How to Make Your Own MBA

How do you feel about your job?  For most people the "its complicated" status would probably be a good answer -- it's mostly good with some elements of not good, and a splash of 'there's something missing to make it better.'  Chris Luecke was one of those people.  He was early in his career and steadily advancing up the ranks of a large Fortune 500 company, but "I was missing that creative element from my job."  He contemplated graduate school -- and that probably would have been seen as the normal, logical, safe play.  But he decided to do something that would end up enabling him to create his own MBA. In the span of a year, Chris launched a YouTube show featuring him drinking beer with his customers -AND- a podcast featuring him drinking beer at famous bars, breweries and festivals. (Notice a theme here?)   But the results have been remarkable, helping Chris combine his passions, increase his exposure inside the company (yes all the way up to the company's CEO) and move from 'it's complicated' to 'I love what they let me do.'  In this episode, we examine how Chris has designed his own 'MBA' that lets him explore his creative side, learn new hands on skills, and develop mastery for future opportunities (maybe a CMO one day).  It's illustrative for many people who are at that transition point in their 20s or 30s where they aren't dissatisfied with their job or their work, but feel like something lacking -- and why most managers crave employees who take risks, try new things and build their own path like Chris has.