MIT student blogger Snively '11

I may have been accepted to MIT, but by Snively '11

I'm getting darned good at failing at other things!

Hello – my name is Michael. You may know me as Snively. Or you may not know me at all because I wrote blogs back in the dark ages of 2008, nearly 20 years ago, when blogs were something *everybody* wrote in. I’m the author of such classics as

It’s been four years since I’ve written a blog entry here, which seems ridiculous but that’s how it goes. Y’all don’t care about what’s going on in the life of a 30-something MIT grad, y’all want to know about campus culture, dining, UROPS, and all that nonsense. If you’ll indulge me, though, I thought I’d type some stuff. None of it will be as thoughtfully crafted as Chris Su’s, who demonstrated with every blog entry why he was destined to become a successful doctor and I was destined to become a twice-terminated project manager in Indiana :)

I want to get into a heartfelt section here about failure, I really do, but first I want to catch you up on what’s been going on with me since you last heard from me.

In June 2022 my second son was born, named Archer. He was a colicky mess with a funny-shaped head (which eventually sported a very stylish orthotic helmet) but he’s two-and-a-half now and adorable. Here’s him learning to use scissors for the first time at our local library a couple of weeks ago.

My firstborn is now 6 years old. You know all the people making fun of “Rizz” and “Ohio” and “Skibbidi?” My son is the person they’re making fun of. Man, he is ALL IN on Roblox, Skibbidi Toilet, Craftee, Cash and Nico, and all the other weird parts of the internet that make me feel old. Here he is at the same library on the same day, honing his Roblox skills.

Child playing on a computer in a library

Cast your mind back with me to 2016 and a blog entry I wrote about running my first ever marathon. It was Chris Peterson’s fault. Well, by 2023 I’d run four marathons and was looking for something harder. This was dumb. I decided I wanted to run an ultra marathon. This was dumb. I decided I wanted to skip those silly intermediate steps of 50k, 50mi, and 100k, skipping straight to a 100 mile ultra. This was dumb.

[sidenote – as I enter into this “long distance running” section of my entry, I can see media uploads here in WordPress from Chris Su, where he’s smiling, wearing medals, and running marathons at approximately the speed of light. Just more evidence of him making smart decisions and running respectable distances while I make dumb decisions. I’m sure his blog entry will be a delight. Mine will be pain]

So I found an ultra marathon scheduled for August 2023 and began training! I was at a marathon-level of fitness in January 2023, so I just had to get from 26.2 miles up to 100 miles in 8 months. How do you do that? RUN A F***ING LOT. No joke, I was running 6 days a week, 10-13 miles per day (except for weekends, which were trail runs and more like 16-20 miles). Full time job, two kids under 5, and running 13 miles every day. At the beginning (during winter) I could do my morning runs at the YMCA’s indoor track. They opened at 5AM and I was doing shorter distances so I could finish up and make it home, shower, and prep the kids for daycare without too much trouble. As the distances increased I started having to set out at 4AM each morning from my house. Dark days. Literally.

I did it though – I stuck to the training plan and ran all the miles and did all the prep and bought all the shoes (SO MANY SHOES) and even grew a hideous long scary beard so that I’d fit in with all the other ultra runners. And then it was time for the ultra. I’m leaving out a lot of stories but I could write dozens of blog entries about this experience, this is the short version. I set out at 4AM and jogged into the woods. About an hour later I realized a major mistake had been made. I did all my training in Indiana. Good ol’ flat Indiana. The ultra I was running was in eastern Ohio. Good ol’ not-so-flat eastern Ohio. The hills absolutely DEVASTATED me. Ruined me. I fell off the pace by the second aid station and had entered “just ignore the pain and keep going” mode by mile 26. At 11PM, mile 52, after burning 9,000 calories, and running for 19 hours, I collapsed in some rando stranger’s front yard and called in retrieval from my support crew (my parents). They couldn’t find me, so I had a nice half hour to reflect about choices.

statistics from a run

Also, for those of you who use Garmin watches, there’s a stat called “Body Battery” – it’s basically a measure of how much energy you have at any given point during the day. If you get good rest and are charged up, you’ll start your day at 100 percent. When you’re just completely exhausted and feel like laying down and sleeping you’ll be at 5 percent (doesn’t dip below 5).  I love my body battery readings from this run.

Garmin Body Battery Graph

I start in the mid 60s and bottom out at noon. Then I run 11 hours with zero energy in the tank. Because I’m dumb.

This was one of the first ever super big goals that I set out to conquer and failed at. I made it 50 miles, which was some solace, but ultimately I failed at my goal. 4 months later I’d encounter another failure – I was laid off from my job 3 weeks before Christmas. HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 2 layoffs in less than 4 years.

These three moments – two layoffs and a failed ultramarathon – were fairly transformative. I took a lot away from my first layoff. It was at a job that I saw myself staying at and growing in. It was in an industry that I understood and that I loved. I worked long hours, I established relationships, I volunteered for things, I got bonuses, I was valued, and then when sales dipped I was one of the first to go because I was too expensive. That’s when I realized that I’d endured a lot of stress and lost a lot of weekends and had absolutely nothing to show for it. So I decided to not do that again. And it’s been great. Work 8 to 5, leave work at work, and create clean divisions between professional and personal. Am I climbing the ladder, getting promotion after promotion, making huge money, etc? No. Is that ok? Absolutely. That first layoff was due to COVID so it wasn’t a complete shocker when it happened. The next one, though…

I felt reasonably secure where I was in 2023. I was the most senior project manager, knew our product well, my projects generally came in under budget and I mitigated the damage on the dumpster fires. But sales were down and they needed to roll some heads, so “bye bye most expensive project manager!” Fortunately, after what I learned from my last layoff, the actual experience of sitting in the conference room with HR and being handed a packet wasn’t as jarring as last time. As I walked to my car, sans phone and AMEX, I didn’t feel like I’d given more than I got and I knew the drill. I filed for unemployment, reached out to my network, started applying, and … failed. Good lord, applying to jobs SUCKS. If you’re not getting a referral or an “in” from somebody in your network, and you’re just applying to random job postings, you feel like your soul is being trampled. You just cast cover letter after cover letter into the void, never to be seen again. I had several promising leads that all came from people I knew, but I had ZERO responses from anything I cold-applied to. It was miserable. AND IT WAS CHRISTMAS TIME!

I’d exhausted all of my network connections and was interviewing for my very last opportunity and was fortunate enough that it worked out (thank god). By late January I was once again employed :) I’m sure many of you reading this are just going into college, so this advice is 4 years premature, but for the love of god, ESTABLISH A PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT NETWORK. Whether it’s LinkedIn or some other tool, you NEED a professional safety net, because finding a new job without one is disastrous.

So yeah, I may have gotten into MIT, but I’ve tasted failure for sure. And it’s been ok. To be sure, my failures are insignificant compared to some, and my life is still pretty good, but what’s helped a lot is always trying to find something productive to take away from the failures. Not necessarily a way to avoid them in the future, but an understanding of what led to it and how best to react. My first layoff helped me put the employer/employee relationship into focus and helped me better prioritize my life outside of work. My second layoff instilled in me the value of a network and making connections with all those you work with or near. And the ultra taught me that sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you’re just going to fail, and it’s ok to not succeed at everything you try. And that running ultras sucks.

Tens of thousands of MIT applicants are about to face one of the biggest failures of their lives in 2 short months. If you’re reading this, and you’re applying, you’ll likely not be admitted. Sorry to be a jerk about it, but don’t think for a second that you’re guaranteed to get in or stand a better chance than anybody else. There are going to be over 20,000 applicants for a freshman class of fewer than 1,500. Don’t let this failure ruin you. Be upset, take time to process, but make sure you take something away from it. Find the lesson, whatever it may be for you, and use that to make your journey through life easier when you encounter more failure.

And, you may not want to hear this now, but know that there are LOTS of paths in life that don’t involve MIT. Lots of really really good paths. Do you know how many alumni I’ve been employed with since graduating? 0. Do you know how many amazing and successful people I’ve worked with since graduating? A lot. A lot a lot. They went to schools like Purdue, Embry Riddle, Rose Hulman, Oregon State, Georgia Tech, Indiana University, and so on and so forth. And they’re doing great! And you will too.

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Ok, that’s the end of the heavy part. I think for the rest of this I’ll just post things that come to mind about my last few years of life.

  • I’ve fallen into the black hole that is Formula 1 and am so excited to finally have a sport that I actually enjoy following! I’ve spent my entire life watching other people bond over sports and talking about players from years past and different pieces of drama and I’ve just never cared about any sport – until F1. I love it.
  • My son, in Kindergarten, already has his first girlfriend. They hold hands when walking home from school every day and it’s heart-melting.
  • I’ve started putting Rubik’s Cubes into square jars and selling them on Etsy. If you want a Rubik’s Cube in a jar, from yours truly, go forth and purchase (shameless plugs are the best).
  • I got to watch an eclipse from the bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which was pretty cool.
  • Chuck E Cheese is no longer a sketchy drug den with moldy carpet, and is actually pretty darn cool now. You should check it out.
  • I made my son a little Lowe’s cart and he’s adorable.
  • I sold all of my childhood Pokemon cards for $1,400 of store credit at a local game/comic store. Now I’m enjoying hunting for Digletts and Charmanders with my son using my infinite supply of store credit. Let me know if y’all have Digletts and Charmanders you want to donate to the cause, we’re trying to complete master sets of each.
  • I got fat, then less fat, then even more fat, and now I’m working my way down towards less fat again.
  • I built a deck
  • I bought a talking toy rocket and I am in love with it
  • I bought a Bambu P1P and am also in love with it
  • The LEGO Rivendell set is amazing
  • Going to Disney World with a 4 year old is WAY different than going with a 1 year old.
  • Favorite Computer Game is a three-way tie between Shapez2, Trimps, and Balatro.
  • I still cross stitch and design cross stitch patterns. I’m building up a library of original Formula 1 patterns that I’ll do something with eventually.

Ok, I think that’s it. I mean, that’s not all of it, but that’s as much as I feel like writing right now.