Hi, this is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck.

Earlier this year, as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, the MBA Class of 2020 faced the daunting prospect of graduating into an economy battered by widespread shutdowns and hiring freezes. To offer some perspective, we reached out to alumni who had confronted similar challenges—including the OPEC crisis, the Vietnam War, the Financial Crisis of 2008—and we asked them how they made it through those difficult times. And in this special edition of Skydeck Voices, they share their stories and their advice.

Photo credit: Library of Congress / Dorothea Lange

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Hi, this is Akilah Rogers. I graduated in 2009, companies were rescinding offers, and the only companies that were hiring were investment banking, consulting, and CPG. It was a really tough time and people were very nervous. For me, I took that opportunity to start my own business. I actually wrote the business plan in one of my HBS courses as the final project. I then took this business plan to the bank and was able to secure a loan to start a real estate investment company investing in foreclosed properties. My advice to the class of 2020 is this is the time to be creative. What's needed right now? There are things that are standing out that the world or that the economy needs because of this crisis. And there's opportunities to build businesses to address those needs. Or go work in the industries or create a product that helps provide solutions to the present problems. We dealt with this in the class of 2009 and we all are stronger and better and just had our 10 year reunion and loved seeing one another. So you will be OK. But I would say use this opportunity to become a leader and to help the world.

My name is Chuck Fienning, MBA Class of 1970, Section C. Five years after graduation, I was a partner in a mobile-home retailing company in Greensboro, North Carolina. I was a bachelor, living in a mobile home, and trying to create a manufactured housing empire. It was not working. The end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, inflation, three presidents, Nixon, Ford, and eventually the next year, Carter, had caused me to work 80, 90 hours a week and create a negative net worth. I didn't plan to go to my HBS fifth reunion in 1975 and I didn't really have the money, but my mother said, “You need to go, and here's the money.” So I went to Boston to my fifth reunion, thinking to myself, what am I going to tell my sectionmates? Well, of course, they were asking me how is my business going and so forth, and I just had to be honest and say, “It's not going well, I'm working my butt off, but it's just not happening for me.” What I found out from that experience in Boston was that my sectionmates still liked me for who I was. A couple of them gave me some pretty good advice and it wasn't so much what I had, but who I was, that counted. I would encourage you when you get discouraged, don't hesitate to ask your sectionmates, your classmates for help—and by all means, do attend those reunions.

This is Aarati Rajwade, MBA Class of 2010. I was too hard on myself and my definitions of success when I graduated. I had goals with years in a spreadsheet. Life was not a spreadsheet. I had some personal setbacks that I learned to navigate and still come out strong. Sometimes as HBS students, we have a false sense of security. Remember, nothing has a guarantee. I was an immigrant to the US in 2010 and got my citizenship later, so I had to work double hard to find connections, figure out how to support myself as I worked. I learned the depth of my own resilience. Honestly, I wouldn't rewrite those experiences for anything. Was it hard? Yes. Was it gut-wrenching in the moment? Yes. But was it worth it? Yes, yes, and yes. We are only as good as our experiences. I think of every setback as an experience to make me stronger, more marketable and a better executive or entrepreneur. While I wouldn't wish COVID on anyone, since this uncertainty has chosen you and us, I say rise and grab it by the horns.

My name is Sarah Lichtenstein and I graduated from HBS with my MBA in 2009. I came into HBS looking to switch industries and roles completely from what I'd been doing before school, and the financial crisis was really hard for me. It took about a year to find a job, and I took the first reasonable offer I got. The first job was a bad fit. It didn't play to my strengths, the culture was a terrible match, and I was managed out after about 18 months. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Eleven years later, I am thriving in a completely different role in a completely different industry. I use my MBA, I have influence, I’m making a difference, and my life is what I imagined it would be, even though the first couple of years out of HBS were hard. If someone had said to me in 2009 what I'm about to say now, I would have punched them in the face. Because I'm about to be cheesy. I met my husband through a friend at that first terrible job that I took out of desperation. The butterfly effect on my life from graduating in 2009 has been profound. My kids literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for the financial crisis. My biggest piece of advice, aside from power through, is to remember that what you see on social media is nobody's full story. You aren't as alone as you feel, even if everything feels really hard, and it’s OK to unfollow anyone whose social media makes you feel like you are. Good luck. It may suck, and it may suck for a while, but I promise it will get better.

Hi, I'm Dave Foster, a member of the HBS war class of 1969. 1967 was a wonderful year for me. I graduated from college, married Joanne, the most wonderful woman I ever met, and entered Harvard Business School. But the Vietnam War was reaching its peak, and my student deferment from the draft was cancelled. Harvard Business School was incredibly supportive. They ran second-year classes through the summer for those of us who were draft eligible. So we finished in January 1969. In April of 1969, I entered Navy officer candidate school in Newport, Rhode Island. In May, I was invited to walk to receive my diploma amid all the pomp and circumstance that Harvard could muster. I asked for permission to take a day off from Navy OCS. My request was denied. Worse yet, during my years in the Navy, friends graduated from law and business school and took great jobs, earning four times more than me. And I was falling behind, working at a dead end job in the Navy. So how did this turn out, looking back from the view 51 years later? First, my years in the Navy were anything but a dead end. I supervised 70 sailors, providing accounting and logistic services to a scout submarine squadron. My boss, commander, and later a Rear Admiral, Ted Walker, was one of the best of several mentors in my life. Yes, I was behind my classmates when I took a job at AcurA Corporation in Columbus, Ohio. But my Navy leadership experience quickly paid off. After five years, at the age of 32, I was promoted to vice president of sales and service for Western Europe. I went on to become a worldwide senior vice president of ABB Automation in Zurich, Switzerland. More importantly, I love my work every day. It turns out that committing myself to serve others was more important than an impressive ceremony I missed, and somehow, what looked like a detour in my career became an integral aspect of my development as a person and a leader.

This is Allegra Jordan (MBA 1995). There's a lot of terrible things in the world and a lot of pain. This is very true. But it's equally true that there's quite a lot of marvelous in the world. I'm sorry you're going through pain right now. I've been through pain, too. It's tough medicine. But there is a cessation of suffering and we must remember that, and not be too loyal to our suffering, otherwise we will become cynical and make worse decisions. So in these difficult times, I ask you to make room in your imagination for what is marvelous. This will help you make the best decisions.

My name is Lloyd Baroody, I’m in the MBA Class of 1977. So obviously based on my age, I've been through a lot of crises, and I have to say that this one, the COVID, was very different than the others because in the past ones I was more interested in, you know, the financial aspects and am I losing my money and my savings and my job and this and that. Now, this is very different. It's about health. And so I kind of forgot about everything else. And so what I did was I was lucky enough to have a modest house up in the northwest corner of Connecticut, which is very rural, about 40 acres. So my wife and I went up there for the last few months and we just really delved into things that we normally wouldn't do. I bought myself another chainsaw, a brush cutter. I used my tractor a lot more, and I became a person who now takes care of roughly 40 acres. And I absolutely loved it. I think the takeaway message that I want to give to all my classmates and colleagues about what made things work for me is that the key to happiness can be summed up in one word, and that's usefulness. And if you feel you're being useful or you have a purpose, I can tell you, you're very, very happy.

Douglas Schofield, Harvard MBA 1969, followed by the DBA in 1972. One most important thing, I think, is never forget that there are opportunities to be found in most crises. An example I'd like to give has to do with my move to a new job in a new place, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, literally starting my new job the very first day of the OPEC embargo. So there were large mobs of people standing at the bus station my first day in town. A fellow I've never seen before in my life pulled up at the bus stop and called out his window, inviting anyone who wanted to jump into his car that he’d be glad to drive them downtown. So being from Harvard Business School, I immediately jumped into his front seat and off we went. This turned out to be an extraordinary opportunity for me in a variety of ways. This individual was working in a large brokerage firm. I was about to start a job at a bank and had a lot of involvement in investment issues. I've been around a long time. I've seen a lot of financial crises. I've seen a lot of wars. They come and go. But as everyone knows, all things shall pass, and in the meantime, grab the opportunities that you find there in the crisis.

Jay Newman (MBA 1978), I worked as part of a team with many top people, larger private investors, and operating managers. Like many others, I've been through some world crises, dislocations, and transitions. In fact, after focusing most of my last 10-plus years as their only kid on the care and safety of my parents, I'd like to suggest that going through a personal or professional transition is very much an individual process with a framework. I'd like to suggest a book called In Transition that has helped hundreds of Harvard MBAs. The co-author is Richard Wedemeyer and Mary Burton were both Harvard MBAs, and their book In Transition was published around 1991, based on the career management seminar that they had provided to the HBS Club of New York for around 10 years.

My name is Kristen Forecki (MBA 2010). It was really interesting finding jobs during that time. I had opportunities through some of the on-campus recruiting, but what ultimately happened was that life circumstances took me to a different city than I had planned. And so I really had to rely a lot on my network. Someone from an internship that I'd had connected me to someone at Amazon, who recommended me for a job, but the hiring manager of that job ultimately recommended me for a different, better job. And then that was finally the position that I took after talking to people throughout the city and following a lot of chains like that one. So my advice is to keep following the chain. Don't give up. A few years later, someone from my HBS experience connected me because of her venture capital position to a startup role. And it was a hard left in terms of my career direction, but actually my HBS sectionmates convinced me to take the interview and I eventually took the job.

And I think a lot of the folks that graduated in 2010 coming out of the 2008 Financial Crisis ultimately found more interesting career paths than some of the previous sort of standard choices that we’d all thought about. I think there was a lot more stress and uncertainty, but everybody landed on their feet in their own way, and it showed us all how much we were capable of. I'm reminded of something that an investor told me as I was contemplating my current startup gig. He said, you're one of the lucky ones that's going to find a job no matter what. So if this doesn't work out, you can always do something else. Don't worry if this is going to fail, worry about whether it's going to be awesome and you're going to miss it if you don't take this risk. And I think about that advice all the time. All of this will find its place in your story. And ultimately, you will probably have a more interesting story, and a more interesting life, because of it.

Skydeck is produced by the External Relations department at Harvard Business School and edited by Craig McDonald. It is available at iTunes and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information or to find archived episodes, visit alumni.hbs.edu/skydeck.

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