How to Be a Millennial Whisperer by Spencer Deering

Author:Spencer Deering [Spencer Deering]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2016-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Leaking Confidence

For anyone working with young professionals day in and day out, it’s clear that their sense of dislocation gets worse, not better, with age. Way back in 2009, Kit Yarrow and Jayne O’Donnell noted in their book “Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail”:

“…the 2008-2009 Horatio Alger Association study, ‘The State of Our Nation’s Youth’, found that 62 percent of Gen Y college students say they are ‘very confident’ about achieving their own goals in life. Add in the 31 percent that said ‘fairly confident’ and you’ve got an overwhelmingly confident generation.”

Uh: that’s 93%??!

When I mention this stat to older Millennials I work with, I encourage them to take a deep breath. Then I ask a brutal game changer: “Seven years on, how confident are you feeling?”

I’d say that number has dropped BELOW 20%. No bueno. Why did it happen? Yarrow and O’Donnell cite another feature: “Millennials have, since birth, always enjoyed access to instant answers. This created a massive feeling of great confidence.” Seven years on and we see that “instant access to answers” actually created a massive feeling of great OVERconfidence. Once again, we’re confronted with the way that tech influences decision-making for young professionals.

“Of course I’ll reach my life goals,” the 20-year-old young professional might have said seven years ago. “I did well in High School; I’m going to a good college, I have a ton of friends, my parents and teachers tell me I’m awesome, so OF COURSE I’m going to reach my life goals! Now: back to beer pong!”

Cue the buzzer. “You can do whatever you want to do” is some wicked snake oil. A fulfilling path that leads to meaningful life goals is NOT one dotted with checkpoints decided by someone else that leads to “anything you want to do.” When you dig beneath the surface it’s easy to see why young professionals are struggling to develop roots.

What does a “good college” even mean? One whose name draws envy when pasted to your parents’ bumper? One that was listed online in more than 25 “Best of” rankings (instant answers again)? This painful path created by others just keeps winding nowhere. After attending a “good college,” the next step is to look for what? You guessed it: a “good job.”

I repeat: what does that even mean? A hated post at a name-brand investment bank? A high paying sales job? ANYTHING in San Francisco? Something with health benefits? Something that might actually bring fulfillment? One with a company that landed on more than 20 “Best Places to Work” rankings (instant answers)? Who knows??

I tell Millennials: you are certainly an unprecedented generation. Yet instant access to answers may be the single biggest driver of the huge drop in life-goal-confidence percentage. To be clear, there are yopros who are doing GreatWork at financial institutions on Wall Street; there are ace salespeople who are crushing their numbers; there are talented young software engineers in San Francisco and elsewhere. They’re happy and fulfilled. The problem we’re

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