The weight of my Harvard MBA is sometimes too heavy to bear

I mean, it’s okay — I bear it fine as I continue to navigate the difficult journey that life is, almost twenty years since I started the world’s most famous MBA program. But I don’t think it’s easy to understand, from the outside, the complicated role that a shiny brand like Harvard can play in one’s life. You mention it to people you meet, and they’re in awe. It’s like you won the lottery. They assume you should be flying in an orbit that is out of reach for most.

But you’re not. I’m not. I’ve been crashing and crashing and crashing. At 44, I’m nowhere in my career. I forfeited a stable corporate career, because soon after finishing my MBA, I ventured into the world of entrepreneurship. I failed at entrepreneurship too, multiple times. With both career paths tainted with mistakes and outright failures, I find myself both underqualified and overqualified, and at the heart of this dichotomy is my Harvard MBA. It’s there like the Colosseum — grandiose but unusable for practical purposes.

I’m exaggerating. The network is still there, and I’m often able to use it for my work, which is these days mostly of a consulting nature. But if the Harvard MBA was supposed to guarantee a stable and successful career path, then it did everything but.

The other day, even my wife made a comment that I took personally. This summer, I started working for a high school cross country team. What began as a volunteer position is looking to turn into a formal role. I love running and…