AT WORK
Pair takes to the road to learn what makes work enjoyable
By Anita Bruzzese
Gannett News Service
Mike Marriner was a biology major, headed for med school. Nathan Gebhard was a business major, probably destined to be some kind of consultant. Both attended Pepperdine University in California, and both agreed they did not like the career paths they had chosen. But what to do?
Road trip, of course.
The two friends decided to travel the country in a 40-foot RV, picking the brains of those happy and fulfilled in their careers, to find the secret of how they — and others of their generation — could find the same happiness on the job. About 140 people — from a lobsterman to the chairman of Starbucks Coffee Co. — shared the story of how they found their own path, ignoring what other people thought they should do.
Using chutzpah and making lots of "cold calls" (meaning the recipients didn't know Marriner or Gebhard from the man on the moon), the two friends asked lots of probing questions, trying to find the secret of how anyone figures out what to do with their rest of their lives.
"There was a real consistency to all the stories we heard," Marriner says. "They had a real ability to silence the noise of society. They listened to themselves, even though they were really petrified."
Scared, much as Marriner and Gebhard were when they graduated and decided to veer off the predictable career paths, they went deeply into debt, and tried to be "true to themselves," even though Marriner acknowledges that it hasn't been easy with "hell to pay from our families."
Still, they are so committed to their mission they have written a book, along with Joanne Gordon, called "Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Path in Life" (Ballantine, $13.95).
In it, the two share the art of getting informational interviews and asking stimulating interview questions. They also share their "manifesto" with readers: "So what do you want to do with your life? You should be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, a consultant ... blah, blah, blah. Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do with your life. We call that the noise. Block it. Shed it. Leave it for the conformists. As a generation, we need to get back to focusing on individuality."
And while it's clear that this sounds a bit like the 1960s generation, the difference is that Marriner and Gebhard don't preach living on a commune and not trusting anyone over 30. On the contrary, they think it's the experienced workers who have much to offer those just entering the job market. It's just that they believe a person should do something they want to do, not something that others think they should. And if that means traveling around the country, getting interviews with Madonna's stylist or an environmental lawyer, then so be it.
"We've learned a lot from this experience, about things we're really good at," Marriner says. "For example, I have found that I love writing. Nathan is really good at design, editing and filmmaking."
As for getting all those informational interviews from complete strangers, Marriner says they learned more from the process than anything else they did. "Sure, we got rejected plenty of times, but we would cold call anyone. I guess we just learned a lot from our own naivete."
Marriner and Gebhard hope they inspire others of their generation to explore the open road, and then share their experiences with others on their Web site (www.roadtripnation.com). It's what they call "self-construction" rather than "mass production," and they preach that only through exploring can one open the mind, "exposing paths that you never knew existed."
"It's how you find the open road," Marriner says.
Anita Bruzzese is author of "Take This Job and Thrive," (Impact Publications).
