunity for me to live in a different part of the country and experience something new, and that is without even getting the education from Yale. So part of it really kind of comes back to how could I choose anything else? And I guess maybe that's just what was going on in my head, because maybe other people would have thought about that in a different way and it would have served them well, but for me I could no longer live the original plan.

Beki Fraser: 13:03

This was that inflection point for me, where a plan is great but planning is essential. And now I'm going into planning, into this new adventure, this new opportunity for me. So the new opportunity for me doesn't have the wedding anymore. I needed to sell that wedding dress that I had bought. For that big day it was no longer working in that job. That was interesting but wasn't full potential. It wasn't living in that house. That was in a geography that was part of my current and my history but wasn't part of my future. There came that day when I realized that the old plan was gone. There came that day when I realized that the old plan was gone. What am I going to do? I guess I need to plan for the future, and all of a sudden I got to invest all of this time in planning for what this new potential really offered to me, and I was able to bring a couple of people into that process with me.

Beki Fraser: 14:12

When I left my fiancé, I actually moved into a house. I just rented a room from a woman I did not know, and that was before. That was normal. So that was pretty exciting and a little bit of a risk. But she became a friend of mine and so that really worked out nicely and we spent a lovely summer together.

Beki Fraser: 14:29

At the end of that summer I had persuaded my sister to ride with me in the U-Haul truck all the way from Madison, wisconsin, to New Haven, connecticut. That MapQuest software was not everything you would have dreamed it to be and usually it sent you into worlds unknown. I get in there and we've got these sheets and my sister bless her, I love her and I think she'd even admit that she's not always the best navigator. And here we are eating meals of Skittles, drinking soda, so we're solidly sugared up, which I can tell you did not help my driving skills and did not help her navigation skills, so we got a little bit off course a couple of times. We had some fun adventures as we did that. So we get into New Haven really late at night and they're really narrow streets and you don't have those in Wisconsin. They're a little bit wider, almost boulevard-y, compared to the whole New Haven narrow streets, and so I'm trying to navigate carefully without knocking my big U-Haul truck into all of these nice cars that I'm driving by.

Beki Fraser: 15:44

And I have an opportunity to see my new roommates. I'd met both of them before, one I'd even met in person and I really appreciate that time with my sister to be able to drive halfway across the country. She actually did that trip with me a couple of times but thankfully it was in a vehicle that was not a U-Haul truck and we were able to navigate a little bit more easily and she also had an opportunity to meet those two roommates and so when I was talking about them she knew who they were and that really helped me bring my past into my future in that kind of way and it eased my planning process because I could see that connection between those two things. But then my sister had to leave and I had to get ready for figuring out what was this Yale experience even going to be. A couple of things really started to hit home for me and again it was that difference between the plan that I had and where my life was heading now. I was actually supposed to get married in September of that year and instead I was starting classes at Yale University. I was supposed to be probably moving into that house that we had put an offer in and instead I had traveled with my sister halfway across the country to move into a house with virtual strangers. And it was also that last piece that my sister could come with me on that part of the journey, but it's not like she could stay for the rest of the journey in front of me.

Beki Fraser: 17:25

I had a pretty close relationship with my family Even when I was living in Madison, it was maybe a four-hour drive in order for me to get back to see my family, and now it was closer to 17. Family and now it was closer to 17, because a graduate student doesn't easily afford to fly back home and that's a lot of road time in a vehicle that maybe won't make it that far that many times, and so I was leaving a whole lot behind. And yet one of the things that I truly remember about those early days in those classes was how excited I was to be able to meet my classmates and really set my eyes going forward, because, again, I'm the one that enjoys the planning. The plan can change, because, to me, the fun and enjoyment of figuring out what's the next step, where am I going to go, how do I get the most out of where I am right now and where I'm heading next, those are the big things, in fact. The other thing that I really recognize and realize is how often we make decisions and we really we know the top layer, we know the first reason that we made that choice, but there are often so many additional layers that are beneath that, and I think it's really important for us when we're making challenging decisions and when we get into these inflection points that we take the time to think about it a little bit more deeply.

Beki Fraser: 19:07

That was a long story, but so what Now? What? As you know, was the first one in her family to go on to university and get that degree. That put her in a position where she was in debt with a good job that was only taking her a short path forward, engaged with an offer on a house. And now that girl has graduated from Yale University School of Management and she's no longer engaged. She doesn't even have a prospect. The house she's living in is actually rented because of the job that she had was supposed to be a rotational kind of position with a local pharmaceutical company kind of position with a local pharmaceutical company, and so she knew it was going to be a temporary place and she would continue to be moving on looking at new things.

Beki Fraser: 20:08

There were a couple of things to learn from this experience. One thing that may not be so easy to admit was that my ex was right. I did accrue a whole lot of debt. In fact, that debt was almost the equivalent of what that new house would have cost me with that original plan. But you know, I was able to pay that off and that's where he was wrong. I did that within a decade because for several years I continued to live like a graduate student instead of a young professional. I have to admit I thank him a little bit for that. He inspired me those thoughts and concerns that he had. As I said before, they were kind of reasonable. It's just I didn't share the same fear and concern that he had and it paid off because I was able to figure out a way that even maybe that first salary wasn't all the salary that my classmates were getting, but it was enough for me to make extra payments on that debt and he inspired me to pay that down as quickly as I could. Payments on that debt, and he inspired me to pay that down as quickly as I could.

Beki Fraser: 21:30

The other thing that I think is really important is that I recognize that education is not only about what you learn in class. I learned that a little bit when I was in college, but grad school really brought that home. I had a friend who made me promise that my first year at Yale I would not take on a job. He wanted me to focus on not only the education. He wanted me to focus on the relationships and the experiences that I could have. That was incredibly valuable advice. The people were amazing. About 30% of my class was international students. I had a chance to get global insights before I had ever left the United States. The experiences I had included all of Yale University, so the repertory, theater and going out and swing dancing was a big thing at the time, and I even took a Latin dance class with a classmate of mine. We used to have all sorts of fun and experiences, and, yes, there were the two o'clock in the morning conversations about that econ problem set, because all of us were still up at two o'clock in the morning before that was due. It wasn't all fun and games, but we certainly found a way to connect with each other, build beautiful relationships and really kind of fulfill all sorts of experiences that we otherwise might not have had exposure to.

Beki Fraser: 22:59

The big thing, I think, for me, though, was really about recognizing a little bit more about myself. I was in this place where I could recognize that I really had not believed in myself. I had been telling everyone and, as I've said, even myself, that I wasn't good enough for Yale, and I was. I was good enough for Yale. They just knew it first. And when you believe in yourself, you can see the potential that is in front of you. And when you doubt yourself, like I doubted myself, all I could see were the steps that were in front of me. That were the smaller ones, and now I had bigger shoes to fill and I had no idea where this journey would take me from here.

Beki Fraser: 23:51

In fact, one of the things that I wrote in my book Coach you the Introverted Skeptic's Guide to Leadership, is a chapter called Hold your Labels Lightly. Some of the thinking in that chapter really come from this time, because my labels of myself were farm girl, relatively unsuccessful college graduate, ready to get married and follow the script that maybe my family had written for me a little bit more than what I had written for me and so this idea of holding your labels lightly means that you can flip that script and you can write your own story. Thank you for listening to my story. My hope is that you will get insights for leading as you. If you know someone who would benefit from this episode, be sure to share it. Interested in connecting with me on LinkedIn? Drop me a note telling me where you found me. The link will be in the show notes. Okay, bye.