Have you ever been at a meeting where all you can think about is how much more productive you’d be working alone at your desk? And how much of the company’s money is swirling down the drain while your co-workers surreptitiously check their Blackberries under the table? And how you wish you had made like the crew of the Enola Gay and carried a cyanide capsule with you?

People hate meetings. But it’s not the meetings themselves that are inherently pencil-in-eye inducing, it’s how meetings are run. Without a real leader, meetings can become unproductive and inefficient, not only wasting time and money, but sapping office morale. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

A man knows how to lead. He knows how to run a meeting that starts on time, ends on time, and gets things done. Here’s how.

Establish whether the meeting is absolutely necessary. Before you even think about scheduling a meeting, figure out if you really and truly need one. You should only call for a meeting if:

• The information to be discussed could not be disseminated via telephone or email. Meetings should never be called when only a one-way information exchange is needed.
• There are clear benefits to having everyone together in one room.

Set an agenda. This is crucial for a productive meeting. Without a clear, pre-set agenda, a meeting will drift off-topic and interminably drag on. And then when you’re done and everyone has dispersed, you’ll suddenly remember an important point you forgot to bring up, thus necessitating another meeting.

Type up an agenda for the meeting with a specific list of what items will be discussed and in what order. Email everyone a copy a day or two before the meeting to give them a heads up about what to expect and some time to start thinking about the issues and what they’d like to contribute. People can also make additions and objections to the agenda before the meeting instead of at the meeting. Make it clear in your message that if it’s not on the agenda, it can’t be discussed at the meeting. Paste the agenda into the body of the email. People don’t open attachments.

Make sure key people will be in attendance. If you call a meeting when you know key people can’t come, you’ll basically spend the meeting trying to talk around them and saying, “Well, we’ll have to wait to see what Mike has to say before we can start on that for sure.” Decisions get deferred, more meetings are necessitated, and you waste time afterwards bringing the MIA people up to speed. Arrange a meeting for when you know key people can make it.

Talk one on one with people to resolve pet issues before the meeting. Even if you make it clear that only agenda items can be discussed during the meeting, there are always people who try to break this rule and bring up their favorite pet issue. These people can get the meeting way off track. If you know someone has an issue that doesn’t really affect the group, talk to them one on one before the meeting to preemptively resolve the problem and nip their meeting interruption in the bud.

Bring bagels or donuts. The only thing that makes meetings a bit more palatable is something for the palate. Bring something for people to munch on.

Set up the chairs in a U-shape. There are 3 different ways to set up a meeting room: the U-shape, a circle, or lecture style. Lecture style, with everyone sitting side by side and facing the front, gives the leader complete control, but doesn’t allow for any collaboration. The circle lends itself to a feeling of equality and plenty of group-think, but with no clear leader, the discussion can easily devolve into a bunch of flapdoodle. The U-shape is the best compromise; it gives people a chance to share and collaborate, but the guy at the top of the U is recognized as the leader and can keep things on track.

The circular, uber-democratic, let’s hug it out style has been in vogue for awhile now, and it makes everyone feel important, but it’s also the reason meetings get off-track and become totally unproductive. The truth is that not everyone does have something important to say, and a leader is crucial in keeping things focused on the things that matter.

Start on time. And don’t recap for late people. Doing so legitimizes lateness and disrespects those who made an effort to show up on time.

Begin with what was accomplished since the last meeting. “Last time we talked about x and here’s how it’s been implemented.” If you don’t want people to feel like meetings are pointless, you have to offer some proof that they’re not.

Get to the heart of the matter. Remember, meetings are not for the one-way exchange of information. If there’s background information people need to know in order to engage the issues, circulate this information in a flier or email before the meeting so everyone is up to speed and you can skip the milk and jump right into the meat. At the meeting, succinctly describe the issue or problem and quickly move into coming up with a solution or course of action.

If people haven’t prepared for the meeting by reading up on the background information or otherwise, then dissolve the meeting. Moving forward will just be a waste of time. This takes some balls, but people will come ready next time.

Come up with a tangible solution. Many times during a meeting when people are unable to attain a consensus, the issue is tabled for the time being, which means of course, that there will inevitably be another meeting in the future to again address the problem. So whenever possible, preempt these future meetings by coming up with a concrete solution and specific actions for people to take. This is where your quality as a leader is tested-can you break through the stalemate, broker a compromise, and come up with a solution?

Control the discussion. Perhaps a leader’s most important job is keeping the discussion productive and on topic. There are several ways to do this:

• Get feedback from everyone. Having a clear leader in a meeting does not stifle feedback and collaboration, it ensures it. Without a leader, the opinionated loudmouths, who do not necessarily have the best ideas, will dominate the discussion, while the more reticent can’t get a word in edgewise. Draw out the quiet people by asking questions like, “Jane, you’ve had a lot of experience with that company, what is your opinion of their proposal? Of course, some people are quiet because they have nothing insightful to offer. A good leader knows which is which.
• Ask good questions. Sometimes people can’t come up with the right solution simply because the leader isn’t asking the right questions. Ask questions that will really make people think and look at something from another angle.
• Shut down disruptions. It’s perhaps the hardest part of the job, but a leader must tactfully shut down people who are getting off-track, whether they’re simply going on and on or they’re just way off-topic. Wait for the bloviator to take a breath and then say something like:
  • “That might be a good subject to discuss another time, but let’s get back to talking about X.”
  • “Why don’t the two of us discuss that after the meeting.”
  • “Good point but we need to get back to agenda.”
  • “Let’s table that for now but we can put it on the agenda for next time.”
  • “I’ve just signaled for Tom to render you unconscious with a blow dart to the neck.”

You don’t want to come off as a jerk and cut them off, but it’s best to err on the side of having a firm hand. While the windbag may be a bit chastised, everyone else in the meeting will inwardly be  applauding you.

Summarize the meeting. At the end of the meeting, quickly tick off a list of everything you have accomplished and resolved to do. Delegate tasks and make sure everyone is absolutely clear on what their individual responsibilities are. Don’t ask for “other business.” You’re just opening a can of worms. Remember, if it’s not on the agenda, it’s not going to be discussed.

End on time. If you want people’s attitude towards meetings to change, then they have to know they can trust them to start and end at the specified time. Your task as the leader is to set the pace and keep things moving so you accomplish your goals within the set time.

Follow up and make sure things gets done. This is just as important as the meeting itself. Remember, at the start of the next meeting, you’re going to have to summarize what was accomplished since the last one. You better have something to say.

Of course, if you’re not the leader, than there isn’t much you can do to curb meeting inanity. But meetings are a great place to show your potential leadership skills. Come on time, be prepared with good ideas, and hopefully you’ll soon be the guy standing at the top of the U.

What are some of your tips on the do’s and don’ts of running an effective and productive meeting? Share them with us in the comments!

• Introducing The Art of Manliness Discussion Forum
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2008
• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 3: Find a Mentor
• Is it Manly to Swear?
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Law School Finals Edition

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Any man who has ever watched the Indiana Jones movies has had the thought of becoming an archaeologist cross his mind. Turns out the job is not quite like Indy’s adventures, but you do get to wear khaki pants and a hat, get really dirty, flee from snakes, and uncover relics of the past. Still pretty sweet.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

My name is Dan, and I am 29. I have a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Minnesota State University, Mankato and am nearly finished with a Masters in Geographic Information Systems from St. Cloud State University which is also in Minnesota. I work for the U.S. Forest Service as part of their TEAMS Heritage Resource Enterprise Unit. We provide trained archaeologists for National Forests that need survey work done on the property they manage. Our team is unique as we don’t belong to any one National Forest, but are “deployed” as the need arises. Kind of like the archaeological version of the Special Forces. This year I will be working on projects in Texas, South Dakota, California, and Idaho. I’ve been working for TEAMS for almost a year, and worked as an archaeological field technician for private environmental firms for 3 years prior to joining the Forest Service.

2. Why did you want to become an archaeologist? When did you know it was what you wanted to do?

Although I grew up with a love of history and of the outdoors, I didn’t realize I wanted to be an archaeologist until I was 23 and was nearly finished with a totally unrelated college degree. I can pinpoint my decision to be an archaeologist to a single day. I was traveling overseas and was wandering around Sophia, Bulgaria and happened upon a museum of archaeology, which contained a really impressive collection of ancient Greek and Roman archaeological artifacts. Staring at everything from ancient building columns, roman military battle gear, and even long buried sarcophaguses, I marveled at the thought of the experience of pulling something like that out of the ground and thought I would give it a try.

3. If a man wants to become an archaeologist, how should he best prepare?

Archaeology is one of those fields where you need a college degree, preferably in Anthropology or a closely related field such as History or Geography. Most have a degree in Anthropology. You can get work in the field with just a Bachelors degree, but if you want to lead crews and conduct your own research a Masters degree is needed. While you’re getting the degree, it’s also almost universally expected that you attend a “Field School,” usually a 4 to 6 week course that has you in the field for the first time learning how to dig in the dirt like a real archaeologist and becoming knowledgeable in the tools of the trade. In my case this involved living in a tent for six weeks working alongside 25 other students while we excavated a Native American site dating back to 1050 AD. At night we camped out under the stars, drank whiskey and listened to stories told by the college professor that was running the course. I was fortunate enough to have a really inspiring professor that knew how to get the best out of his students, and it was a really fantastic experience.

Besides the educational background, one should be comfortable working in the outdoors for long hours in all conditions. I’ve met archaeologists that seem to really dislike being outside, and I can not for the life of me figure out why they became archaeologists. Unless you are one of the few archaeologists that become college professors, you are going to spend a majority of your time outdoors, walking for miles on field surveys, digging for hours into the earth and generally getting completely filthy every day.

If you were the kid that always came home with dirt on you jeans and a bullfrog in your pocket, this might be the right job for you.

4. How do you go about getting hired for a dig? What sets a candidate apart from others when he’s vying for a job?

Most of the jobs for entry level archaeologists, also called “Shovel Bums,” involve working for Cultural Resource Management (CRM) firms on contracted survey projects, working for the company for an hourly wage as long as they have work for you to do, much like working for a building construction crew. You find out about these jobs largely through word of mouth, and through websites specifically intended for employers to post job details and their staffing needs. Then you send in your resume and hope for the best. Once you pay your dues as a Shovel Bum, you will hopefully be picked up as a Crew Chief, and start earning a 365 day a year salary with benefits. The fastest way to do this is to be recognized as reliable and hard working field technician, while at the same time working toward a specialization within the field of Archaeology, such as analysis of lithics (stone tools), pottery, or osteology (study of bones). My specific specialty is GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, which is used to map out archaeological sites and collect other data using GPS devices, computers and other digital devices. Basically, you have to make your self stand out, as just like in any other profession, there are plenty of people who are happy to just show up and punch the clock.

5. What is the best part of your job?

Reaching down into the dirt and picking up an arrowhead that hasn’t been held in 800 years or more. It gives an instant connection between you and the person that left it there so long ago.

6. What is the worst part of your job?

The time away from family due to the crazy amount of traveling I do. If I could do this job and still be at home every night for dinner, it would be the perfect career.

8. What’s the work/family/life balance like?

It’s tough. The term “Behind every great man is a great women” definitely applies here. Without my wife being as supportive as she is, there is no way I could have the career that I do. The most important thing is to leave work at work, and when I’m at home concentrate as much as I can on the relationship with my wife and family.

9. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job? Or in other words, how much does your life resemble that of Indiana Jones?

The biggest misconception is that I don’t dig up dinosaur bones. People confuse us with paleontologists all the time. Also, being an archaeologist is not nearly as exciting as the movies make it out to be. Archaeology is a process, and a very methodical one at that. Archaeology is a destructive science; once you remove soil and artifacts from the ground, they can never be returned exactly as they were found. We dig into the ground, removing 5-10 cm at a time so that the soil and the artifacts we remove can tell us the story of the past. It is our responsibility to convey that story to the rest of the world.

As for the Indiana Jones analogy, although there are dangers in the job, I have yet had to outrun a huge boulder or use my whip to disarm a Nazi. There are some similarities though. I am always traveling to new locales and working in areas of the country I’ve never experienced before. My hat is never far from my head, and khaki pants are part of the standard uniform. Snakes, especially rattlesnakes, are almost always an issue in many of the areas I work in. Other dangers include spiders, bears, and stumbling upon back country drug growing/manufacturing areas while on survey. I believe the real similarity between Indy and many of us mortal archaeologists is continuing to find the magic in human history and the cultures that came before us, and I doubt any archaeologist who spent part of theit youth in the 1980’s didn’t have Indy as a huge influence in deciding his career. How could you not?

No matter how hard they deny it, every archaeologist is a fan of Indiana Jones. Without him, our field wouldn’t seem nearly as romantic as it does. Whenever I travel to new projects I always bring at least one, if not all four Indy films with me, because it reminds me of the reasons I got into this job.

10. What’s a typical day like on a dig?

Managing an active dig site is like trying to keep multiple plates spinning at once. Everyone on the crew has a job to do, and everyone is doing it at the same time. Excavation crews are bringing down the “floor” of the excavation unit in 5-10cm levels, while some of the more artistically inclined are drawing and photographing the floors and walls to document the layers as they are removed and excavated further down. If artifacts are found, they are photographed in place, locations mapped in relation to the rest of the excavation unit, and removed. Technicians take data using GPS receivers to continue mapping out the site and its boundaries digitally. Elsewhere on the site, a geophysicist might be using ground penetrating radar to search for undiscovered features such as the remnants of old building foundations hidden under the ground.

I imagine watching a dig site from above is quite like standing over a busy ant hill.

11. What do archeologists do when they’re not on a dig?

The dig is only part of the scope of the project. After the field work, artifacts must be sorted, cleaned and cataloged. Data must be organized, analyzed and reports finalized. Grants need to be written and projects need to be bid on. Being in the field is the fun part. The rest of it keeps the business going.

12. What’s the coolest thing you’ve helped uncover?

A previously undiscovered Shoshone village in Utah. It all started with the discovery of one arrowhead and turned into the identification of a lost community.

13. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

Even with all the education and training, if you become an archaeologist, you are probably never going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams. That’s just not how it works. Comfortable, probably. Filthy rich, probably not. The happiest and most successful archaeologists are the ones that genuinely love what they do. Take that into consideration before you invest all the time, tuition and weeks away from your family that is required for this field.

If you do pursue archaeology as a career, good luck. There are precious few jobs out there that allow you to use your brain as well as you brawn on a daily basis. For me a rainy day in the field beats a sunny day in the office any day.

• So You Want My Job: Antarctic Driller/Researcher
• So You Want My Job: Game Warden
• So You Want My Job: Golf Pro Instructor
• So You Want My Job: Farmer
• So You Want My Job: Peace Corps Volunteer

Image from Chicagos Finest

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Today we hear from a man who works as a police officer in a specialized unit that does everything from undercover work to patrols in high crime areas. Because of the nature of his job, he asked to remain anonymous.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from?How old are you? Where did you go to school? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

I’m from the Kansas City area. I’m 29. I went to school in the suburbs around here and college at a small school in southeastern Kansas. I’ve been on the department just short of 5 years. I’m married with no kids. I’m the first police officer in my family.

2. Why did you want to become a police officer?

I think it’s important to say that before people read my responses they understand that: 1. These are only my opinions, from my experiences. 2. I work in a high-crime urban area.

I used to have a desk job at an advertising agency. One day, I was sorting through all the minutiae of corporate nonsense and just decided that I was tired of having a “job,” and working for the weekend. All the things that were of grave importance in my life at that time-TPS reports, water cooler gossip, etc.-none of it mattered in the grand scheme of things to me. Taking all that into consideration, I looked at what I thought separated a “job” from a life’s work and used that to start looking for another career. In short, I wanted to find something that dealt with true human emotions. I wanted something that tested who I was.

Don’t get me wrong, I have complete respect for the guy who gets up every day and drives in the same traffic, to the same cube, to do the same thing, every day. That life just wasn’t for me.

3. If a man wishes to become a police officer, how should he best prepare?

I don’t really know how to best prepare.  I guess you’d have to ask yourself why you want to do it. If someone came up to me and said “Got any tips?” I’d probably tell them that knowing you do the best job you can is the only reward you should expect. If that’s ok, go apply. If you want parades, it might not be for you.

With that said, the things you would typically assume are pretty good places to start. A criminal justice degree couldn’t hurt. A lot of larger departments are looking for college-educated candidates. Having a job in a related field, like loss prevention, is also something a lot of folks do. I say this, but I never did any of it personally. I’d feel fraudulent saying they are necessary.

4. What is the process like of being accepted to a police academy? If you make it through the academy, are you guaranteed a job?

Basically the process of getting hired is like this: Apply, then wait to hear from them. A background investigator will dig around about you to your friends, family, employers, etc. If you check out OK then they’ll call. Next, go in and run a timed obstacle course (it’s a doozy), then wait to hear from them. Go in and take a polygraph based on your background investigation, then wait again. Go in for an oral interview, then wait again.  After awhile, they’ll call you and tell you if you’re hired. If so, you go into the academy. My “awhile” was almost two years.

A typical day may consist of studying constitutional law. Learning how to handcuff a combative person. Learning to shoot properly, i.e. moving and shooting, combat shooting. You may then have classes on dealing with death or cultural awareness for the end of the day.  They really cram a lot into the academy. I couldn’t begin to explain how taxing the process can be mentally and physically. It’s by design though, to inoculate people to stress.

Are you guaranteed a job? In these tough economic times, I’d have a hard time saying that you’re guaranteed a job. It used to be that you were hired if you made it through the process. That’s not really been the case recently. Our department did get a grant recently that allowed for the hiring of a few more people.

If and when you make it through the academy, you will begin what is called break-in. Break-in is where you ride with a field training officer (FTO). You and the training officer will then take all the “hot calls” in your division. A hot call is the really bad stuff like shootings, cuttings, rapes, etc. The purpose is to see how you respond in a real world setting. If you’re FTO feels like you’re not an idiot, and you’re not going to get yourself or anyone else hurt, you get released. After break-in, you just go out there and get to work.

5. Why did you want to join a specialized unit within the police department?

I was really interested in all of the facets of police work that this unit does. I can’t speak for all departments but it seems that on bigger departments, in urban areas, it’s better to be good at a lot of things versus great at a couple.

Our squad does all kinds of cool stuff. A typical week might consist of uniformed patrol of an area in response to a rash of shootings. The next day could be a prostitution decoy with our VICE squad. Then you may be in plain clothes doing surveillance on a person that has been identified as a high-profile criminal. Essentially, we are tasked with a problem and given the freedom to solve the problem within the policies of the department.

It’s a ton of fun, and I get to work with like-minded people.

6. What are the advantages to joining a specialized unit? Do you get extra pay? Do you find the assignments more interesting?

You would join a specialized unit because it’s an area that interests you. SWAT guys want to be SWAT guys for example. However, there can be benefits that stem from the training you receive. For example, an officer who has been trained in accident reconstruction can then consult with insurance companies and bring in additional income that way.

It is also gratifying to make it to a specialized unit. Most of them have some sort of testing process, usually both mental and physical.  Extra pay isn’t generally a benefit. It can come in other ways like overtime. Some squads will work a lot more overtime because of the nature of their position. A homicide detective has to work a murder when it happens. If it’s at the end of their shift, that’s just how it goes.

A comment about pay: In this job, you don’t get bonuses for putting “x” number of murderers in jail or anything like that. The same goes for speeding tickets. You get paid on a tenure scale. A lazy slug of an officer with 6 years on gets the same as a go-getter with 6 years on. At least that’s how it is for us.

7. Are there any drawbacks to joining a specialized unit?

Sure, there can be. Your days on and hours get moved around, so it can be tough to plan a social life.  It’s also easy to lose certain skills that are essential to some areas of the job. For example, if you buy dope as an undercover for five years, you’re probably going to be behind the curve on writing certain reports or changes in basic procedures if you go back to the field.

8. What is the hierarchy like both in the police department in general, and within a specialized unit? How do you get promoted?

Ours consists of the following ranks in order: Officer, Sergeant, Captain, Major, Colonel or Deputy Chief, then Chief. You promote by testing and meeting certain criteria. A sergeant must have five years in the field and so many hours of college credit. You work your way up the ladder and the amount of education also increases. Some ranks require a master’s degree.

A specialized unit will usually require “x” number of officers to make up a squad. A sergeant will supervise the squad. A captain supervises each line element. A Major oversees whole divisions. A Colonel oversees an entire discipline like patrol or investigations. It’s complicated. Essentially, the higher you go the less time you spend getting in foot chases and wrestling with bad guys. The higher you go, though, the more money you make.

9. What is the work/family/life balance like?

Hard. It ends relationships. You just do the best you can, that’s really all anyone can ask of you.  More importantly, that’s all you can expect of yourself. You will miss a lot of birthdays and holidays. The people around you don’t understand why because they all work 9-5. Your loved ones will resent your job. It’s isolating.

It can be tough to relate to regular people. Sometimes, when someone complains about how hard work is, you want to ask them if they’ve ever held a dying baby or been spit on. It’s easy to develop that f-you attitude.

Fortunately, I have an awesome wife who gets it. That’s rare though.

10. What is the best part of your job?

It can be a lot of fun if you want it to be. If you do it the right way, you really do contribute to a greater good. You will have experiences at work that put everything about life into perspective.

11. What is the worst part of your job?

The human animal. You see the worst in people. You will be asked to do what other people are too unskilled, unwilling, or afraid to do themselves. They will be happy to judge how you do it, or criticize your decision though. It can be very easy to develop a general disdain for people, or groups of people.

Another issue is the constant judgment. Don’t get me wrong, there certainly are some officers that do wrong. They are a lot more that don’t though. Once you put that uniform on people associate you with their past experiences and assumptions.

12. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

People that aren’t cops think they know what cops do. It’s natural to quantify someone based on a role. It’s human nature to judge, so you become whatever that person perceives a “cop” to be.  In the average persons head a baker bakes, and a bricklayer lays bricks. So, it’s only logical that a cop does cop stuff. All they know cop stuff to be is a combination of their own interactions with the police and what they see on T.V.

For example, people will ask me questions about a speeding ticket they got and have no idea that I’ve never written a speeding ticket. I don’t know how to use a radar gun, and I have no desire to learn. That’s just not what I want to do.

13. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

Just take a moment and thank someone who does a job that you won’t do, that you benefit from. It doesn’t have to be a police officer. Thank your mailman. Thank a schoolteacher. There are a lot of good people who do tough jobs. It’s nice to hear that people appreciate it.

Also, people ask how to get out of a ticket a lot. There is no fail-safe way. I can tell you these things though that can help:

When you see the flashing lights, pull off the road to the right. If there’s an outlet off the roadway within sight, pull off there. This is so we don’t get run over.

Put your hands on the wheel and roll your window down. You know that you’re not a maniac with a gun. We don’t though. If it’s night-time, turn on your dome light.

Be polite and honest. You don’t have to incriminate yourself, but own what you did if you know you did it. If there’s a good reason for it, explain yourself. Understand that if you’ve been stopped for it, that officer has decided that they will swear under oath that you did it. Being truthful is respectable and that goes a long way.

Thanks for the opportunity to share a bit!

• So You Want My Job: Game Warden
• So You Want My Job: Air Force Pilot
• So You So Want My Job: Army Scout
• So You Want My Job: Firefighter
• So You Want My Job: Archaeologist

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Today we hear from one of the dedicated men serving our country in the Armed Forces. Caleb DeArmas is a Cavalry Scout in the US Army who will soon be sent back to Iraq for another tour of duty. Thank you for your service to our country, Caleb and thank for particpating in our SYWMJ series!

To learn more about Corporal DeArmas, you can check out his blog.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? Where did you go to school? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it).

My name is Caleb DeArmas.  I’m 23 years old from Orlando, FL and I’m a Corporal in the United States Army.

I’ve been in the Army as a Cavalry Scout since 2006 and was sent to Iraq in 2007.  I’m headed back to Iraq in about 6 weeks.

As a scout my job is to move around the battlefield to gather intelligence on all aspects of the fight in order to help the commanders build a better picture of what is happening on the ground.  However, due to the dynamics of the fight in Iraq I spend most of my time fulfilling an Infantry type role.  I go on patrols and raids and all the stuff you see soldiers do in the movies.

2. Why did you want to join the Army? When did you know that it was what you wanted to do?

In January of 1991 I was a 5 year old kid sitting on the floor in my living room watching Operation Desert Storm unfold every night on CNN.  From that point on I never wanted to do anything else, much to my parents’ dismay.

After 9/11 my desire to join was only further fueled.  I felt and still feel that as an American citizen it was my responsibility to my country to sacrifice a few years in order to defend her.

3. If man wants to become an Army Scout, how should he best prepare? How much choice does the Army give you in what kind of job you are put in?

One of the great things about the Army – the reason I chose it over other branches – is that you are guaranteed your job upon enlistment.  Given you make it through Basic Training.   Unfortunately, these days everyone makes it through, and it is up to the unit to weed out the ones who don’t cut it.

The best preparation for the job is rather simple.  Run. Do pushups. Repeat.

Physical fitness is key to making it through Basic Training.  Don’t worry though, if you want to go into the Army but can’t do any pushups, they’ll take you.  And you will be able to do pushups when you’re done with Basic. Lots of ‘em.

The one thing I wish I had prepared better for was the ruck marching (marching around with a 35-40 lb backpack ranging from 3k-25k).  The Army understands that most guys aren’t going to walk around their neighborhoods with weighted backpacks to train, so you work your way up in distances and weights. But it is definitely something to get used to.

4. How competitive is it to get a job as an Army Scout?

As long as you score high enough on the ASVAB (the military’s version of the SAT) and you don’t have any major criminal issues in the past, it’s pretty much guaranteed – at least in title.  Everyone who joins the Army to be a Cavalry Scout will go to Fort Knox, KY to train to be a Cav Scout.  The real test is when you are sent to a unit.  If we get a soldier who just doesn’t cut it we’ll simply get rid of him. That could mean anything from sticking him at a desk to push paperwork to kicking him out of the Army.

5. What sets a candidate apart from others when he’s applying?

Physical fitness.  It’s the number one killer of soldiers across the Army.  If you can’t pass a PT Test (2 minutes pushups, 2 minutes sit-ups and 2 mile run) then you’ll never make rank or be given opportunities to succeed.

6. What is the best part of the job?

There are several but my favorite would be the fact that I get paid to drive around sitting behind a .50 caliber machine gun all day.  It’s almost like being in the movies.

7. What is the worst part of the job?

There are 2 major drawbacks to being a Scout.  The first – it is a deadly job.  It is a very real fact that when we do our job we might not make it home at the end of the day, but it is a price we are all willing to pay.

The second is the fact that I only get to do my job when I’m deployed.  While in the States in between rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, we spend a lot of time doing mundane things like working on trucks and cleaning weapons.  They are very necessary things, as is all of the training we conduct in the States, but most guys will agree with me- you don’t feel like a Scout until you’re outside the wire in some far off country sitting in an OP (Observation Post) trying to catch the bad guys at work.

8. What is the biggest misconception people have about the job?

That we run around shooting and causing a ruckus all the time.  Most of the time I am performing some kind of maintenance on my equipment or being so bored that I actually wish someone would try and blow me up – just to relieve the boredom.

9. What is the work/family balance like?

It depends on where you are in the deployment cycle.  Immediately prior to and after deployment most commanders try and give you as much time with your family as possible, however during deployment I’ll only see my wife once for 15 days out of 12 months. During the training cycle before deployment it’s almost like a regular 9-5 unless you’re out in the field.  Field problems range from overnight to 30 days.

10. What is the hierarchy like in the Army? How does one “move up” in the job?

Promotion through the early ranks is guaranteed after a certain amount of time. However a commander may deny promotion or delay it due to discipline issues or PT failure.

In order to become a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) you have to be selected.  There is a promotion board which tests you on your job knowledge as well as overall Army knowledge.  Upon passing the board everything you’ve accomplished in the Army is assigned a point value and if you have enough Promotion Points, you are promoted.

11. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

I encourage anyone who wants to experience the Army to try it.  I have only once regretted my decision (the first time my truck was blown up), and I go to work excited every day.

For anyone who’s interested in seeing the kinds of thing that happen to a regular ground pounder in Iraq you can check my blog.

I haven’t updated much since the last deployment, but I try to update weekly when I’m “down range.”

If anyone wants to know how to support the guys that are already in country feel free to email me or leave a comment on my blog, and I will readily send you an address to a soldier or an organization looking for support.

• So You Want My Job: Air Force Pilot
• Lessons In Manliness: Private Ross A. McGinnis & Petty Officer Michael Monsoor
• So You Want My Job: Game Warden
• How To Become the Go-to Guy at Work
• Man Cookbook Link Fixed

When Theodore Roosevelt did things, he did them with gusto. That included reading. Roosevelt was a voracious reader. The man devoured books like a damn hungry lion feasting on a fresh kill.  While in the White House, he would read a book every day before breakfast. If he didn’t have any official business in the evening, he would read two or three more books plus any magazines and newspapers that caught his fancy. By his own estimates, TR read tens of thousands of books during his lifetime, including hundreds in foreign languages.

Roosevelt accomplished this feat because he knew how to speed read. Associates said he would would flip through two or three pages in a minute. Despite reading so quickly, Roosevelt could relate back  in minute detail all of a book’s important points and even recite quotes from the text.

Being able to plow through so many books so quickly benefited TR’s leadership and influence. He easily connected with others as he could hold a conversation with anyone on any subject imaginable. Scientists were  blown away with Roosevelt’s knowledge of complex theories, socialites were smitten with his witty insights about the latest piece by Oscar Wilde, and cowboys out West respected the “Eastern Dude’s” understanding of desert wildlife. TR’s life as a bionic book worm also provided plenty of grist for the 2,000 published works he turned out himself.

In this post we provide some suggestions and tips so you can start speeding reading just like Theodore Roosevelt. Are you ready to start devouring books with your brain? Let’s get started!

How to Speed Read

Stop subvocalizing by counting.When we learned to read, we usually read aloud and pronounced every single word that we saw in a line. This slows reading down considerably because you can only read as fast as you can talk. While you may long ago have graduated from Hooked on Phonics and transitioned to reading silently, you probably still subvocalize. Subvocalization is when you pronounce words with the voice in your head or larynx. You might even open your mouth silently as you read, sort of like a guppy (I do this sometimes and my wife makes fun of me for it).

Quitting the subvocalization habit can be hard. First try simply reading faster than your mouth can move or the voice in your head can speak. If that doesn’t work, try this technique: Repeatedly say “A-E-I-O-U” or count “1, 2, 3, 4″ as you read the text. This will help train you to stop reading with your larynx and guppy lips and start reading with your eyes. This little trick can increase your speed in a matter of minutes.

Stop backtracking by using your finger. Backtracking slows many readers down. After reading a word, a person will read two or three more words, but then dart their eyes back to the first word. You probably do this without even realizing it. Watch someone read. You’ll see their eyes darting back and forth. Chances are they’re re-reading the same line over again.

To help you stop backtracking, use your index finger as a pace car. Underline the text with your finger at a pace faster than you normally read. Only look at the text in front of your finger; once you pass it with your finger, you can’t go back.

Use your peripheral vision. Your brain can comprehend several words at a time. You don’t have to read every single word by itself. The key with speed reading is to start reading multiple words at a time instead of just one at a time. To read chunks of text at a time, you need to start developing your peripheral  vision. Here’s how:

Take a book and draw two parallel lines about three inches apart from each other down the middle of the text. Concentrate on the area between the lines and try not to move your eyes outside of them. See if you can catch the words beyond the lines in your peripheral vision. Being able to indirectly read words in this way will greatly increase your reading speed.

Another thing you can do to get in the habit of reading text in big chunks is to practice speed reading with newspapers. Newspaper columns typically measure 1.83 inches. You can only fit five to six words in that small space, thus providing you the perfect platform to master reading text by the chunk. Instead of reading word by word, try reading line by line. It takes some practice, but you’ll find yourself breezing through the local story about the cat that got stuck on the roof in a matter of seconds.

Train your eyes with free web apps. Several free web applications exist that help users stop backtracking and train their eyes and mind to read more than one word a time. Spreeder is my favorite. Simply copy and paste the text you want to speed read into Spreeder. Spreeder will then flash chunks of your text on the screen until it goes through the entire text. You can decide how many words Spreeder will show at a time and how fast you want the words to appear. I actually used Spreeder during law school to help me quickly read through cases. Not only was I able to get through assigned reading faster, I trained myself to stop backtracking and subvocalizing as well.

Try the z method. The idea that reading must be done linearly is a myth. Your mind is pretty dang amazing, and it can actually process and understand stuff even if you read it backwards. Take advantage of this by employing the z  method. Basically the way this works is you start off on the first line and read it normally- left to right. Of course you’re not subvocalizing, and you’re not making any unneeded stops. When you get to the end of the first line, sweep your eyes from right to left diagonally across the second line until you get to the beginning of line three. Repeat this z pattern down the page.

You’d think you’d miss information by simply scanning across every other line backwards and diagonally. But try it for yourself. With practice, your brain will be able to pick up information backwards and in the periphery. Pretty dang amazing.

Know when to skim and scan. In addition to reading quickly, Roosevelt looked for places where he could skim and scan. In a letter to his son Kermit about the best way to read Dickens, Roosevelt said: “The wise thing to do is simply to skip the bosh and twaddle and vulgarity and untruth, and get the benefit out of the rest.” We can follow that advice for most things we read.

Not every word is important when conveying an idea. For example, articles like “a,” “an,” and “the” can be eliminated from most text, and you can still understand what is written. With practice you can train yourself to look over these unnecessary words and focus on the meaty stuff.

Another thing you can do to help focus on keywords is to skim through the book’s table of contents and section headings so you have a general idea of what the section is about. This will prime your brain to be on the look out for words related to the topic when you actually start reading.

Of course, the pleasure of some books is the masterful whole, the entirety of language and the author’s carefully selected words and purposefully constructed sentences. The joy of such literature comes in soaking up the text precisely as intended. In such cases, it’s best to slow down and take it in.

Have any other speed reading tips? Share them with us in the comments!

• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 27: Start a Book
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2008
• How to Hit the Speed Bag Like Rocky Balboa
• Motivational Posters: Theodore Roosevelt Edition
• The Manival #4

Arthur St. Antoine test-driving a Reynard Formula 3000 race car in Canada.

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Do you like adventure? Would you like to get paid to go on one? Do you like cars? Do you like to drive them really fast? Would you like to get paid to write about going on adventures and driving fast?

Sound too good to be true? Well, Arthur St. Antoine has such a job. Mr. St Antoine’s background is James Bond-ian in nature; he is an experienced racing driver, pilot, scuba diver, and photographer. But instead of using these skills in the field of espionage, he employs these passions as an adventurer, writer, and Editor at Large for Motor Trend, where he tests and reviews 150-200 cars every year.

Whether or not you’ll every get to strap into a Ferrari for a day at the office, Mr. St. Antoine’s tips on winning your dream job are right on the money. Many thanks to Arthur for this engaging and inspiring interview!

If you’d like to learn more about Arthur and read more of his writings, check out his blog at Motor Trend, “The Asphalt Jungle” and his personal website as well.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Where did you go to school?)

I was born in Washington D.C. on Pearl Harbor Day 1960, just prior to John F. Kennedy assuming the Oval Office. Washington was an inspirational place to live as a wide-eyed young boy—especially at the time I was there. In particular, I remember visiting the old Smithsonian and seeing some of the early Mercury and Gemini spacecraft not long after they’d flown in space—they were practically still hot from re-entry. Had a life-lasting effect on me.

My family later moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan (my father was a law professor and, for seven years, dean of the Michigan law school). I attended the University of Michigan myself—though I can’t say I amounted to much academically. Managed to graduate with an English degree. My younger brother and two younger sisters would later go on to earn post-graduate degrees from Ivy League universities. Me? After college I went to race-driving school.

2. Why did you want to become a writer/road test driver/road test editor? When did you know it was what you wanted to do?

I can’t say that I ever knew precisely “what I wanted to be.” I still don’t. I do know that I’ve always been drawn to writing, adventure, exploration, and interesting machines. As a boy, “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” changed my whole concept of what’s “out there,” what’s possible in life. When I watched Cousteau, I knew one day I wanted to live as he did—travel, explore, discover, push myself to learn new and unusual skills. I didn’t know how I’d do so, of course. The moon landing in 1969—which I followed live on our battered old Zenith—was also a revelation. While I never actually entertained the notion of becoming an astronaut myself, certainly the audacity of Apollo 11 and the other missions sparked an ambition within. I’ve since gone on to become both an advanced scuba diver and a licensed airplane pilot.

Cars also fascinated me—particularly Formula 1 racing machines. As a teen, I chanced upon a Saturday afternoon showing of the 1966 movie “Grand Prix,” and was immediately hooked. Here were modern-day knights in little cigar-shaped missiles doing battle at incredible speeds in places like Monte Carlo. It wasn’t enough simply to watch such romance and spectacle from the sidelines; I knew someday I had to partake for myself. Thus, my post-college visit to a race-driving class.

3. Your job would make many men foam at the mouth with envy. How did you find your way into the position?

Take every job seriously, no matter how small. It teaches you professionalism. And you simply can’t predict the connections you might make, the examples you might set for yourself. During college, I worked summers (and some nights during the school year) waiting tables and doing catering jobs for a high-end Ann Arbor restaurant. After I left college (and my restaurant job), the restaurant happened to cater a party for Car and Driver magazine, also based in Ann Arbor. My ex-boss mentioned to one of the C/D staffers, “You know, we have a former employee who loves your magazine and loves cars. In fact, he just took off for racing school.” And the Car and Driver person replied, “Really? Well, send him over. We’re looking for an intern.”

It was lightning in a bottle. Without knowing how I’d ever parlay my loves of writing, cars, and adventure into a career, suddenly I had a foot in the door at a blue-chip enthusiast publication. Within a year, then-editor in chief Don Sherman, to whom I’m forever grateful, gave me my dream shot, promoting me to associate editor—a full-time job writing road tests and news stories. Two years after that, I became managing editor. The ME position was more of a desk job than I wanted—I was mostly editing the work of other writers and running the production aspects of the magazine—but I took it on because I knew it would be good training for the future. After three years, I quit as managing editor to become a full-time freelancer, with Car and Driver as my main client. Luckily, I had a boss (C/D editor in chief William Jeanes) who understood my desire to branch out as a writer—and actually encouraged me to do so.

After moving to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, I began doing more and more adventure and car writing for magazines like Men’s Journal, Marlboro’s Unlimited, Los Angeles, and others. I’d think up some dream idea I wanted to do—climb icebergs in Alaska, hang out with NASA astronauts at the Johnson Space Center, scuba dive on the wrecks where they filmed the James Bond movies in Nassau—then I’d sell the idea to a magazine and get them to pay for it.

By the mid-1990s I dabbled as a copywriter in the advertising business for a few years, always freelancing on the side (many nights I didn’t sleep!). Around 2002, I “traded team flags” and joined Los-Angeles based Motor Trend magazine as Editor at Large. The position allows an exceptional amount of freedom—I write a column, road tests, features, and blogs for Motor Trend, but I’m also able to pursue outside stories such as my adventure writing. I’m very lucky in that respect. I’ve always placed personal freedom very high on my life-priorities list.

4. If a man wants to follow in your footsteps, how should he best prepare? What kinds of things are a magazine or company looking for when they hire a road test driver? How important are personal connections to people already in the biz?

Being a car enthusiast, of course, helps considerably. Back when I started in the biz, what certainly bolstered my chances for securing a full-time gig was my encyclopedic knowledge of Formula 1 (“Hey, Art. Who won the 1961 World Driving Championship?” “Mmmm, that was Phil Hill.”) I was passionate about it, and it showed. Also, I could write. Simply loving cars isn’t enough. You must have strong journalistic/English skills—whether from college classes, working for a local newspaper, etc. Of course, before my first auto-magazine job I’d also saved up for performance-driving classes on my own, and have continued to take such courses throughout my career. I’ve now attended something like 12-14 racing/high-performance driving schools in North America and France, plus I’ve raced in categories ranging from Showroom Stock to various formula cars. Nothing builds your driving skills quicker than wheel time at a race track (and, no, performance driving is a skill that cannot be learned on public roads).

Being savvy with a camera helps, too. I spent much of my free time in junior high and high school shooting pictures with friends and working in my own darkroom. Even if you don’t end up shooting photos yourself, knowing what the photographer needs in terms of light, positioning, etc., can really help during hectic assignments.

For sure, industry connections are big. In fact, any connection can yield unexpected benefits. That’s why I say, don’t ever think any job is too small. You might be painting some guy’s house, and he’s really impressed by your work, and it turns out he knows someone who works at the office you’re trying to break into and he’s happy to put in a good word. Such personal connection gets you right past the pile of résumés on an HR person’s desk. It works the same once you’re writing for magazines. One editor knows another, and they recommend you, and suddenly you have more work. It amazes me how lightly some people treat great opportunities. I’ve seen guys land internships at the car magazines I’ve worked at, then blow their futures by not listening, being cocky, driving recklessly, or simply not trying hard enough. You’re either a professional people can count on, or you’re not. There isn’t a halfway point.

Caught in a blizzard during a Land Rover expedition in Iceland

5. What is a doing a road test like? How does one go down?

There are a lot of misconceptions about road-testing, mostly by people who think you simply jump into the car and mash your right foot to the floor. In fact, a road test is very methodical, a combination of carefully derived scientific fact and finely honed personal observations.

The various manufacturers generally supply test cars to us from press fleets they maintain around the country. Or, if a model is just being introduced, we’ll travel to wherever the press event is being held—and that could be anywhere in the world (manufacturers usually pick locales with great driving roads or scenery that will show well in photographs).

At Motor Trend, we try to limit the actual instrumented testing to one or two guys who do it all the time—helps keep the results standardized. We’ll take the car to a test track (in Southern California we use the drag strip at Auto Club Speedway or the runways of the former El Toro Marine Air Station), then run acceleration tests, braking, Figure 8, and more. All data are weather-corrected. Often, after our driver is done with instrumented runs, I’ll make an acceleration blast or two myself, or a few laps around the Figure 8 course, just to get a feel for the car when it’s pushed to the max. We also often rent race tracks (such as Willow Springs in the Mojave), where we can run laps at high speed in relative safety. Pushing a car to its limits reveals a lot about its character, but, again, it’s something you can’t do on a public road.

Road tests also comprise a lot of much more sedate on-road driving. How does the car ride? How is visibility? Quietness on the highway? Ease of using the various electronics and controls? After doing this for a while (I’ve been road-testing for around 25 years now) you know what to look for—and you build up a database of experience from which to compare all sorts of cars. That’s why we try to drive and spend time in every new car that hits the market—it’s the only way you can correctly assess one car’s strengths and weaknesses versus another’s. I probably drive, conservatively, 150 to 200 different cars every year.

Once all the actual test-driving and photography is done (photos take more time than anything else), you sit down to write the review—usually incorporating notes and impressions from other colleagues if they’ve also driven the car.

6. What’s the coolest car you’ve ever gotten to drive?

As I noted, we drive almost every car available for sale in the U.S.—and more. So you could throw a dart at a car catalog and I’ve probably driven it. But, for sure, I do have a few standouts from my career.

Way back in the 1980s I had a chance to drive a 1931 Bugatti Royale, one of only six built and at the time the single most expensive car in the world (Tom Monaghan of Domino’s Pizza fame had paid $8.1 million for it). It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but during the entire drive all I could think about was the chance that I’d bump into a hummingbird or something and cause $500,000 worth of damage. At one point the engine did overheat a bit and steam squeezed out of the radiator—which was terrifying—but in fact the car was fine.

I’ve driven Ferraris on the Italian maker’s private race track (Fiorano) in Italy, ridden with three-time world driving champion Sir Jackie Stewart in an original Ford GT40 LeMans race car, and recently raced a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 against a Blue Angels F/A-18 fighter jet. This job does have its memorable moments.

In 1998, I even reached the summit of my own personal Everest: a test drive in a genuine Formula 1 Grand Prix racing car. The car itself was mind-blowing, of course, but it was the entire experience that proved almost overwhelming. Here I was, behind the wheel of the ultimate race car, the kind I’d fantasized about when first watching ‘Grand Prix” more than 20 years earlier, actually hurling it around a racetrack myself. By the end of the test my eyes were pretty misty…

7. What is the best part of your job?

The cars are part of it, for sure. It’s like being a test pilot for the military: nowhere else can you get your hands on the hardware we drive. Doesn’t matter if you’re as rich as Bill Gates; you’re not going to get to drive, say, a prototype sports car six months to a year before it’s released to the public. That’s pretty special.

The travel also has its moments—when the planes are on time and the locale is memorable. And I’ve met some really exceptional people over the years: champion race drivers, world-class pilots, writers, explorers, industry captains, brilliant engineers.

Best of all, though, is combining all of it into a story, the creative outlet, the writing. It can be both frustrating as hell and immensely satisfying.

8. What is the worst part of your job?

Deadlines! Also, the hours can be really long—during comparison tests, for instance, 12-14 hour days in the broiling desert are common—and the travel can get to you. I’ve been to Germany three times in the past two months; the last time I returned from Germany’s Nürburgring race track late Friday night then, at dawn on Saturday, left straight for the desert and our annual Motor Trend Car of the Year competition. Jet lag isn’t allowable.

9. What’s the work/family/life balance like?

That’s the hardest part: being away from my wife and daughter (she’s nine). I miss a lot of my daughter’s school events, and though she’s been taking tennis lessons since last spring I have yet to see her play. That gets to you. When I’m home, I try to spend as much time as possible with my girls—we’ll go on a hike in Malibu, to the beach, the Getty museum, just hang out. I’m lucky to have a great wife who not only understands the realities of my job, but also keeps our house running when I’m not there. I could not do this without her.

I get homesick all the time, but I just have to put that out of my mind. The reality is, this is my livelihood. You can’t be an adventurer behind a desk.

10. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

All Ferraris all the time! Yes, we drive Ferraris—and Lamborghinis and Porsches and the like—but there are a lot of Hyundai Elantras and Toyota Corollas in there, too. It’s like the old myth about the test pilots with the silk scarves and the bravado; in fact, like test flying, the job involves a lot of tedium, careful observation, and detailed note-taking. Besides, for every hour I’m behind the wheel of a cool car, I probably spend 15-20 hours behind the computer keyboard, writing road tests or features or blogs.

11. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

Do things that scare you—as often as you can. By that I don’t necessarily mean jumping out of an airplane every day. It might be a job move you’re unsure about, or an experience that intrigues you but you’re afraid to try, or simply asking that pretty girl out for a date. The things you’ll regret most later in life are the things you didn’t do. When I was a younger man, I watched a few of my idols die in racing accidents (Gilles Villeneuve’s death at the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix was a terrible shock.) I made a vow then: Push, Arthur. The clock is ticking. I don’t want to be 70 years old saying, “I wish I’d . . .”

When I first soloed in an airplane—I’m all alone, and I’ve got to get this thing safely back to earth all by myself—I felt hot flashes of panic zinging through me. It was terrible, and I had to consciously talk myself into remaining calm and landing. Well, I could have quit flying the moment I returned to the runway. But I didn’t. And the very next time I flew solo, a week later, I was fine. I’ve found that most “scary” things are only scary because you don’t understand them—and you only understand them by first pushing past your silly fears.

I’ve long believed this: The worst word in the English language is “complacency.”

• So You Want My Job: Red Bus Jammer
• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 26: Take the Marine Corps Fitness Test
• So You So Want My Job: Army Scout
• So You Want My Job: Film Director
• So You Want My Job: Golf Pro Instructor

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Today we feature the coolest job you’ve never heard of: freelance namer. A freelance what? Think about the difficulty you and your wife had in coming up with a name for your kid, a name only a few thousand people will ever use. Companies need names for their products, services, and websites, names that millions of people will remember and respond to. That’s where people like Mark Gunnion come in. He helps people and companies come up with just the right name for their new whatchamacallit. And he does it at home, sitting in his library, listening to music, and hanging out with his wife. If Mark’s job doesn’t make you want to run screaming from your cubicle, nothing will.

You can learn more about Mark at his website. Thanks for this thoroughly interesting interview, Mark! And thank you for that uber-manly beard. It is an inspiration to us all.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

I was born in 1961 in Indianapolis.   After high school, I got a film degree in Chicago and came out to California to be a rock star.  I wrote lots of songs and formed lots of bands, recorded tons of demos and played a zillion gigs.  I had a lot of fun – but only made a teensy-weensy amount of money.  Maybe it was the very competitive San Francisco music scene of the 1980s, maybe it was being out of sync with the very corporate musical era, or maybe it was just insufficient chops – but after 15 years and just a few small brushes with greatness, I knew it was time to try something else.

I started naming in 1996, after hearing about the job on the radio.  I did the job part-time for about four years, then in 2000 got hired by a big downtown design and interactive services agency as a full-time namer (yeah, 2000 was a boom year, alright!).  So, I bought some slacks and some shiny shoes and went to work downtown for a year.  After they went belly-up in the tech crash, I had enough momentum to start my own business, naming and writing taglines full-time.  And I’ve been doing it freelance, full-time, ever since.

As a freelance namer, I get hired by new companies that need a name, or by established companies coming out with a new product that needs a name or a tagline.  The clients typically telephone me, or write me an e-mail, checking my availability.  Then I get a brief on the project, either in an e-mail or over the phone, and I go to work.  I do almost all of my work at home, in my home library, or in the office I share with my wife.

2. Why did you want to become a name consultant? When did you know it’s what you wanted to do?

I had worked as a video cameraman, a market researcher, and a tape transcriber – turning audio recordings of interviews into computer documents.  The transcription gig was pretty successful, to the point where I’d hired two or three other transcribers to help me out with the volume of tapes I was getting.  But man, it was boring.

Then, one afternoon, I was listening to a radio show on NPR, something about “weird jobs” or something, and I heard an interview with a woman who was a “freelance namer.”  As soon as I heard her describe the job, a bell went off in my head – BING! – and I said to myself, I could TOTALLY do that job! It took creativity, which I had.  It took a great awareness and love for language, which I had, but it didn’t require the long, long dedication to a single idea that writing a book or teaching a class did.  And I could listen to music while I did it!  I didn’t have to listen to people in market research groups ramble on and on about their ATM usage or what kind of features they wanted in a mobile phone.

The woman who was interviewed on the radio show was (and is) a great namer and serious Scrabble player named Andrea Michaels, and she lived right there in San Francisco, where my wife and I lived at the time.  She was in the phone book, and I called her up, and she was just wonderfully nice and generous to me, advising me where I might apply for naming work, who paid well, how it worked to be a creative freelancer, just everything I needed to know to get started.  She was really helpful and open-hearted, and I couldn’t have gotten started in the business without her.

Taking her advice, I wrote up a saucy introductory e-mail, full of what I thought was catchy, punchy language, emphasizing (okay, overstating) my experience as a lyricist, touting my college degree, and claiming special interest in naming and names.  I talked about the transcription business, and how that affected my appreciation for language, and talked about how I had named all my bands, and listed them all!  I re-edited the e-mail a dozen times, then sent it out to the local branding and naming companies Andrea had recommended.  Turned out that San Francisco at the time (January, 1996) was one of the international hubs of the naming business, due to our proximity to the name-hungry tech sector and the generally high number of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists swirling around the city.   Just from the impact of those e-mails, within a week I was offered a “rush” job, a weekend gig for a great naming company called Metaphor.  A few days later, the biggest player in the naming business, Landor Associates, hired me for another rush job, for more money.  When I got the check from that first job, I held it in my hands, staring in disbelief.  It was twice as much money as I’d ever earned playing a musical gig! After that, I was off and running and never looked back.

3. Being a name consultant is a pretty unique job and not something you can exactly major in in college. If a man wants to become a namer, what should he study and what kinds of experiences and skills should he seek to prepare for the job?

Anything that has to do with a wide knowledge of words helps.  I know people who came to naming after working as English professors, poets, crossword puzzle builders, proofreaders, novelists, museum researchers, even semi-pro game show contestants.   As I said, I bluffed my way in with experience as a songwriter, balanced that with my years of typing and listening to the way people really talk, and learning every way that language can be bent, twisted and used by actual people.  There’s also a big component of the job that’s derived from marketing, advertising, brand management, and design, so experience in those fields could be helpful, especially if you’re seeking agency work.

Also, any type of creative work adds to your ability to improvise and try new approaches.  While naming is a little bit art, it’s also business, and the business considerations definitely rule the day.  But a name is so important to market success these days; it’s got to show some creativity, some energy – some life! – to function in the modern marketplace.

4. What makes a great namer? How does a man know if he has the right stuff?

You have to know the language, and you have to be able to make leaps of imagination, and you have to know the wider culture.  You’re creating a tool, a commercial tool, that has to work in certain ways and have specific qualities out in the real world.  So, you have to have an inkling of how an idea will fit into the howling storm of names and brands and languages and voices and sounds out there already.

You need a few minimal computer skills to deliver the product and to find the clients.

You have to be thick-skinned – 99.9 percent of what you create is rejected, usually without a second glance or any explanation.

But what you really need to succeed is to be relentless.  Lots of people, if they had a thesaurus, a set of Scrabble tiles, a Swahili dictionary, and five minutes, could come up with an idea for a name.  But to make it as a namer, you need to come up with a name in five minutes, and then another name five minutes later, and another one five minutes after that…for eight hours a day.  For three or four days.

So, even when you think you’ve squeezed the stone dry, you need to bang your head on the table again, and again, and again, and put another CD on, and look up the key words in one more language – I have scores and scores of foreign language books, Scrabble dictionaries, slang compendia, a complete 1967 Encyclopedia Britannica – whatever it takes.  Because that client is going to go through that list and go, “No, no, no, no, no, no….wellll, maybe that one….no, no, no… ooh, yick!…no, no, no…Oh!  That’s a good one!”  So, you have to treat it as a manufacturing process as well as a creative one, and you have to try idea after idea after idea.  Because if ten percent of your ideas are good ones, it’s not like you get ten good ideas and then 90 duds.  You get nine duds, then a live one, then nine more duds, then another good one, and so on.  You gotta bang ‘em out.

5. How competitive is it to get a job as a creative namer? What sets a person apart from other candidates who are applying for a job?

Like a lot of creative jobs – and like being a musician in a big city – there’s always a new kid in town who’s hungry, and who’s ready to do the job cheaper, because they’re getting started.  Also, it’s a pretty recent idea for corporations and small businesses to accept the idea of paying somebody to help with their name.  Used to be, you thought up a company name you liked, and that made sense to you, or just used your family name, and you painted it on the front of the store.  These days, every name idea can be instantly checked against the worldwide list out there, and people want names that work, not just in the next town or the next state, but all the way around the world, wherever they can find a customer.  So, some customers still shop by price, and they get inexperienced people who can’t really check things out and analyze what ideas are going to work in the big picture as well as I can.

And besides the newbies, now I have to compete with things like online “crowdsourcing” sites, or naming contests, where hundreds of people around the world, boy scouts or housewives or out-of-work rock stars may chime in on a project, with little more thought than they’d put into a Twitter tweet, in hopes of claiming a $50 prize or something like that.  But like so many things related to identity and brands, you get what you pay for.  There’s so many moving parts involved in most naming projects that it really is worth it to have an experienced person working on it. And there’s hardly anything else a company will spend money on that they will use as often, or in as many ways, as the name.

So, I’ve found that what clients value the most is my actual experience in naming.  Since I’m now approaching fourteen years in the business, I qualify for “grizzled veteran” status among namers.  Lots of people try the job out for a short time, or they do it as an adjunct to another job in product development or PR writing.  But having the actual experience I’ve had, over hundreds and hundreds of naming projects, literally, I don’t waste a lot of time on ideas that have a fatal flaw, and I can foresee problems and obstacles in proposed name ideas that folks with fewer miles on this road may miss.

6. You’ve worked for corporations and are now a freelance namer. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each situation?

Well, of course, the advantage to working for a corporation is that steady paycheck, the health care, the free sodas in the break room – do they still do that?  But really, I have never been a corporation man, working within a hierarchy, playing the office games.  That’s why I got a film degree, played guitar, extended my adolescence – and heck, I had a great time, found my wife, met David Bowie, grew a big beard. Being your own boss is a sure way to stay manly.

Of course, the downside to being a freelancer is that you’re always looking for work.  When I’m not on the clock, I’m at my computer, searching the world over – literally – for new ad agencies, brand consultants, corporate identity specialists, as well as searching directly for corporations I believe to be in growth industries, places where new companies will be arising, where new alliances and mergers may be happening.

It’s my job to make sure that every person on the planet who is going to need a new name gets my e-mail in their inbox.  Naming is complicated these days – I like to tell potential clients, “Kids, don’t try this at home!”  So, the freelance namer also has to be a marketing expert – of himself.

7. How does a freelance namer go about finding and securing projects and clients?

Most of my work comes through companies that I have approached directly, via e-mail. I try to figure out industries where there will be new companies forming, or sectors where marketing money seems to be moving around, and I send my introductory e-mail straight into their marketing and new product development departments.  I also get a lot of work from my established clientele – repeat business from agencies and consultants.  Some businesses name a lot of products every year, and once I’ve come through for them, they usually come back.  Also, these days, when people need names, they go searching online for “namers” and “naming,” and they find me that way.

8. What is the naming process like? How do you go about coming up with names and tag lines?

The actual core of the job is the naming part – and that’s what I love to do the most!  I retreat to my work lair/library, put on some music – preferably without English lyrics! – and pull out a blank piece of paper.  Some of my peers use computers every step of the way, but I like to look at the brief, make some new notes, and then just start making a list on a piece of light-green graph paper, with a purple Flair pen.

I look at every line of the brief, review the criteria and objectives for the name, and then I start writing. I write down whatever ideas come bubbling up from the materials the client has provided.  I make chains of ideas – sounds, metaphors, and words -  just free-form connections between different concepts derived from the client’s briefing and any conversations we’ve had. Before long, the names are just tumbling out of me. I have hundreds of reference books on language (and everything else) that I refer to, books on slang and etymology, Shakespeare, comic books, technical manuals, any kind of word-source where the name ideas might be hiding.  When I’m doing the creative part, I don’t interrupt it with the availability checking, I just let the ideas pour out on to the page, where they can connect, and re-combine, and re-arrange themselves in different configurations. At the end of eight hours, there’s usually a hundred or more names scrawled down, created just for that client, ready to organize and check out.

Most jobs are done under a 30-day consulting contract, during which I will go through 3 or 4 complete naming rounds.  A “round” usually takes me about a day, during which I’ll generate a big list of name ideas, 100 or more in a day.  Typically, I’ll then do some availability screening on the list and report back to the client.  Once they see that first list of ideas, they’ll have all kinds of feedback about what they like and don’t like, and we’ll start a “short list” of those ideas that best meet their business needs.

Then I then go back to my library and generate another round of ideas.  As we’re going through the month, I’ll be checking their ongoing, ever-changing short list of favorites for various kinds of availability.  Sometimes, a business needs the exact URL in the dot.com domain; sometimes they don’t need that, but they need the name to work in another language besides English, or they need a national trademark clearance in their business sector.  I’m not a lawyer, but I am able to check some databases, for example, at the US. Patent Office or at Network Solutions.  Of course, these days, a Google search is often the first and most valuable tool for analyzing “availability.”  But there’s lots of gray areas, and so my experience with the relative shades of just how available a name really is often comes in handy.

For most jobs, I’ll do 3 or 4 of those creative days, as I try to arm the client with a half-dozen or more ideas on their short list to take ahead to the trademark lawyers for final approval.  That’s the secret of the job – a namer doesn’t come up with the one, perfect name for a project.  He comes up with hundreds and hundreds of ideas for the project – and the client figures out which one is perfect.

9. What is the best part of your job?

Creating something out of nothing.  Being paid to be clever. Getting to listen to music! Also, setting my own schedule is important, although it turns out I’m very regimented – usually working 9 to 5, Monday through Friday.

10. What is the worst part of your job?

Looking for new clients when the economy is depressed.  Naming is associated with new companies and new products, and it is a leading economic indicator, so when the whole corporate structure is holding back on spending, postponing new products, being more tight-fisted with R&D, being more skittish with marketing and advertising, then the budgets for naming and branding are often under a lot of stress.

11. What’s the work/family/life balance like?

That’s one of the best parts of the job!  I work at home almost all the time.  My wife is a graphic designer, and like me, has clients all over that she deals with through the internet.  So, we often work back to back in the same comfy home office, share all our meals, and make each other coffee in the afternoon.  I get to visit with my big cat, Daisy, any time I want to.  Oh, and I’m a fully-licensed napper.

12. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

That I just come up with one name for a given job.  That’d be great!

13. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

Naming is a fine, manly job – though lots of namers are women, too – and it’s a new enough career that you can go a long way with just a good thesaurus, a webpage, and lots of enthusiasm.  It’s one of those gigs where, if you do some research and keep looking, you can get a start, and once you’ve gotten started, it’s just like any other business – you deliver the goods, out-think the competition, and keep the customer satisfied.  It suits the way my mind works just perfectly, and I really enjoy hearing an excited client looking through a bunch of name ideas they like.  I always feel like I’ve used a little special skill I have to solve a problem they thought was going to be a lot harder.

I love my job!

• So You Want My Job: Artist/Illustrator
• So You Want My Job: Interpreter/Translator
• So You Want My Job: Film Director
• So You Want My Job: Financial Planner
• Dealing With Unemployment Like a Man

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

If you’ve been watching Ken Burn’s new documentary about the history of our National Park system, you’ll probably be envious of this week’s job. Matthew Nagy spends his summers driving a 1937 convertible bus around Glacier National Park in Montana in his position as a “red bus jammer.” The guys who drive these buses as tour guides are referred to as “jammers” because until 1989 all of the buses had un-synchronized manual transmissions, meaning the drivers had to double-clutch up and down the hill. This apparently made a lot of noise, so they started calling the drivers Gearjammers as a result. And that name was then shortened to just “jammer.” Whatever you call the job, it’s a dang cool one.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? Where did you go to school? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it).

My name is Matt, and I am 24 years old. I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2008 with a degree in Tourism Management. This is my first season working as a Jammer up at Glacier National Park, and I enjoy every minute of it. My job basically entails driving a 1937 White Motor Co. convertible bus around one of the best parks in the country. I provide commentary about the history of the park, geology, as well as interesting anecdotes related to the park and the surrounding areas to my guests as we ride along the “Going-To-The-Sun Road.”

2. Why did you want to be a red bus jammer at Glacier National Park?

After a few months testing out a poor job market in New York City after graduation, I ended up back at home working at a grocery store just for some income. Spending a cold and miserable winter in Pennsylvania, the concept of driving around in a cool old bus with sunglasses on and the top down sounded highly appealing – so I took a shot and applied for a job. I grew up in a car, taking long road trips up and down the East Coast and also in California, so lots of seat time was natural to me.  Now I drive between 1000 and 1400 miles a week.

3. How did you even hear about this kind of job? How did you land the position?

Getting this job was a matter of pure chance, really. After college, a close friend of mine moved to Missoula, MT and began to work out there for a while, hiking and kayaking and enjoying the outdoors. He mentioned what a great area Glacier was and how it would be great to work up here for a summer. So with a few clicks of the mouse I was looking up jobs and stumbled across the tour driver position.  I was fortunate that a few drivers were unable to come out this season to work, and after a few back and fourth phone calls with the transportation manager the job was mine, and I was on my way to Montana.

This is Matt’s ride.

4. How competitive is it to get a job as a jammer?

It can be fairly difficult to get a job as a jammer because there are so many returning drivers each year who come back season after season. We have folks here who have been driving for up to 20 seasons, as well as a lot of drivers who drove once when they were young and then came back at retirement age. It is an interesting dynamic, with all the different ages and experience combined with all of the drivers, and we end up with quite a fraternal spirit after training, driving, and living together for such long periods of time. Being up here at times is like summer camp for adults.

5. Being a red bus jammer is a seasonal position. What do you do during the rest of the year?

During the rest of the year I work as a winemaker for the vintages in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. I will work this northern vintage in Long Island, NY until December, take a month or so off and then head to Australia to work the southern vintage. Then it will be back up here to Glacier to celebrate the park’s 100^th birthday driving red bus #99.

6. What is the best part of the job?

The best part of the job is being able to be out in the park every day and see the amazing scenery that is contained in it. When there is a good group of guests and it is a beautiful day outside, the job is unmatched. It is a lot of fun to show people around this unique park and all the wonder that is around us every day. Just about every day that I am out and working I still have at least one “wow” moment where I cannot believe how fortunate I am to have a job in a place as surreal and breathtaking as Glacier.

This is Matt’s “office.”

7. What is the worst part of the job?

The worst part of the job is two-fold. For one, the hours can be very long, and we end up going fairly long stretches without much time off (for instance, 8 days in a row of 11 hour days). On a hot day in August, it can be tough to focus and give commentary to grumpy tourists asking the same five questions that you have heard for the past 3 months while you are sweating through your long pants and tie in 85 degree weather. It does get a bit repetitive, and as long as you are around the bus, you are always in the spotlight, always answering questions and acting as an ambassador for the park. Driving itself can be stressful on our narrow road with a wide and long bus. Right now the Sun Road is under heavy construction and that can provide us with a bit of stress, too. Every year there are broken mirrors and scrapes with the wall for many of the drivers, and it never ceases to be an embarrassing moment among both passengers and peers when one hits the wall. So far this year, I have been fortunate – although many drivers have had a run in with the wall.

8. What is the biggest misconception people have about the job?

Most people seem to think that this job is lucrative, and it is far from it. The job is definitely a labor of love, and if you do not enjoy it then it will be a miserable season for you. Between the heat, the long days, and some of the tour directors that we have to deal with on a daily basis, the job is not without its share of pains. We do get a fair bit of tips on occasion, but we are far from being able to retire at season’s end with our earnings.

9. What is the work /life balance like?

The work and life balance can be a hard one to juggle at times, and sometimes a social life has to get cut shorter than I would like.  An average day can consist of getting up at 7 in the morning and finishing anywhere between 6:30 and 8 that evening, after dropping off the guests, fueling, and washing the bus. After a few days in a row of that schedule it can leave little time and energy for social pursuits, but you learn to manage your time and are still able to enjoy your time off without putting yourself in too bad a way for work the next morning. The park is an outdoorsman’s and photographer’s paradise, and most of my days off are full of hiking around the over 750 miles of trail that we have in the park. Nothing is more stress reducing that spending a day getting to the top of a 9,500 or 10,000 ft peak with a few good friends and seeing some of the most amazing sights you could ever imagine seeing in a lifetime. I may not have had as much time off as I would like, but it is easy to maximize that time in a place like this.

10. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

I feel extremely blessed to be able to live the kind of lifestyle I am right now, and coming up here was one of the best decisions that I could have ever made for my life. After even just a few short months of the rat race in New York City, I knew that it was something that I was not quite prepared for, and getting out of it to a place like this was exactly what I needed. I don’t intend on traveling like this for the rest of my life but I think that it is important to not be afraid to think outside of the box if you are not sure what you what to do or where you want to end up. I have so many friends who left school only to get tied down to a desk job that they don’t enjoy. They always mention how they envy me for going out and doing something different, and they wish they could do the same. The fact is, it is as easy as putting yourself out there and looking around – that was all it took to end up in one of the greatest places and jobs in the world. So if you are thinking about doing something like this, just stop thinking and do it. It is never too early or too late to try something new and great.

• So You Want My Job: Game Warden
• So You Want My Job: Touring Guitar Tech
• So You Want My Job: Private Investigator
• So You Want My Job: Golf Pro Instructor
• So You Want My Job: Antarctic Driller/Researcher

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Today we feature an interview with Luke Elrath. As the product manager for Breezer Bicycles, Mr. Elrath is responsible for both designing and marketing Breezer bikes.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

I grew up in Bucks County Pennsylvania 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia. I moved to Philly to go to Temple University for electrical engineering. I’m 32 years old. I worked in the engineering industry designing airfield lighting and navigation systems for four years after graduating. While it was interesting and challenging work, my first love was always bicycles.

My job responsibilities as the Breezer product manager include studying the market, selecting the models and designs we want for each year’s offerings, and working directly with Joe Breeze, the founder of the brand and one of the inventors of the mountain bike. Together we select frame styles, components and graphics for the bikes. Then I coordinate the production of the bikes with our manufacturing partners in Asia and Europe.

2. Why did you want to become a bicycle product manager? When did you know it was what you wanted to do?

I had always loved bikes since I was a kid jumping my Schwinn BMX bike off of a plywood ramp in the yard. Tinkering with bikes, riding bikes, reading about bikes were activities that consumed most of my free time. I had built my ideal commuter bike up from an old steel frame when I took a job 5 miles from my house. While I ended up not liking the job, I loved riding to work every day. The freedom from traffic, fuel costs and auto maintenance expenses was so liberating!

When I heard from a friend that the world headquarters for a major bicycle brand was in Philadelphia, I submitted a resume sight unseen. I was called for an interview that week and a dialogue began that eventually landed me the position that grew into Product Manager for Transportation and Utility Bicycles.

3. If a man wants to become a bicycle product manager, how should he best prepare? What should he study and what kind of experiences and skills should he seek?

The subjects to study that will give a man an advantage in bicycle design are: industrial design, materials science, mechanical engineering and to a lesser degree biomechanics. I’ve found that in this industry my contemporaries come from very disparate backgrounds. Some were pro racers, some worked at bike shops as mechanics, others started in sales. The common thread in all the people I’ve met in this business is passion. Very few people get into this world to simply make money, make a living. It’s about waking up every morning excited to play, to create, to share the love of the bike with others.

4. How competitive is it to get a job as a bicycle product manager? I imagine there are only as many are there as bike companies.

The bicycle industry “vets” seem to cycle through the big bike companies, so the competition is high. I’m finding that most people in the industry know each other, worked with a friend of a friend, etc. Because there’s not a university degree specifically for this subject, there’s a lot of self-instruction and on-the-job training. Be a quick study and a good listener.

5. In addition to designing bikes, you also market them. Which aspect of the job do you enjoy more?

This is my first year in the position and much of my time has been spent learning the design/product development side of things. Marketing is largely determined by budget and we’ve had to get creative looking for non-traditional venues to spread the word about Breezer. My efforts in marketing have been focused on developing relationships with blogs, websites and journalists that write about bicycles but also about other subjects that may reach the audience who may be interested in our bikes.

With my engineering background, I’d have to say my preferences lean towards the technical aspects of design and product development.

6. What is the best part of your job?

Sharing every day and every experience with like-minded, passionate lovers of the bicycle. The perks aren’t bad, either: I have a fancy carbon fiber road bike waiting in the hotel every time I travel to Asia. Morning rides in the mountains outside of Taichung City are glorious.

7. What is the worst part of your job?

The time spent away from home for factory visits, trade shows and promotions leaves less time to spend with my incredibly supportive wife. Though few and far between, the best trips have been the ones in which she joins me.

8. What’s the work/family/life balance like?

Daily calls to my wife during long periods of travel are a great way to keep connected. Even when working from the home office the hours can be long and intense, so it’s important to me that my wife and I take time to “leave it all behind” from time to time. Sometimes it’s a special night at a nice restaurant; sometimes we’ll spend a Sunday morning riding our classic tandem bike on the bike path along the river.

9. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

When I describe my job to fellow bike lovers they often imagine all the high-tech, fancy toys I must play with all day. While there’s some of that, the lion’s share of my day can be spent on a spreadsheet figuring out which tires I can use to meet our price needs. The meathook realities of a competitive market make it a reality: no matter how cool your bike looks, for most dealers and consumers it comes down to price. Is your bike cheaper than the other guy’s? The bottom line creates all the compromises of the job. 

10. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

There are some significant sacrifices to make in order to succeed in this industry, but the rewards can be spectacular. On the 15^th day of a recent trip oversees I found myself atop Five Finger Mountain above Taipei beginning a descent where I would hit speeds exceeding 40 mph. The sun was just coming up and burning away the mist in the valleys below, and I was doing what I truly love to do in a beautiful, exotic locale.

• How to Buy Your First Motorcycle
• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 5: Cultivate Your Gratitude
• So You Want My Job: Nuclear Engineer
• So You Want My Job: Name Consultant
• Reader Contest: Design an Art of Manliness T-Shirt

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

When man’s best friend gets sick, veterinarians like Richard McAroy are the ones who are there to get them back on their paws again. Dr. McAroy is a vet in New Hampshire and fixes up dogs and lots of other four (and sometimes eight) legged creatures. Thanks Richard for providing us with this thoroughly interesting and enjoyable interview.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

I’m 41 years old and from Harrah, Oklahoma originally.  I graduated from Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1999 and I’ve been in private practice for ten years.  8 years ago I purchased my own small animal hospital in Hudson, New Hampshire.  I’m considered a “solo vet,” meaning I’m the only full-time doctor in the practice (although I have a part-time veterinarian who works one day per week).  I am a small animal/exotic veterinarian… I see mostly dogs and cats, but also turtles, guinea pigs, hamsters, snakes, and the occasional tarantula.  I am not a fan of spiders.  I do the exam wearing latex gloves and use a wooden stick to prod the spider.  If they move, they’re probably healthy.

My professional interests are medicine and diseases specific to English Bulldogs (money pits, don’t buy one… that’s advice everyone should heed), bioterrorism response and training, and ophthalmology.  I am a certified Foreign Animal Disease Response Training Officer and enjoy helping police K9 working dogs.

2. Why did you want to become a veterinarian? When did you know it’s what you wanted to do?

I’ve always felt kind of guilty about this… most of my classmates had always wanted to be a veterinarian for as long as they could remember.  I wanted to be an astronaut.  However, after a short stint in the Air Force I learned that I had asthma and not-so-great eyes and that my chances of going to the moon were slim, so I went to school and studied biochemistry.  I went to work as a State Police dispatcher while I attended class full-time.  I had always thought that being a veterinarian entailed a lot of farm work, but after doing some research, I realized that veterinarians are EVERYWHERE, not just on the farm.  There are military veterinarians who do everything from working dog medicine to meat inspection, all the way up to veterinarians who deploy with the Army Special Forces and help indigenous people with their public health and livestock.  There are federal veterinarians who are at the leading edge of biological terrorism response.  There are also veterinarians who work for NASA, and one veterinarian who is a regular space shuttle mission specialist.  A fellow New Hampshire resident, I might add.

I applied to veterinary school during my senior year of college.  I had basically decided to be either a veterinarian or stay in law enforcement and become a detective.  When I got my letter of acceptance into veterinary school, I sat down with my boss, the Chief, and asked him what he thought I should do.  He said, “Sure, I’ll make you a detective when you graduate, if that’s what you want.  But you know… I’ve always wanted to be a vet.”  I called the school five minutes later and joined the incoming OSU CVM Class of 1999.

3. A lot of men are familiar with the process of becoming a people doctor (college, MCAT, med school, residency…), but don’t know much about what it takes to become a vet. What is involved in the process and how long does it generally take?

Becoming a veterinarian is very similar to becoming a human MD.  First you have 4 years of undergraduate college to complete… although any major can apply, there are a certain number of prerequisite classes you must take as background science studies.  During undergrad, you have to take organic chemistry I and II with lab, biochemistry and lab, and zoology.  Genetics was one of the classes required for applying to Oklahoma State, and that was a seriously hard course that I just barely passed.  By the time you have planned out the prerequisites required, you are very close to having a bachelor’s degree in science.  I took a few extra classes and got my BS in Biochemistry.

Generally you apply to veterinary school during your junior year of college.  The application process consists of school-specific paperwork, interviews, and taking the GRE test as well as the Veterinary School Admission Test.  Generally there are 3 or 4 applicants for every open slot in veterinary school… it’s very competitive.  That’s not to say that only the students with the best grades are accepted… I’m living proof of that.  I had a solid 3.4 GPA going into interviews.  I was going up against 4.0 honor students who already had their degrees when I went to interview.  I went into interviews and presented myself as a well-rounded individual who had good social skills and could carry on an intelligent conversation.  I also stressed that I was an older student (I was 27 when I interviewed) and that this was not my first career.  I had worked in the real world and not just been a professional student.

That reminds me of a specific interview:  The second of 2 interviews at my school took place in the basement of the college.  The first had been very nice, cordial, and I had enjoyed talking to the Dean over coffee.  Then he said, “Oh, by the way… your second interview is right downstairs in 5 minutes.”  I walked into a room with two old doctors sitting behind a desk, with a single chair placed in the middle of the empty room about 10 feet in front of them.  I had no more than sat down when the first interviewer said, looking at my transcript, “It says here you made a B in Microbiology.  What’s wrong with you?  That’s an easy class.”  Taken aback, I smiled and said, “You know, I was a bit of a screw-up when I first started school.  If you look at the rest of the grades, I did a lot better in a lot of the harder classes.”

During veterinary school, you work in both large animal and small animal settings.  Sometimes you work, with no compensation, over weekends.  You do night shifts and are on call to assist the interns and residents at the veterinary school.  After graduation, some veterinarians do an internship.  That is a one-year course of work and study in either a private hospital or veterinary school.  After that, if you wish to become a boarded specialist, you can pursue a residency (which is generally another 3 to 4 years, depending on specialty).  There are veterinary boarded specialists in ophthalmology, surgery, endocrinology, pathology… you name it.  Exactly similar to human medicine.

4. What is the career trajectory of a veterinarian typically like? Do you generally start off working for an established practice and then later on open up your own?

After graduation, the typical veterinarian (who doesn’t go into an internship and pursue postgraduate coursework) typically goes to work for an established practice.  Very few new grads immediately open their own practice, and I wouldn’t recommend it.  In my opinion, it’s better to get some solid “real world” experience working for other doctors.  You can see what works and what doesn’t work, things you never learned in veterinary school and watch how other doctors deal with bad situations, undesirable outcomes, and difficult patients; things you can’t learn in lecture, basically.  I worked for three different practices during school and over summers, and two different practices after I graduated.  I bought the second practice two years later.

5. How competitive is it to get that first job working for an established practice? What kinds of things increase your chances of being hired?

When I first graduated, there was zero competition for your first job.  “You have a degree?  You’re hired.”  Anywhere in the country, basically… although competition for jobs is higher in states that have their own veterinary schools.  In states without veterinary schools, the demand for veterinarians is phenomenal.  You’re guaranteed a job if you are willing to work.

That’s an important point:  Work ethic.  A lot of veterinarians are hard-working people who often put in 50 to 60 hour weeks.  If you’re not motivated, or you require constant supervision, you likely will not be happy as a veterinarian.  I have worked for vets who made me do on call emergencies by myself for days on end; they’re not exactly the norm, but it does happen.

6. I’ve heard that large animal veterinarians are in demand. What are the differences between working with small versus large animals, and why are less people opting to do the latter?

There is a nationwide shortage of large animal veterinarians.  Superficially it’s because they make less money than small animal doctors.  Farmers do not want to spend a lot of money on an animal that may not make a profit when taken to slaughter, so they will not consent to a lot of diagnostics and treatment that they must pay for.  The other reason that large animal veterinarians are in demand is because it’s very demanding work in sometimes adverse conditions.  To complicate matters, our profession is now primarily female.  Female veterinarians are great doctors, but they can’t do many of the physically demanding tasks that a male doctor can.  Also, many female veterinarians are not interested in owning practices and sometimes work fewer hours, especially after they have children.  The remaining male veterinarians make a better living and have better work conditions doing small animal work.

In large animal work, you do a lot of traveling to farms.  You may or may not receive help from workers at the farm in restraining the animal you’re going to be treating.  You’re out in the weather, any kind of weather.  If you work on horses, your malpractice insurance is liable to be higher than the norm.  Also your chance of injury is higher from kicks by horses and cattle alike.  Personally, though, I really enjoyed the physical labor of my Food Animal rotation in veterinary school.

7. What is the best part of your job?

I love anesthesia and surgery.  On any given day, I can be called to perform a caesarian section on an English Bulldog, extract decaying teeth in a debilitated Yorkshire Terrier, remove a malignant tumor from an old German Shepherd, or perform an intestinal resection and anastamosis on an aggressive cat that ate a GI Joe boot.  If the surgery seems too complicated for a general practitioner, I can refer it to a boarded surgeon, but I enjoy doing everything that I feel comfortable pursuing.  I live for surgery!

8. What is the worst part of your job?

In the last ten years I have seen more and more people who demand something for nothing and veterinary care for free.  My student loan debt is $85,000 and I use a large number of expensive human drugs daily.  Although I wish I could provide veterinary care for free, it seems that some people expect not to be charged for services.  The worst part of my job is the people that neglect their animals because they refuse to spend money for their care.  It is a scene that plays out daily.

The grim reality of the job is that the care provided to animals is discretionary income of the owners.  As the economy worsens, there is no money for diagnosis and treatment of more complicated diseases.  When the stock market crashes, folks are more likely to euthanize their pet than spend money treating a problem.

9. What’s the work/family/life balance like?

When I first graduated, it sucked.  I was working 60 hours weekly and had emergency call three nights per week.  I was working in an economically-depressed area and making very little money… we also had a 2 year-old son and lived next door to the practice.  My family was under constant stress.  After changing practices and moving, it’s much more balanced.  I decided not to work any weekends, and there is a local veterinary emergency hospital to take my patients in the middle of the night if needed.

However, as a solo doctor there are no sick days.  Vacation time is entirely dependent upon finding a relief doctor to cover your clinic while you are gone.  But I do hope to hire an associate veterinarian in a couple of years, and that will alleviate a lot of the inconveniences.

10. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

The biggest misconception about being a veterinarian?  That every day is full of happy and nice animals who are all cuddly, brought in by smiling responsible owners.  When dealing with the public, the next person through your door could be an animal-abuser.  They might not speak English, and that makes the task of explaining their pet’s problem harder.  The dog being brought in might appear nice, but suddenly attempt to bite when its feet are touched.  The friendly cat could suddenly turn on you, and there’s nothing scarier in a veterinary hospital than a fractious cat attacking you in a very small exam room.  In those cases, I believe in “better living through chemistry,” or the judicious application of chemical sedation.  When confronted with a dangerous animal, it keeps you, your staff, the client, and the pet all safe and free from harm.

Thankfully those instances are not common.  It’s depressing when it does happen, though.

11. Any other advice, tips, or anecdotes you’d like to share?

If you’re seriously considering becoming a veterinarian, make sure you understand that your student loan debt will be enormous and difficult to pay.  The salaries for veterinarians are not conducive to paying off large amounts of debt, and this problem is seriously threatening our entire profession.  It’s what forces large animal vets to suddenly only see small animals.  If you ask the average veterinarian for advice, they will often say, “Go to human medical school.  Don’t become a vet.”

On the bright side, compared to human physicians, I am not forced to deal with insurance companies and insurance paperwork.  And although I do pay malpractice insurance, it’s not very expensive.

One of the best parts of being a veterinarian is when your doctor becomes jealous of your ability to be a radiologist, an anesthesiologist, a surgeon, a dermatologist, an ophthalmologist, or an endocrinologist all in the same day.  My family doctor refers to veterinarians as “cowboys who can be jack-of-all-trades” without having to refer any non-routine procedure to a specialist.

• So You Want My Job: Golf Pro Instructor
• So You Want My Job: Forensic Psychologist
• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 19: Schedule a Physical Exam
• So You Want My Job: Artist/Illustrator
• So You Want My Job: Police Officer

From Possibility to Actuality

There are some topics I know a great deal about, and some topics I don’t. Style and fashion would fall into that latter category. But I know enough to understand that how we look is absolutely critical to how other perceive us and how we feel about ourselves. So when I started the Art of Manliness, I went looking for a man who could provide readers with sound on advice on classic men’s style. When I came across Antonio Centeno’s articles at A Tailored Suit, I knew he was just the guy for the job. In return for providing the Art of Manliness with absolutely top notch fashion advice, I’m happy to give Tony’s business some exposure. And so Tony has become an important partner with the Art of Manliness. And today, we asked him to take part in our “So You Want My Job” series so that he could share more about himself, what the Tailored Suit is all about, and his advice to other men about being an entrepreneur. Thanks for all you do Tony!

1. Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a 33 year old married man with two great kids, an amazing wife, and a 110 year old Victorian house that needs a lot of work.  I live in Wisconsin, but grew up in Texas and still consider the Lone Star State home.  Currently I’m the president of A Tailored Suit, an online custom clothier that allows you to conveniently design menswear and have it built to your exact measurements.  Prior to founding A Tailored Suit I was as an Officer of Marines where I had the privilege of serving alongside some of the finest men and women in the US military.  I graduated from Cornell College and later UT Austin, and have studied men’s style in London, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Austin, and LA.  I’m always optimistic and believe laughter and a smile can solve many problems.

2. Why did you decide to start your own business?

First, I wanted the challenge and freedom of running my own show.   I like the idea of waking up in the morning and knowing that the success of my company depends directly on the decisions I make.  Second, I believe that one of the surest and most responsible paths to financial freedom is through building a successful small business that creates jobs and wealth for a community.  Over the years it seems the men and women I admired were entrepreneurs living their lives on their terms.  I was especially attracted to the passion they had for whatever they did; they worked 60+ hours a week yet still loved their work.  This was pretty amazing to a kid who grew up around people working hourly jobs they hated.  I wanted that passion in my work and my life.  Today I have it.

3. How did you get interested in custom men’s clothing? How did you find your way into that field?

In Custom Clothing Details & Imagination Matter

Back in 2004, I was living in Ukraine and needed a suit for an interview in New York. Shopping for a week, I was amazed that all I could find was either cheap and un-wearable or expensive and impracticable.  I had to re-arrange my travel schedule to accommodate shopping in the US where I was met with salespeople who didn’t know how to dress themselves.  I finally found a suit, but the experience left a bitter taste in my mouth.  Why was it so hard to conveniently get a quality suit at a fair price?  What if you created a website where people could build their own clothing and supported it with free information and people with a deep knowledge of menswear standing by to assist?  After researching the idea in business school, my partners and I decided to launch the company in the fall of 2007.  We focused on the market pain points of:

Education – A company that sells clothing should have representatives who have a deep understanding of fabrics, style, and proper fit; unfortunately most menswear salespeople do not.  For us, the education of our staff and management is paramount; persons working with us are required to read a number of classic menswear texts, and we encourage employees to write their own articles on men’s style, read industry blogs, and participate in forums.  We created and continue to improve our Men’s Style Guide, an online library that provides the basics for any man to build a foundation in classic men’s style.

Convenience – Our goal was to enable clients to complete the process 100% online while delivering their clothing in half the time our competition takes; in that we have succeeded.  One of my favorite orders was for a stout 5’ 4” military man in Iraq who on a short time frame needed clothing that actually fit him for his vacation to Australia.  This gentleman designed his clothing and had his measurements taken in Iraq, and within weeks we had a custom shirt and trouser delivered to him in the combat zone with the rest of the order sent to his Sydney Hotel.  We even took care of the small things, like making sure he had undershirts and dress socks.  This hard to fit man was able to spend his vacation relaxing, not shopping.

Customer Service – People want to be able to call a company toll free, talk with a live person who attentively listens, and have their needs immediately handled by a capable and educated decision maker. Sounds simple, but when was the last time you received this type of service?

4. What is the worst part of your job?

The worst part of my work is when a client receives a garment that does not fit.  Although this rarely happens, it’s still very disappointing, and I hate that we have inconvenienced the client.  The bright side is that we get to show off our customer service – we maintain a 100% satisfaction rate because we do everything we can to make the client whole.  We reimburse shipping, cover the cost of alterations, and in extreme cases remake the suit or shirt outright.  All the while we keep the client informed and aware of our progress.   I find that this last part is vitally important – people don’t want to be left in the dark.

5. What are the best parts of your job?

Helping people – We’re not saving lives, but a well-fitted suit can change them.  A hand-made custom suit is about confidence and knowing that you look good.  This affects everything, from the way you walk to the way others perceive you.  Nothing makes my day better than speaking with a client and hearing how much he loves his new clothing and the way he, for the first time, received unsolicited comments about how great he looks.  I’ve had clients attribute all types of successes to our clothing, from nailing high level interviews to being able to confidently meet with fashion conscious clients to just looking great on their wedding day.

Pride & Passion – I love telling complete strangers about A Tailored Suit and how we are revolutionizing the menswear industry.  Once or twice a month I pull an all-nighter writing and doing research because I’m wrapped up in an idea that just can’t wait till tomorrow.  I seriously think I would miss meals if it wasn’t for my awesome wife calling and reminding me to eat.  How many people can say they voluntarily do this and still love their work?

Control – A lot of friends have been laid off in the last year, all because of events out of their control.  I can’t control the economy, but I can control the way A Tailored Suit presents itself to the world.  Every day I have a direct effect on increasing awareness of my company and can see immediately the effect of following up with potential clients and building relationships through social media platforms.  I do not live in dread of losing my job; instead I live with the knowledge that my success (or lack of) is a direct result of my actions and decisions.

Teaching – I love helping people understand custom clothing and how by paying attention to their unique features they can build clothing that helps them shine. Speaking with new clients, it’s interesting to learn why they have sought us out and exciting to work with them as we solve their problems.  And this is just the direct interaction – at least once a week I get an email from someone who thanks us for the info in our style guide or an article we’ve placed out on the web. In addition, I recently started an internship program and have had a great time teaching the skills I’ve acquired over my career. In all it’s very gratifying to know that your work enhances lives.

6. What is the biggest misconception people have about your work?

The biggest misconception we battle is that most men think big box stores are their only option for clothing; thus they settle for clothing that neither fits nor compliments them.  What few realize is that the price of name brand clothing is often very similar to what a custom garment would cost.  Our business model, that of ordering a hand-made suit or shirt virtually without meeting a tailor face to face, is new, and we therefore spend a lot of time raising awareness of the possibilities online custom clothing enables.  We counter hesitation and reduce the risk of our clients by offering a 100% satisfaction guarantee, free style consultations, and encouraging independent reviews verifying the quality of our work. In 10 years I think that buying custom clothing online is going to be like buying an airline ticket is today, a no-brainer decision for most.

7. What is the work /life balance like? Is it hard to separate your work and your life when you’re self-employed?

We’re still in the start-up phase and at this point the separation between work and home life is blurry; workdays easily stretch to 10-14 hours to include weekends.  You have to be careful; it’s very easy to get sucked in and work even more.  I try to focus on working productively and make a point to have two meals a day with my family, play with my kids, and have a cup of coffee with my wife.

8. What advice/tips would you give to other men who want to quit their 9-5 and take the plunge into entrepreneurship?

Love what you do, whatever it may be.

Understand why you are starting your own business –Figure out why you want your own business and write it down so that you can stay on track. The happiest people I’ve met are those who not only achieved their goals, but realized they achieved them and then took the time to enjoy their success.  Starting your own company is giving everything you have for possibly years on end with no guarantee of financial success; but if done right, the satisfaction of choosing your own path makes an 18 hour workday seem, well, more like an adventure than work.   

Start immediately – Do not wait for the perfect moment, because the perfect moment to start a business will never come.  People in their teens/twenties are too young, in their thirties they have to be safe for the kids, in their forties they are used to having money, and beyond fifty they are told it’s too late.  If you want to start something, start it now – make time immediately, today.  Pull an all-nighter and write your business plan.  Tomorrow will turn into next week, a month later into years, and in 2020 you’ll wonder what could have been if you had only acted.

Don’t quit your day job – Things move a lot slower than you plan them to; projections that have you making 100K in profits meets the reality of you barely reaching break even.  In situations like this it’s nice to have a steady source of income.  Yes, you’ll grow slower; but unless you have someone who can cover the basic expenses try to hold on to that steady paycheck and learn to better manage your time.

Plan – Going into Iraq with the initial forces, my unit had spent months planning our routes and tactics.  We knew exactly how many gallons of fuel we would burn, rounds of ammo we would expend, and medical supplies we would use.  Within days all of these plans were trashed as the campaign transformed into something no one had predicted.  However we never missed a beat, because the thorough planning process had prepared us for any eventuality by forcing us to know our capabilities and resources cold.  Business situations change and company plans are scrapped, but if you’ve worked through multiple scenarios you’ll be much better equipped to meet any market challenge.  Planning forces you to think through ideas and allows others to review them and point out strengths and weaknesses.

Take the road less traveled – I know a lot of intelligent people who have started technology companies in Silicon Valley & Austin.  Unfortunately most of them are in industries overflowing with smart people and as such they work for peanuts on technologies that will never live up to the lofty expectations set by Google, Twitter, and all the other overachievers.  If you have a tech skill set, consider going into an industry that desperately needs your services and where you would be a valuable resource vs. a commodity.  I was talking with an automotive repair shop owner who knew nothing about how to attract clients searching for him on the web – a quick Google search showed neither did his competition as that not a single one had online reviews or a website that was search engine optimized.  Think of the impact the right person could have on this one local market.

Keep expenses in check – Watch every penny.  Venture capital funded companies receive all the press with their multi-million dollar investments, but the vast majority of small businesses are bootstrapped.  And that’s a good thing; it forces you to be ruthless as to what you spend money on and forces you to seek a return on investment for every dollar doled out.  The director Robert Rodriguez said something to the effect that a lack of funds forces a person to ratchet up their creativity.  Google search how he funded his first film, El Mariachi, to see what I’m talking about.

Read and contribute to your field – Everyone that wants to be good in their field knows they need to read up on the industry.  But if you want to be one of the best, take it to the next level.  Voraciously devour everything written about your market, and start reading about other industries with the goal of understanding how ideas in these industries are applicable to your field.  When it becomes hard for you to find new industry data, sit down and write yourself.  Nothing facilitates an education like the discipline and research required to contribute a useful essay to a field of knowledge.

Persistence – Starting your own business is a marathon, not a 100 meter dash.  It’s long, grueling, and there are stretches where you’ll hit a wall and want to quit. You will have days that have you moving backwards and weeks that you appear to have made no gain at all; worse your competition may appear to be growing faster and even leap ahead.  But measure your progress over months, and from this perspective you’ll see just how far you’ve traveled.  View success as profitability and staying in business, not necessarily being better than your competition (they may not be as successful as you imagine them to be….and if they are then you have the option of being a fast follower)

Believe in yourself – If you’re not confident in your company or idea, why should anyone else be?  The key to being sure of your eventual success is to have properly prepared – write your business plan, run through the numbers, and ask the hard questions early.  After you’ve made it through this, you’ll find it’s rare that someone can rattle your confidence or ask a question that you haven’t heard before.

Throw out your Television – Magically you’ll find time you never knew you had; stop watching life and start living it.

• Reminder and Update: Enter A Tailored Suit Custom Dress Shirt Giveaway and Get a 20% Discount
• Congratulations to A Tailored Suit Custom Shirt Giveaway Winner
• So You Want My Job: Financial Planner
• So You Want My Job: Name Consultant
• How To Become the Go-to Guy at Work

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Today’s interview is quite a departure from our usual fare! King Dabada is a veteran professional wrestler who has worked around the world including the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Japan. These days he wrestles for Fog City Wrestling, San Francisco’s premier wrestling organization. Fog City Wrestling is wrestling 2.0 for the online masses.

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, etc).

Well, I was born in Stockton, CA and raised all my life in San Francisco. Hung out in Sunnydale all my life; went to school at Jefferson and got kicked out; went to Balboa and got kicked out of there, and so on and so on! I’ve been wrestling for just under 10 years. It’s been pretty good to me so far; I can’t complain. And don’t ask me how old I am!

2. Why did you want to become a pro wrestler?

I saw my uncle Reno Tuufuli wrestling on television one day, and from then on I was hooked. I started to go to the Cow Palace and watch him and Rocky Johnson and Jimmy Snuka work. It was nothing I’d ever seen before; it just amazed me. I couldn’t wait to be a wrestler. I was so excited about it. I miss those days watching my uncles work and messing around with the wrestlers and some of the old timers in the locker room. Those memories I will never forget. We used to sneak in the back door of the Cow Palace and watch the whole show. Those were the days. The security would say, “Hey who are you?” and I would say, “I’m with the wrestlers.” The wrestlers would come out and say, “Yeah he’s good, that’s Reno’s nephew.” I would have the biggest smile on my face, and I would look at the security guard and say, “I told you I was with the wrestlers dummy!”

3. If a man wishes to become a pro wrestler, how should he prepare? Are there schools that teach people how to wrestle?

To me it’s either you do it or you don’t. There are good schools out there, but you just have to be careful which school you go to. Some will rip you off! You have to really look into it and do your homework on the school and the trainers. Nowadays they’ve got kids training kids, and that’s just plain stupid! I really frown on that because we got a lot of that all over the states. I would rather listen to a guy that worked for the WWE and never got a push¹ then to listen to a young kid giving me advice on how to wrestle in a ring. It just doesn’t make sense. I didn’t have that problem because my cousin, former WWE star Yokozuna, trained me.

4. How do you break into the business and start getting jobs?

You have to promote yourself and push yourself. If you want to get to the top plain and simple, you have to have tools of the trade! If this is what you want to do with your life, then you better  prepare for the good times and the bad times.

5. How do you move up to bigger and better leagues?

You have to do your homework, study your profession, and learn the in ring story. Promoters will look for how much you know. The better you are the bigger the payday and the league. I watch a lot of the old school wrestling now because you don’t see that anymore. To me those are the guys that made the sport what it is today.

6. How do wrestlers choose and develop the character that they portray inside of the ring?

For me it just came naturally. Watching action movies is good because you got bad guys and good guys. You can take a character from a movie and mold it to fit your personality. Also, reading comic books or watching Star Trek, animated Japanese cartoons, or some old school comedy movies can inspire you. And you can get ideas just from hanging out with family and friends as well; now those guys are some good characters! You can take a little from anything and put it in the ring and see what kind of reaction you get from the crowd.

7. What is the work/family/life balance like?

Right now it’s good. I have no complaints from my wife and the kids, so I’m good for now; I am a happy man!

8. What is the best part of your job?

Giving the people what they want and more. Also making sure the other wrestler doesn’t get hurt because I know he is trying to support his family, too.

9. What is the worst part of your job?

1. When wrestlers get hurt for doing high risk moves, knowing full well they don’t have to, in order to get over with the crowd! I think that’s plain stupid!
2. Getting hit with a chair ten times and the guy is still standing or when you do a devastating move and your opponent is down and then he fixes his knee pad or pulls up his shorts!
3. When you get promoters that think they know about the business but never did a bump² in their life. It cracks me up with the story lines they come up with because they don’t make any sense at all.

10. What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

I hate it when people ask me, “Is it real or fake? My answer is that there’s only one way to find out, and that is to jump in the ring and find out yourself, and then you’ll know the answer!

1. When a wrestler gains popularity with wins and positive exposure. A push can be a sudden win over a major superstar, or becoming involved in a high profile angle
2. When the wrestler hits the mat

• 10 Manly Feats of Strength
• Going Over the Top: How To Dominate In Arm Wrestling
• So You Want My Job: Golf Pro Instructor
• So You Want My Job: Police Officer
• So You So Want My Job: Army Scout

As a member of a Generation Y, I’m always on the look out for articles about people my age. While many sociologists and employers have very positive things to say about my generation, they also make critiques. A common criticism that many employers have about young people entering the workplace is that 20-somethings want all the trappings of a successful career but aren’t willing to put in the work needed to earn them. Young people just don’t want to pay their dues anymore.

Which isn’t surprising. Many members of Generation Y grew up getting trophies and accolades just for trying. In high school and college, many of these young people (and their coddling parents), demanded they receive good grades even if their work was shoddy. Consequently, the idea that you might actually have to earn success through hard work has gotten lost on many “millennials.”

Lifestyle pundits encourage such an attitude by saying that paying your dues is an antiquated idea. That really depends on how you define the phrase. If it means slogging through 80 hour weeks to move up the corporate ladder to a position that pays well but you hate or if it is used to make you jump through pointless hoops for no reason other than your higher-ups had to, then yeah, it’s not a very helpful philosophy. But to me paying your dues means putting in the time and work to attain your dream job.When you’re moving from point A to point B, it doesn’t matter if B is being a CEO or a rock star; you’ve got to pay your dues to get there. Here’s why.

You have to start somewhere. I know a couple of guys my age who are unemployed and living with their parents because they can’t get the job they feel they deserve, and they refuse to work a “menial” job because they think it’s beneath them. They expected to jump into their dream job right out of college. But you have to start on the “bottom” in every job, not only if you’re looking to move up the corporate ladder.

Reading through our “So You Want My Job” interviews, a common theme has emerged. The men who now have their dream jobs often started out working at the “bottom” to get the experience to move into what they really wanted to do. Jason Stoltzfus, started out as a regular roadie, and learned the trade and skills needed to become a guitar tech. Eitan Loewenstein put on sketch shows for an audience of two in a dingy theater above an ice cream shop before getting roles in national commercials. You’ve got to start somewhere and pay your dues to move up in the world.

Success comes from years of hard work. Not only do many millenials expect to land their dream job right away, they also expect to immediately live the same lifestyle they had when they left their parents’ house. They want nice clothes, nice furniture, a brand new car, and a nice house the moment they set out in life. Of course, in order to do this right off the bat, these young people have to take on huge amounts of debt.

I’ll admit that I get to thinking like this sometimes. I would love to have the same lifestyle I had when I lived with my parents. It was nice! But then I remember something my parents told me one day when I was moaning about not having money to buy some frivolous thing, and it put everything in perspective for me.

They said, “Brett, this house, the cars, the nice clothes, and the video games for Christmas we were able to buy for you and your siblings are the result of years of hard work. It didn’t happen overnight. We started out living in a one bedroom house with a metal roof in the middle of the New Mexico desert. But with patience and perseverance, we were able to make a life for our family.”

That shut up my whining.

In the age of seemingly overnight Internet millionaires, it’s easy to forget that success comes from years of hard work. Even the overnight successes weren’t really overnight. Take Facebook for example. Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook back in 2004. In just a few years it has become one of the most trafficked sites on the internet and has made Zuckerberg a millionaire.

While it seems Facebook is your typical overnight success, it was actually years in the making.  Zuckerberg started programming back in middle school. While most teenagers were playing video games and watching MTV’s Total Request Live, Zuckerberg was hammering out code. Consequently, when the muses visited Zuckerberg in his dorm room, he was ready with the knowledge and skills to build Facebook. Even after Facebook launched it would take a few years for the site to grow to where it is today.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he posits that greatness comes through adherence to the “10,000 hour rule.” Pointing to people like the Beatles and Bill Gates, he argues that their success came from practicing their skills for 10,000 hours, not through some inherited genius.

We’d all love to be rich overnight, but unless you win the lottery, it just isn’t going to happen. The path to success is hewed through years of dedicated and relentless hard work. In short, you have to pay your dues before success comes.

Recognize tradeoffs exist when you live by your values. In news articles and blog posts discussing Generation Y, employers gripe that these young people don’t want to work as much, but they still want the high salaries and cushy benefits. As a law student, I heard about this a lot. Senior partners at firms complained that new associates were demanding lower case loads and fewer required billable hours, yet they still wanted the nice six figure salary so they could have the freedom to have a life outside of work.

I understand Generation Y’s desire to work less and have more time. Many from this generation came from homes where their Boomer parents were workaholics and hardly spent anytime with the family. But time is money. If you value your time, expect to earn less. If you value wealth and money, be prepared to put in a lot of hours at work. The key is to figure out what you value and accept the tradeoff.

Some might argue that there are plenty of people out there who make lots of money, but aren’t slaves to work. I’ll concede that such people exist, but would follow up with inquiring on what that person had to do to get to that position in life? More likely than not, they had to hustle their butt off. Exceptions exist, but I’m pretty sure most of these types of people spent years investing all their free time and money with the hope they would have more of it in the future. They had to make a trade-off: less time and money now, for more of it later. In other words, they paid their dues. Which takes us to our next point…

Be willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term goals. I like to study the lives of successful men to see if there are any principles I can glean from them and apply in my own life. A common trait among successful men is that they were willing to make short-term sacrifices, for long-term goals. They were willing to pay their dues upfront in order to reap rewards later.

My dad is a good example of this. His goal starting off in life was to be a federal game warden. After he graduated college, he started looking for a job as a state game warden so he could get the experience he needed for the fed job. But no job openings existed for a year. So my dad worked in a liquor store to make ends meet until an opening came up. It’s not the most glamorous job for a college graduate, but my dad was hungry and humble enough to do whatever it took to reach his goal.

Albert Einstein didn’t become a world renowned physicist right after he got his diploma. He graduated college trained to become a professor, but like in my dad’s situation, there weren’t any job openings. Did Einstein whine and complain that because he finished college he was entitled to a job? Nope. Instead he got a job as a clerk in a patent office in order pay his living expenses. In his spare time, Einstein continued his real work as a scientist and developed the special theory of relativity.

If you have a great goal, be willing to make sacrifices for it. If you want to start your own business, you may have to moonlight it a few years until you can quit your day job. Spend all your free time getting the skills and putting in the work to make your dream job a reality. If you want to get out of debt quickly, you may need to take on a second job delivering pizzas or working as a coffee barista. Whatever your goal is, you’re going to have to pay the piper upfront before the dance begins.

• 3 Lame Excuses For Not Saving Money
• Stop Hanging Out With Women and Start Dating Them
• The Best of The Art of Manliness: August 2008
• Best of Art of Manliness, March 2008
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: LifeRemix and Facebook Application Edition

Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.

Eitan Loewenstein is a professional actor who has been seen on “Ghost Whisperer,” “iCarly” and Lifetime’s “Final Justice” in addition to his commercial work for “Saturn,” “Las Vegas, “AT&T” and “Hertz” among others.  Eitan lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and daughter. You can become a fan of Eitan on his Facebook Page. All right. Lets get this shindig started. Quiet on the set. Annnnddd…. action!

1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe your job and how long you’ve been at it, ect).

My name is Eitan Loewenstein and I’ve lived in Los Angeles over half my life, but didn’t start getting into acting professionally until after I graduated from college.  Before that I’ve lived in Bethesda, MD, Sharon, MA, and very briefly Tel Aviv, Israel.  I am 28 years old, so that means I’ve been a professional actor for almost seven years.

2. Why did you want to become an actor? When did you know it was what you wanted to do?

I’ve been acting in some capacity (school plays, student films, shows friends asked me to be in) since I was in second grade but only during college did I decide I wanted to do this professionally.  When I first went away to college I wanted to be an engineer.  So for three years I studied electrical engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  In my third year I realized I really hated what I was doing.

The prospect of living in a cubicle for the next several decades sounded pretty unappealing, and I had stopped enjoying even learning about engineering.  The only thing I enjoyed was acting.  I had gotten involved in the school’s drama department as well as with some independent productions on campus.  Some days I’d have six hours of physical rehearsal but I never once complained.  It was then I decided I wanted to do this professionally and to stop being an engineer.  My parents threatened to shiv me if I changed majors or dropped out of college so I spent the last year of my education preparing to move to LA after graduation and finishing up my degree by taking the “Intro to…” course load.

3. Did anyone ever try to persuade you not to take up acting as a profession, to do something more practical instead?

Someone tries to talk me out of being a professional actor almost every day.  Even when I have a national commercial running someone asks, “So when are you going to get a real job?”  I thought it would end when I started making some money, but it didn’t.  Until you’re a regular on a TV show or starring in a major movie people assume you’re just doing this to get it out of your system.  Hopefully that level of success isn’t too far off for me; I’d hate to have to keep coming up with witty answers to these questions.

4. If a man wishes to become an actor, how should he best prepare? Do you recommend going to acting school or going to college and majoring in theater?

I hold a minority opinion that almost all acting classes are a waste of time.  In my years I’ve seen very few people improve from taking an acting class, and I’ve found almost nothing I’ve learned in a class to be applicable to the job of being a professional actor.  The only exception to this has been my improv classes.  I studied improvisation at The Groundlings, and it has been worth every penny.  I’m constantly asked to improvise lines or actions and classes can really help give you a structure to do that.

Acting classes where you read scenes and perform them in front of a super-critical teacher can be a gigantic waste of time.  Most of the teachers are failed actors or run their classes in a way that is completely dissimilar to any professional job as to be more harmful than helpful.   Teachers aren’t looking for your work to be good, only to be bad so they can critique it.  Casting directors and directors watch acting with the opposite view; they are looking for you to be good.  This is my personal opinion, and there are more people who disagree with me than agree.

But most people agree that to some extent acting can’t be taught.  You either have it or you don’t.  The best (possibly only) way to get better and to hone your natural acting talent is to perform.  Starting out that’s going to involve doing a lot of very bad theater and no-budget films.  Everyone does it and it’s the best way to learn.  You have to focus not only on making the show you’re doing good but also improving yourself.  Don’t pull out your hair about how unprofessional everyone else is, how the director doesn’t give you enough to do or how the scenery looks.  Only focus on improving your acting and doing an amazing job.

I know many actors who studied acting in college and personally I feel like it didn’t prepare them for the world of TV/Film acting.  My school’s theater department was focused on students leaving the school to get a Masters in Fine Arts in acting or going to work in regional theater.  There was very little encouragement to students leaving to work in TV/Film (even though Los Angeles was a mere 90 miles away).

5. So a man decides he wants to be an actor. What does he do next? Take some headshots? Move to LA? Get an agent (how do you get one, or do they get you)? How do you know when there is a casting call for something? In short, how to you go about breaking into the biz?

The first thing to do if someone decides to be an actor is to start acting.  I’m shocked at how many actors I meet in LA who’ve done almost no acting before deciding to be a professional.  No one would dare dribble a basketball a couple of times and decide they want to be in the NBA, yet with acting this is oddly common.   Do something.  If you live in Iowa, do some theater in Iowa.  It’s going to be terrible (probably) and no one’s going to come see it, but you have to keep working.  I did a sketch show at a dingy theater upstairs from an ice cream shop for an audience of two.  I did the work, got better and moved on.

Don’t even think about moving to LA unless you’re ready to compete with the big dogs.  To even get an audition you have to best thousands of people who look exactly like you, have more credits than you and have personal relationships with people in the industry.  When those opportunities come (and they do come, eventually) you have to be at the very top of your game.  You can’t explain to the casting director that you are new to town and that’s why you flubbed your audition.  They don’t care; they simply want someone who will be the best in the role they’re trying to fill.  If you can’t perform in an audition, they assume you can’t perform on set.

Agents are tough to crack.  The old adage of “you can’t get work without an agent and you can’t get an agent without doing any work” is true.  The solution is to spend some of your time trying to get an agent interested in you and some of your time trying to get work.  You’re probably best with a 25/75 split.  It’s easier to meet a casting director and get them to bring you in for an audition than to convince an agent to sign you.  An audition takes five minutes while agents spend hours a week per-client trying to get them work.

There are three ways to get an agent.  The worst is to mail out headshots/resumes to their offices.  They look at them but rarely call anyone in.  The agents that do call people in tend to be on the lower end of the pecking order.  The next best way is to meet the agent through a friend or business contact.  This is how I got my commercial agent.  A friend who worked at a manager’s office met this agent and suggested we meet.  I went in, charmed her and I’ve been working with her for the past four years.   The absolute best way to get an agent is to have them find you.  This is how the really big agencies get most of their clients.  Someone books a part on an independent movie and is generating some buzz, the agent gives them a call and they come in for a meeting.  This is far and away the hardest way of getting an agent but it does work, and it’s the only way to get signed by one of the top agencies.

A note about agencies for the newer folks: You should NEVER pay for an agent to represent you.  Agents take a percentage of earnings from work booked and THAT’S  IT!  A real agent will never require you to sign up for a specific class, go to a particular photographer or pay any sort of “management fee.”  These classes/photos are worthless and will in no way further your career.  If someone approaches you at a mall and says you (or your kid) are perfect for modeling or acting work take some time to Google their company name plus the word “scam.”  They’ll almost always pop up as scam artists trying to rip off the hopeful.

If you’re in Los Angeles or another major market there are various ways to access casting notices (called breakdowns).  There’s a wonderful service run by the same people who post notices for agents/managers eyes only called Actors Access.  This is where the best notices are posted.  It’s mostly full of low/no paying work but occasionally a TV show will need something very specific and open the notice up to the general acting population.  My yearly subscription to Actors Access is some of the best money I spend on my career.  There are only two other legit sites in Los Angeles (LA Casting and Now Casting) but their pickings are slim by comparison.

There are many sites on the web that claim to post notices for major TV shows/films.  If they’re not called “Actors Access” then they’re scams.  Those notices go out only on Actors Access or the agents/managers only version “Breakdown Express.”  Occasionally these sites will copy/paste the casting notices from Actors Access or Breakdown Express and charge people money to read them.  They tell the actors to mail in headshots to be considered for roles that were only going out to name actors anyway.  All but a very small number of submissions are now done online, so mailing in headshots to these companies for roles that may or may not exist is a merely a waste of time and money.

A casting director friend told me a story about this practice.  She had posted a notice for a lowish budget independent film and posted it on Actors Access.  She got submissions online, had auditions, the film was cast and shot.  Months later she received submissions from actors for this exact film.  She was confused as the film had already been shot.  Apparently one of these scam sites had taken her casting breakdown, changed the date the film was shooting and was charging actors to access it and giving them her mailing address.

6. What do actors do to supplement their income while they’re waiting for their big break? Do many give up after giving themselves a certain number of years to try it?

Actors do everything and anything to supplement their income.  Here’s a short list of some of the things I’ve done when I didn’t have much acting income:  Tutoring, part-time teaching, substitute teaching, making coffee at Starbucks, data entry, temp jobs, receptionist, telemarketing, sales, reading scripts and market research surveys.  I’m sure I’m forgetting another half-dozen.  I know actors with even more obscure jobs like making fake versions of famous paintings for people who want something that looks like a Van Gogh but don’t have $10 million lying around.  Then of course many actors I know are living the cliché and are waiters.  Some actors even have very flexible “real jobs” where their bosses are cool with them leaving for auditions.   I find the majority of those actors tend to be a little less motivated about their careers since they’re making a comfortable living and don’t “need” the acting work.

Almost everyone I know who’s said “I’m giving myself X” number of years to make it as an actor quits.  The people I know who make a living at this only say, “I’m going to be an actor and do whatever it takes to get there.”  The common number thrown around is that it takes 10 years to make a living as an actor.  Some people do it in less, some in more but the ones who do it rarely have an “end date” in mind.

7. What are casting calls like? Any tips on doing well at them?

Casting calls are a weird combination of very fun and very stressful.  Typically you show up to an office where there are half a dozen people who look just like you waiting outside.  You are eventually called in and for a first audition are typically put on camera for a producer, head of casting or director to view.  You say your lines, are sometimes asked to do it again slightly differently and then go home.  You then have to do your best job to forget about the audition and any possibility that you might be called back.  If you’re called back you do it again for more people who may or may not have the power to hire you.  Sometimes you’re called in multiple times and each time to read for more and more powerful people.  Early auditions typically take less than two minutes and when the director/producers come into the room it take around five or so.  They’re usually pretty quick.  The longest I’ve ever spent auditioning is fifteen minutes.

When approaching auditions I think of myself like a closer in baseball.  A closer is called in during high-stress situations and is expected to be amazing with little prep work or prior notice.  When I’m called for an audition I have on average 24 hours notice.  There’s no time to meet with a coach or ask my wife to tell me how amazing I am.  You have to walk in that room, deliver the lines almost perfectly and be better than anyone else doing the exact same thing.  You have to do all of this knowing you’re up for a commercial that could make you $25,000 or a film role that can help get your career rolling.  There is a lot of pressure to be incredible on a moment’s notice.  The actors who tend to do the best at auditions have learned to distance themselves from being result oriented.  They go in, try to do their best job, learn what they can from the experience and then manage to forget the whole thing.  It’s a skill that has to be developed either by experience or drugs.  I’m half-kidding.

8. What is the best part of your job?

I really love so many things about my job.  Getting to work is amazing.  On almost every project there’s a real feeling of community and a drive to make the finished product as good as possible.  I’ve found this even to be true with some of the bigger names I’ve worked with.  With rare exceptions everyone simply wants the audience to really enjoy the end result.  That spirit of collaboration and drive is super-fun.

It’s also a huge kick to see yourself on TV.  Commercials are especially fun because you never know when they’ll run.  It’s always a thrill.  Then you get dozens of e-mails and phone calls from people who were sitting in an airport or their house when your face came on the screen.  Once a friend even pulled a “Hey, I know that guy” at a bar when one of my commercials ran and it helped him pick up a girl.  That’s fun.

Probably the coolest thing about my job is that there are no rules.  There’s common sense and etiquette to follow but tonight my phone can ring and tomorrow I could find myself auditioning for the next Spielberg movie.  The odds are slim but it does happen, especially when you put the time and energy into your career and cultivating important relationships.

9. What is the worst part of your job?

The worst part is that there are no rules.  Tonight my phone could ring for a huge audition, but it could also not ring for another month.  In the early stages of a career it’s easy to go years without landing a paying job.  The competition to get even the smallest role is insane; you really have to fight for everything you can get.  If in another five years I chose to give up (I won’t, but I’m making a point) I’ll be 33 with very little on my resume but “Actor.”

10.  What’s the work/family/life balance like?

Being an actor gives you a lot of plusses and minuses in the family situation.  When my daughter was born I got to spend a lot of time with her.  I brought her to auditions when she was too young to interrupt and when my wife was a student we got to spend a lot of time together during the day when most of my friends were at work.

On the minus side it’s very hard to raise a family not knowing when you’ll make money again.  Every city that boasts a good amount of acting work is also incredibly expensive to live in.  Not knowing if I’m going to make a single penny for the rest of the year is incredibly hard.  I can assume I’m going to make some money, but I really have no way of knowing how much.

Also, if I am fortunate enough to get work, I could end up in another country for weeks (or even months) on very short notice.  My wife would be happy to have the money but that can put a real strain on a relationship.  When I’m doing theater I can be out all night and only get to see my family a few minutes each morning before they leave for work/school.  That can be rough.

11.  What is the biggest misconception people have about your job?

Most people don’t know that there’s a middle-class of actors.  Everyone knows about the tens of millions that Tom Hanks makes and they know the cliché of the actor/waiter begging for a two line role on a TV show.  But they don’t know that there are hundreds of actors who make a living and you would walk right by them on a street.  I’ve only been “recognized” for my work once but I’ve managed to make a respectable amount of money most of the years I’ve been an actor.  I have friends who make six figures that you wouldn’t recognize until they started listing their credits.  This is my dream as an actor, not to make a billion dollars as a celebrity but to support my family and do what I enjoy doing.

Here’s some clips of Eitan’s work

• A Tribute to Paul Newman
• So You Want My Job: Film Director
• So You Want My Job: Game Warden
• So You Want My Job: Artist/Illustrator
• The Art Of Manliness Weekly Roundup: There Will Be Blood Edition

“My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different time occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.” –Benjamin Franklin

Last week we talked about the importance of being decisive and went over some basic tips for how to make good decisions. We mentioned the pro and con chart as being a helpful part of the decision-making process. As you can see from the above quote, Ben Franklin was a fan of the pro and con chart himself and added his own twist by giving different weights to his various motives.

But what if you try the pro and con chart and the right decision still isn’t clear? You’ve done all the research you can about your possible choices; you’ve journaled your thoughts; you’ve sought the advice of your friends and loved ones. But you’re still absolutely stuck between two or more choices that seem equally attractive. How can you break this stalemate?

Today we’re going to go over a decision making hack that expands on and improves the technique practiced by old Ben. When you’re agonizing over a decision, it can help you discover which choice would really be best.

How to Decide Between Two or More Attractive Possibilities

Every decision has its advantages and disadvantages. The trick is to figure out which choice will give you more of the former and less of the latter.  A typical pro and con chart can be too vague. This is where a decision “balance sheet” comes in. If you want to get really fancy, philosophers who study decision making (yes, there is such a thing) call it a “multi-attribute optimization chart.”  Get out a sheet of paper, gents, you’re about to become The Decider.

1. Make your columns. You need two columns.  Label the first column “Element” and the second column “Importance Factor.”  Next to those two columns, create as many columns as you have possible choices. Label these columns with the names of your choices. For example, “Job in Seattle” and “Job in Phoenix.” If drawing this out by freehand takes too much time for you, just download this template and use it.

2. List the important elements of your decision. In your “Element” column, list all the major elements that influence your decision. For example, if you’re trying to decide between jobs, you would list things like location, pay, benefits, job security, work hours, enjoyment, etc.

3. List the importance factor of each element. In your “Importance Factor” column, assign each element a number from 1 to 10 according to how important that element is to you. For example, if the time your job will allow you to spend with your family is very important to you, give that element a 9. If being close to your family isn’t as important to you, then give it something like a 4. Put down the first number that comes to you; don’t overthink it.

4. Grade the choices in relation to each element. You’re now going to assign a number from 1 to 10 in relation to how each choice measures up to the elements you have listed. For example, if the job in Seattle offers an excellent health insurance plan, you would give it a 9. If the job in Phoenix would sometimes have you working 60 hour weeks, then you would give it something like a 5 for “work hours.” Again, don’t think too much about it; just put down the first number that comes to your mind. These numbers go on the left side of your choice columns. Make sure you leave room on the right side of the column for another number.

5. Multiply the importance factor by the grades for each choice. For example, if you gave the importance of the pay element a 8, and you gave the Job in Seattle a 7 for that job’s potential salary, you would take 8X7 and would come out with 56. This number goes on the right of your choice column.

6. Add up the totals. Once you have multiplied all of your importance factors by your choice grades, add all those numbers up to get a total. Which choice has the highest number of points? That’s probably the best choice for you.

These directions may make it sound more complicated than it really is. It’s actually quite simple once you see an example of a chart. Here is an example chart of choosing between two different jobs. Let’s say that both jobs seem attractive, but you want to figure out which would be the best job for you and your way of life. Here’s how you could figure out which job to take:

After multiplying the importance factor by our choice grades, and then adding those totals up, we’re left with the Seattle Job scoring 428 and the Phoenix Job scoring a 468. Looks like you’re moving to Phoenix! Of course, there is a possibility that you come up with some false positives doing this exercise. Even though you try not to be biased, there’s a tendency to give the choice you really want higher scores, even if it really doesn’t warrant those scores. Despite that small drawback, multi-attribute choice optimization does a pretty good job of helping you come to a choice (after all, if you’re inflating the scores of one of your choices, then deep down you probably already know which one you want!). It forces you to really think about all the factors going into your decision. Kate and I have used it several times when making big choices, and it has always proved helpful. Go ahead and give it try with the sample card below. Remember you can download a PDF with a couple of these worksheets ready for you to use. Enjoy!

Post inspired by the 1963 Doubleday Personal Success Program

• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 1: Define Your Core Values
• Being Decisive
• Curing Your Restlessness: Limiting Your Choices
• 30 Days to a Better Man Day 18: Find Your N.U.T.s
• Say Goodbye to Your Gut: 3 Mental Preparations to Starting a Fitness Routine