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178 The McKinsey Mind

with your school alumni associations. Don’t lose touch with for-
mer colleagues, clients, or even competitors. You never know
where they’ll turn up or when they might be in a position to help
you.
Remember, too, that networking is a two-way street. If people
help you or you want them to help you at some point, you have
to be ready to help them when you can. Beyond that, make an
effort to cast your bread upon the waters. If one day you get a call
from, say, a younger alumnus of your alma mater, take the call and
do what you can for him. Who knows, one day, that person may
be in a position to help you.

YOUR PERSONAL LIFE

Life at McKinsey is a constant struggle between the professional
and the personal. McKinsey consultants often work long hours,
spend the entire workweek away from home, and come into the
office on the weekend. They don’t always get a chance to have din-
ner with their spouses, put their kids to bed, or just take a relax-
ing weekend to pore over the Sunday papers.
As a result, the ability to strike a balance between work and
personal life becomes extremely important to one’s success at the
Firm. Not everyone manages it. Many of our alumni stated frankly
that they left McKinsey because they couldn’t strike that balance or
didn’t like the balance they had struck. Sometimes, what worked
for single, twenty-something consultants stopped working when
they became married, thirty-something parents.
Even so, our alumni learned several lessons (even if sometimes
after the fact) about surviving the rigors of the high-pressure, exec-
utive life with one’s sanity—and even one’s marriage—intact.