We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Suzanne Borders a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Suzanne, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
I have a lot of hot takes about this topic that aren’t especially popular. Mostly, I believe that the education system, esp the collegiate system, is so incredibly broken. I don’t think there’s anything the education system can do to prepare students for a fulfilling career, other than maybe pushing more students into apprenticeships and entrepreneurship in general, vs pushing every single student down the ‘college’ track. But most of all, I think most people would do themselves a favor to avoid post-high school education completely these days, especially if they wish to stay out of debt and wish to pursue a career outside of law or medicine. For law and medicine, I think college still makes sense, as, on the whole, graduates are able to pay back their student loans. But for other degrees – esp degrees in stuff like philosophy or the arts – it just seems cruel and malicious to allow students to take on tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, knowing that the job prospects and market for the degree associated careers just isn’t there, and that once they have the degree, they will forever be struggling to pay back their debt. In my opinion, this sort of thing should be criminal, as in people who allow this to happen should be in jail. This doesn’t mean I don’t value philosophy or the arts – in fact, I am a HUGE fan of both, and in another life, I’d be a philosopher or an artist – so quite the contrary. I just don’t believe studying these things at an immense cost in a college setting makes any sense, and I don’t think collegiate support of these disciplines has any impact or relevance to their societal value. Most of the great historical philosophers didn’t pay $100K to get a philosophy degree; just like many of the world’s best artist never studied art in school. They LIVED art, they LIVED their philosophy. I saw bring back apprenticeships and the culture of apprentices; let people learn their trade and make money at the same time. Let them get paid to explore what they love, give young people the freedom to find themselves without taking on massive life altering debt. Besides, let’s be real – the only real path to life changing wealth in most situations doesn’t involve a college degree, which is why most of the world’s real change makers are college dropouts – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, you name them. This new world – and the emerging future – doesn’t need or value degrees; it values character, experience, curiosity, and a willingness to work. None of which require a degree.
Back in the day, when access to information was limited and heavily siloed, degrees meant something and held some value. You paid to access information and knowledge. But today, the world’s knowledge is available to us all, 24/7, 365 via our internet-connected phones! So what value does a degree even hold when I can find the same information available in textbook (or even the exact textbook itself AND a video of the lecture) for free on Google? Degrees are also devalued because everyone has one. My advice is to buck the masses, don’t buy the BS, and look into apprenticeships, internships, and learning on the job instead.
I feel this way for a number of reasons, but the main one was my own useless experience in college. I had to pay for my college myself, to avoid student debt. I worked multiple jobs, started my own businesses, and went to school at the same time. I knew exactly what every class cost because I paid the bill myself. I remember seeing a class that cost $600 and thinking “that’s a week’s worth of bartending tips” and asking myself, was the class even worth a week’s worth of my time, breaking my back, working from 6PM-4AM? The answer was clearly no, especially because I could read the textbooks for all the classes in advance and not even show up for classes (I’d grab extra shifts instead) and ace the midterms and finals. Like why pay for the entire class if I never attended? I’d rather just not pay and buy the books online for $10 used and read them and teach myself. Hence, my beliefs.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am the CEO & Founder of BadVR, the world’s first immersive data analytics platform. I previously led product and UX design at 2D analytics companies including Remine, CREXi, and Osurv. I’m a recipient of several amazing grants, including those from Magic Leap’s Independent Creator’s Program, the National Science Foundation, NOAA, and more! I thrive at the intersection of product design, immersive technology and data. In my spare time, I travel for inspiration (having visited 80 countries and counting), and am proud to be a published poet and former punk.
What sets me apart from others is my dedication to bringing together both the analytical and creative mindset, delivering a fusion of both technical talent and creativity to all the products I design and deploy. I am most proud and excited about my work with BadVR, as being a entrepreneur has been my life-long dream. My path to this particular place has not been easy, especially given that I am a woman in tech, which is not always an easy space to inhabit. Most challenges I have faced have been overcome by sheer will-power and dedication, along with the professional and personal support from friends and colleagues. Mentorship from key individuals across multiple industries has also greatly shaped my success, both as a founder and a human being. The biggest lesson learned along the way was simply to always be true to myself; that authenticity as a currency will never be devalued. The world does indeed want, and even need, to hear what I have to say, and my biggest successes in life have come when I’ve remained true to my own being, when I stopped second-guessing myself or forcing myself to fit into any life-path other than my own. I want the world to know – of me, my brand, my story – is that I have succeeded because of my originality, not in spite of it.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Oh for sure! Where to start? There are so many. Recently, I read Phil Jackson’s “Eleven Rings” and “Sacred Hoops”; both books had a lot o very interesting and insightful thoughts and ideas about team-building and motivation, both of which are critical to the success of any entrepreneur! Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I do struggle with the management side of things, because I myself, really despised being managed as an employee and always sought out jobs or work where I could have a lot of freedom, responsibility, and autonomy. I’m not the sort of person who ever attended or ever got anything out of ‘team building’ exercises; I’m a lone wolf, and always have been. So when I became a manager, I didn’t understand why people needed me around. I figured the best gift I could give any employee was to step out of their way and leave them alone – because I myself would wish a manager would do this for me! But the thing is, I have to realize I am not normal, I am not the norm, and most people want to be motivated, to be actively lead, and the things I find unrelentingly dorky or just pure cringe – motivational talks, team meetings, etc – are things others deeply need and require to perform their best.
Phil Jackson’s books really helped me understand the need for team motivation, from a spiritual and psychological angle, and helped me see team motivation and leadership as something other than ‘that thing dorky dudes in polo shirts try to do once a month with HR.’ I really also enjoyed the focus on competitive winning, personal and professional development, and Phil’s take on alternative belief systems that drives a lot of his leadership theories. Plus, of course, I’m a big Lakers fan, so any leader who can accomplish a 3-peat gets automatic respect from me!
Other than Phil Jackson – I love the Art of War, The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction (let’s be real, anything by Robert Greene is good and incredibly useful for leadership and professional ambition). From a more poetic side, I love Rilke’s philosophy on life – I read his book ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ often, whenever I am really struggling or going through a tough transformation. I’ve also sent more than one employee a copy of the book as well – definitely worth a read!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There are so many, I don’t even know where to start or which story to pick. I guess one situation comes to mind – when I was a kid and a teen, all I wanted in the entire world was to become a professional horseback rider. I spent literally every waking hour in the barn from ages 10-19; I rode 10-12 horses a day, I volunteered to work at the barn so I could be there more and get free lessons; I often skipped school to attend horse shows, I volunteered at the shows to afford the entry fees, braided show horses or worked as a groom for extra cash, and literally slept on hay bales because I couldn’t afford a hotel – I was just a kid. My parents let me do whatever and oftentimes I’d miss months of school just going to horseshoe after horseshoe. It was my entire world; the universe outside of horses and riding horses (and punk rock music lol) didn’t interest me at all. My plan was to go pro when I turned 18 and ride and train horses for a living.
And I was on track to do that, I was a very talented rider. I made the US finals several years in a row, placing 3rd one year. 3rd in the entire country.
Then, when I was about to turn 18, I was in a horrible horse-riding accident. I rode hunter/jumpers; the sort of English competitive horse riding where you jump over fences, and specifically pony jumpers, where you ride as fast as you can over a pre-set course of jumps and whoever can complete the course with the least amount of faults wins. Anyways – I was riding one of my ponies in a warm up class, a throwaway class, nothing important – and for some reason, coming up a fence, he jumped but didn’t calculate the width of the jump properly. My horse landed in the center of the jump, and I fell off under his body. The horse’s body was on top of me, 1000lbs crushing and grinding me into the ground. I was lucky I was wearing a real helmet (there were no laws back then requiring this, many just wore non-protective ‘hunting hats’), but regardless, I was knocked unconscious. I was life flighted out of the arena where I was showing my horse in Lake St. Louis, MO and taken to the nearest hospital where they cut off all my clothes and performed immediate surgery on my back, trying to prevent me from becoming a paraplegic.
Thankfully, I didn’t lose the ability to use my legs, but I was in a coma for 3 days. When I came out, I had had multiple surgeries on my back. I had to relearn how to walk over a period of several years and my riding career? It was over for me. I would never be able to ride at a professional level, over fences. In fact, I would never be able to ride horses daily, ever again. I wouldn’t be able to lift anything over 10lbs, I wouldn’t be able to wear heels, to sit for long periods of time. There were lists now of things I couldn’t do. Including the one thing I had planned to do for the rest of my life, including the one thing I had planned to be my career, my entire reason for being.
How do you process loss like this? I was just a teenager. 18 years old. I tried to compromise and say ‘ok I’ll just be a horse trainer then’ and my horse ‘career’ limped a long as I tried to learn to love teaching others the thing I wished – the thing I should have done myself. But mentally, I lost my nerve and the rage and jealousy anger I felt towards every able-bodied rider made it impossible for me to enjoy horses anymore. I quit having anything to do with them when I was 19. Since then, I’ve never ridden a horse longer than 10-15mins here or there. The thing I spent my entire childhood doing, the greatest love of my life at one time? I don’t even think about it anymore. I can’t. It hurts too much.
So if you want to talk about resiliency, that’s one story. There are many others. I had to reconsider my entire identity, who I was, what I wanted out of life; I had to develop new dreams, different goals. It was very hard and I’d be a liar if I said I lost myself there for a bit in the pursuit of a new meaning for my life. However, I did eventually find this new meaning and I wouldn’t be who I am today without this experience. So no matter how much it hurt or hurts; I don’t regret it and I am no longer angry or bitter about it anymore.
Learning to let go of dreams that are no longer meant for us is the definition of resiliency, no?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.badvr.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srborders/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzanneBorders/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@badvr
Image Credits
Copyright, BadVR, Inc.