C-O-M-M-I-T 💪

Each month, The Yo Pro features experienced leaders as Guest Writers to share wisdom and equip the next generation. Using a Start, Stop, and Continue model, they reflect on lessons learned from life and work as previous young professionals.

So, as we close out March 2025, enjoy story and insights from Molly Rapert, Professor of 34 years at University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business—you're in for a treat!

I have had the blessing of teaching at the Sam M. Walton College of Business for 34 years.  At the end of each semester, I share with my students the accidental journey that my career has been. 

It’s been a four decade lesson in learning that there is such much of life that even the best-laid plans can’t control and that you need to trust in God’s plan for laying out the direction that life will take you. 

There are six key themes that I have attempted to share with my beloved students over these years as they prepare for graduation and I hope you find these of help.

• Community

• Own

• Metrics

• Markers

• Intentionality

• Truth

From my earliest moments, I have been surrounded by exceptional role models, family, colleagues, and students - who were intentional and steadfast in the choices they made. I am grateful to have been raised in an environment where I was taught to always respect the perspectives of others rather than assume I have the best answer.

C.S. Lewis says it best: “the next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.” 

But those circles don’t happen without effort when you begin your career.  I can clearly remember admiring something that a colleague accomplished at work.  But when I paused and looked at their full life – how they treated their family, how they supported their friends – the allure of their work performance was countered by sacrifices they had made elsewhere. 

Certainly, we are all broken and all make mistakes.  But when you encounter people at work that you are choosing to follow/admire, it is important to look at the whole person and not just one aspect. 

Building community is hard – and you want to ensure that you are not letting community happen by default or proximity; rather, seek out those that hold you accountable, live a life worth admiring, and where iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17).

An aspect of my work life that I did not fully understand early in my career was the concept of really owning who I am, what my gifts are, and what my gifts are not. 

I have a foursome of executives who meet with my students on a project each semester, counseling them to “stand out in the sea of same” and to have confidence in what each of us brings to the table.  But that can be hard to do and so many things get in the way.  I’ve worked for some amazing people but there have also been a few that absolutely respond quickest to the colleagues that yell the loudest or complain the most. 

We live in a world that values noise and extroverts are much more comfortable in that world than introverts.  But the reality is that I skew very high on the introversion scale but work in a role made for extroverts.  All of these things can make it difficult to own how I am uniquely made and I spent a lot of years trying to be that extrovert, the entertainer in the classroom, the talkative one in meetings. 

Life became much easier once I truly accepted and owned that I am a listener, an observer, an analyst and not those other things. 

Your workplace needs all kinds of people and understanding the contributions that are unique to you – that make you stand out in the sea of same – is an important factor. Own fully who you are.

This was absolutely not something I understood until later in my career and life. And there would have been much more clarity and contentment if I had realized it sooner.

So many people will lay metrics for performance on you and quite often these metrics will be inconsistent with the things that bring you joy, the things that matter.  This will happen in your personal life, your friendships, and your work life. 

For example, as a tenured professor, the primary metric that I am evaluated on each year is research productivity.  Teaching is a distant second and for most of my career, teaching performance had very little impact on promotion, tenure, annual merit raises.  Yet it is what brings me the most joy on a daily basis. 

I was in my 30s before I realized that, while it was important for me to hit the metrics that my employer expected of me, that didn’t mean that I needed to lose sight of the aspects of work that fueled me. 

Looking back on my decades, the things that rise to the surface as memorable moments for me are all related to teaching:  creating a positive classroom environment, opening opportunities for students, celebrating their successes and mourning their challenges, moving beyond the four walls of the classroom and the 16 weeks of a semester in building lifelong friendships. 

Work was much more fulfilling when I focused on my metrics for success rather than just my employer’s.  And work metrics can not overcome personal metrics.  For me, it was important to me that I took our four kids to school each day and picked them up at the end of school.  Those conversations in the car, and the bonds that were created during those years were irreplaceable. 

Doing this meant that often I would be working in the early morning before they woke up or late at night after they went to sleep – and I’m sure there were probably times when it would have been easier to not juggle work so much.  But I wouldn’t trade hearing their stories and building those bonds for anything.  Keep YOUR metrics, all of them, at the forefront.

This might be the most practical advice I can share and it arises from the tug-of-war between my metrics for success and those in academia. 

It’s hard to stay focused on metrics when shiny objects – promotions, status, etc. – lure your attention.  But one strategy I used over the years was that my office is saturated with markers of the things that are really important to me. 

The walls are covered, not with my diplomas, but with photos of my family, notes from our kids, my favorite verses (Lamentations 3:22-24, James 1: 2-3, and Philippians 4:13), and handwritten letters from my students pinned to the walls.  I have pictures of my kids and their friends, including YoPro’s own Tyler Roth and the K Life small group that gathered at our home for seven years. 

When I walk through the office door, I am surrounded by visuals of the people that matter most to me and it is a sanctuary that serves as a constant reminder of the life I have been given.  When my family, students, or colleagues walk in my office, they immediately know my priorities and the source of my joy.

I also have a favorite routine on Monday mornings, the consistency of which immediately centers me as I start the work week. 

For many years, I had an annual date with my dad to the National Prayer Breakfast in WDC.  One of my favorite keynote speakers from that event was Barry Black, chaplain of the United States Senate.  The entire 26 minute talk is well worth listening to.  But my ritual – my Monday morning marker – encompasses a specific six minute segment that starts at the 20:39 minute mark. 

I turn this audio on when I am at the Crossover/Mission light on my way to work on Mondays and Chaplain Black says my favorite line “On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand” as I park my car on campus.  I carry his words with me as I make my way up the sidewalk, into the building, and to my office. 

Chaplain Black’s words are a marker that transcends my faith, my love of family, and all the memories wrapped therein.  After all, if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31).  Surround yourself with markers of the things that matter to you.

My dad was one of the most intentional people I’ve ever known.  Within minutes of meeting him, you knew he loved Jesus and he loved his family. 

He passed away last July and I truly could not possibly count the number of people who reached out to say how he immensely impacted their lives.  He built relationships with everybody.  He traveled the world sharing his love of Jesus, praying with the most unlikely of people because prayer can build bridges in situations that are lost to all other means of repair. 

He brought together two rival leaders of Kenya on one stage and prayed with them until they hugged each other in forgiveness.  When he met people, he always worked two questions into the conversation:  Do you know Jesus?  Do you love to fly?  And he never let differences of opinion sway him from building and growing these relationships. 

We’ve lost sight of that in our world in recent years, as amplified voices in social media and a general lack of civility have become the norm.  But YOU have the opportunity to create relationships that are not of this world, that are not grounded in what has become the norm.  Being a reliable, steadfast, intentional person has become even more important than ever. 

This is a tough one today because we are surrounded by disparate data points that can support vastly different opinions.  Your role at work is probably filled with more sources of data than a human could look at in a lifetime. 

People shout their opinions on all topics – work, personal, political – with a conviction that is equaled only by the voices of those with opposing views.  It is such a confusing time.  But that makes it even more important that YOU dwell in truth and that you find the people and sources of information that you trust. 

When the YoPro guys asked me to share my thoughts, these are the pieces of advice that rose above the others for me: 

Community, Own, Metric, Markers, Intentionality, Truth.  Not coincidentally, they spell the word COMMIT. 

Many of these six will actually happen regardless of your actions:  you will have a group of people around you that form your community – you will have some sort of markers in your environment. But unless you COMMIT to creating and nurturing these intentionally, they may not be the community or markers that are in your best interests. 

In a life where so many things are not in our control, these are all things that you CAN have a degree of control over, but you have to commit to this process of pursuing these.

You may be wondering why I don’t have Jesus specifically on this list.  In my mind, adding Him to a list would imply a sort of mutual exclusivity.  And He absolutely can’t be a separate item to “check off”. 

He is the ultimate boundary-spanner, the One that is embedded in each of these moments, each of these actions. No success at work can outweigh the success of abiding in Him. And that’s part of your commitment that makes these six a life-long goal that is well worth pursuing. He is in each one. And the good news? His mercies rise new each morning – so even when we stumble, we get to start over (Lam 3:22-24).

If I had the chance to give advice to my 20-something self, it would include:

• Start — I would start taking control of my own future by establishing tangible markers and routines that keep my purpose and values solidly in front of me, a buffer to a world of distractions and temptations. 

• Stop — I would stop measuring myself against the metrics that others have placed in front of me. I can hit those metrics in order to make progress at work, but I can also establish my own metrics to ensure I am not losing sight of what is important to me.  Stop trying to be someone that I am not; rather I should proudly own every bit of how God uniquely made me.

• Continue — I would continue building community, using the examples from the blessing of being surrounded by role models that impacted me from my very earliest moments of life. I would continue being intentional in my words, my thoughts, and my actions.  I would seek truth and actively discern what sources can be trusted, whether people, data, or simply voices around me.

➞TheYoPoll

As always, let us know how we can help you on your journey.

In Your Corner.

See you next Tuesday!