A Young Person’s Guide to Future Success

When you are 18 years old and thrust out into the world having graduated from high school, the world can seem a foreboding, scary, and intimidating place.  Most 18-year-olds have only the vaguest idea of what they want to do with themselves for the rest of their lives.  And half of those who think they do are wrong.  The question becomes, how does one successfully navigate those years and do what is best for themself?  I have a few simple suggestions that do not guarantee success, but do guard against failure.

Figure out what thrills you.  This concept, while simple in form, can be most difficult to follow through.  For at least a year prior to graduating from high school, young people are bombarded with how to get into college but with little guidance of where to go and what to study.  The most successful people of all time have always done something that thrills them, something that wholly and complete draws them in and makes them thirst to know all they can in that field and be the best they can be.  It is always a mistake to allow making a substantial income to be crucial.  It is always better to have a job you love and live on a modest income than a job you hate to satisfy the desire for a large income.

It is not unusual for an 18-year-old to claim he does not know what he wants to do.  That being the case, he should avoid college until he does know.  Get out into the world and earn a living for a while, and figure out what you want.  But if for any reason you do find yourself in college, take a course of study, preferably liberal arts, that will serve you well regardless of what direction you eventually move in.  And do not let taking 5, 6, or even 7 years of study to graduate be an impediment to getting a degree in a field you love.  I can assure you, employers never look at how long it took you to graduate, only what you studied and what your GPA was.  And if you cannot maintain at least a 3.0 GPA you might consider two things, first, you are in the wrong field of study, or second, you are not committing yourself to do whatever it takes to get good grades, in which case dropping out until you can commit is not only cost-effective but sensible.

Have a plan!  Once you decide what you want to do, decide where you want to be in that career field when you are 45-years old.  It is all right if it is a “pie in the sky” scenario.  Even that gives you a place to start.  Once you know what your 45th year should look like, you can research what it is going to take to make that come true.  The first question is, what schools are best suited to giving you respectable degree in your chosen field.  Then, after undergraduate education is a graduate degree desirable or necessary.  If so, make a plan to include schools that will fill that need.  Now at this point many of you will point out that you will probably already be carrying a huge student loan debt.  Not to fear.  Your plan will include a job search, upon college graduation, that will land you a position in a company that will pay for in part, if not entirely, your education in graduate school.  Some companies will pay, at least in part, for education unrelated to your job.

Gain and maintain a health mind and a healthy body.  One of the unfortunate idea young people have about college is that it is a time to party hard.  The problem with this should be obvious, if you are focused on partying how can you expect to succeed in academics?  A few can but most cannot.  And even those who can, do so at their own peril.  Those four or five years are your first chance to teach yourself things outside of the home you grew up in and its influences, parents and others.  I am not saying that the occasional party should be avoided, no.  But feeling the need to party every weekend, or even nearly every weekend, is quite unhealthy and inevitably leads to unhealthy habits.

Equally important during this time, and in life in general, is dealing with your fears.  The person has not be born who does not have a fear of something.  Most common is a fear of failure.  But also is the fear of rejection, fear of success, and any other fear that gets between you and success.  Most fears are actually fairly easily dealt with once they are brought to the light of day, once you share them with someone who can help.  It is not unusual, for example, for college students to have problems with retaining the material.  This problem can be overcome by simply bringing it to the professor and requesting help.  All people need help.  Successful people get help as quickly as possibly once they realize their dilemma.  There is no disgrace in saying you do not understand something and need help.

Always have a “Plan B”.  This is actually a very simple concept.  The successful person recognizes that failure is unavoidable but it is what you do when faced with failure that influences future success.  Today’s failure may simply be a signal that your plan needs altering, possibly only slightly.  But it may also be a sign that your planned in too flawed to ever be successful, and this is when Plan B comes to fore.  For example, my plan was to become a family doctor but along the way I discovered I really am not good at dealing with people’s problems.  But along the way I discovered also that I was a fabulous researcher and my energies needed only redirection.  Or, I was on my way to becoming a world-famous computer engineer, but along the way I discovered I hated learning micro-electronics and all that goes with it.  But I also discover I was particularly good at math, and since I really love math, maybe my future lies in that direction.

Having a “Plan C” is not a bad idea either.

Do not allow yourself to be sidetracked.  Life is fraught with distractions, many of which have the ability to take us off our desired course.  Chief among these, I believe, are romantic relationships.  While in college our job is to learn.  But where we are social creatures, it is only natural that we form bonds with others.  If we are committed to our college career then we recognize when a relationship is distracting us too much from our stated goal.  This means the intensity of the relationship must be lessened or the relationship ended entirely.  Neither is easy but they are necessary for our future success.  Suffering a failed relationship is a small price to pay for a successful life.

Never compromise on morals and ethics.  Cheating in college is not unusual, and some might even say, epidemic.  One of the most common forms is the purchasing of term papers.  It is an immoral act that speaks to the character of the person.  It is better to fail while doing your own work than pass with someone else’s.  If you never cheat, never lie, you need never explain yourself for your actions will remain above reproach, even when such attempts on your character are made.  Decide on your moral and ethical character and then never give an inch on them.

Young People in the Workforce Dealing With Their Significantly Older Co-workers

This posting is inspired by a young lady who blogs on wordpress.com, http://lostgenygirl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-get-along-with-older-coworkers/ and that is a link to her post.  I recommend that everyone read it as she not only writes well, but she brings up many points about what young people encounter in the workplace.  I am most definitely one of those “older than her parents” people she would encounter.  She wonders how to relate to us and that is an exceptionally good question.  Other of her posts deal with what leadership her generation, “Gen-Y” needs to give.  Those thoughts dovetail nicely.

Several years ago I was in the position of hiring my replacement.  I had decided to retire at age 58.  I was burned out, to say the least.  You can read more about that in my previous posting.  I hired a young man who was getting his B.S. degree in aeronautical engineering and had plans to continue with his master degree in that same field.  I felt he was perfect, even though I am not that sort of engineer.  I was heavily involved with aircraft safety and was working on FAA and NASA projects.  Over the next year I was able to guide him into the job.

Engineers have this tendency to be socially awkward individuals who are frequently at a loss of how to interact.  I, fortunately, have never been so burdened.  In shepherding him along I saw him as a perfect fit who would in a very short time be doing my job much better than I ever had.

This was not the first time I had “summer interns” working for me.  We had a program to hire such individuals to do some of the analysis we simply did not have the time to do.  They were usually quite bright and highly motivated.  Most times their work was part of a thesis they had to present prior to graduation.  They were also always from far away places which meant they always left.  That last summer was different as I insisted to my boss that we hire this local fellow.  He was unaware of my retirement desire.

I considered it my job to make this young man as comfortable in his job as was possible.  The first job in your field of study can be daunting, and the fear of failure palpable.  But I thought it my responsibility to reassure him that he could only fail by not trying to do what was asked of him.  I told him that I did not expect him to grasp the entirety of what I did in one summer, or as it turned out, over the next year.   What I did expect of him was to show an aptitude for the work, which he did during the summer, and the willingness to do whatever he needed to plug on and succeed.   I told him that I expected he would make lots of mistakes and that was all right.  It is simply a part of the learning process.  The only bad mistake you can make is to not admit in a timely manner when you think you have made a mistake.

Rare is the job a person does that is so unique that most people in that workplace do not understand what you are doing.  But such jobs are usually the domain of much older workers anyway.  A young person entering the workplace is the future of the company.   They provide an energy all companies need.  But more importantly, they are frequently the source of innovation.  They come into the workplace unjaded, full of ideas, optimism, and youthful idealism, all good things.  But then they look at their coworkers and see a lot of people who are 15, 25, or more years older than they are.  How to relate?

One of the first things any new worker can do is to ask they fellow workers what they do.  I think of that as networking within the workplace.  Most people are more than willing to talk about what they do.  For the young person this can prove to be hugely helpful as they day will come when they will have a question one of those people can answer and they will know exactly who to ask.  Also, most jobs overlap which means other people are doing things relevent to your job.   That gives each worker, regardless of age, something they can relate to one another.  For the young worker, you can endear yourself to the older worker in this process, and that is extremely valuable.

Young college graduates are almost always hired into a workplace filled with college graduates.  The young person can make “small talk” by asking the older person where they went to college.  That can prove interesting, particularly if you graduated from the same college.  But even more, these days new college graduates are faced with the idea of graduate school, and that can be extremely intimidating.  Again, most of these workplaces are filled with people who completed graduate school.  Such people can prove an enormous resource for those going through the experience of graduate school.  This is particularly true when the master’s thesis looms large.  I know doing my master’s thesis would have been far easier had I been able to avail myself of others who had done it.  It never occurred to me to ask.

Young people, you need to give us “old people” a chance.  When you consider the entire spectrum of activities that interest you, you will almost invariably find overlaps with us.  I am, for example, a huge bicycling fan.  On the eve of the Boston Marathon I got together with a number of much younger people for the midnight ride of the marathon route.  When bicycling was put into focus we not only found common ground, but an activity we were actually able to do together.  We had a blast!

Where music is concerned things can be far more difficult but not impossible.  There are those of us who enjoy certain types of presently popular music from artists such as Katy Perry, Pink, Maroon5, and others, but you may enjoy things like blues, jazz, classical, and other forms of music we enjoy so it is not a hopeless task.

It is rare that I find a person I cannot find common ground with.  Sometimes it requires a fair number of questions, but sooner or later something always seems to come up.  This happened recently with a 22 year-old nephew who has an interest in history.  Although our particular interests are not exact, they are close enough that we can have intelligent discussions.

To all young people I say, give us a chance.  Talk to us about whatever your heart desires and see how we react.  We just might surprise you!  It is impossible to know what interests any person has until you engage that person in a discussion and find out for certain.  You may actually find some of us to be interesting and people who want to get to know better but you do have to give us a chance.