The Defining Decade, One Book Every Twenty-Something Should Read. Here are My Biggest Takeaways

Part One: The Book Review

Begin with the last sentence. Who will you have been when you die? What will have made your life worth living? Me? I want to die sitting on a beach in Barbados in an orange one-piece bathing suit, sipping on a Shirley Temple that’s 60% grenadine, and be snoozing, reading a book that I wrote. But that moment, all planned out, says nothing for how I’ll be able to afford that plane ticket, the people who we’ll call next or kin, or the steps and work necessary for me to achieve the goal of publishing something that’s meaningful to others. As a 21-year-old, that future is fun to me. Laughing about outlandish death is easier than being acutely aware of how little control I have over it is coming true.

The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now” by Meg Jay, PhD, is a book about a psychologist and therapist’s reflections on the epidemic of anxiety and paranoia surrounding the 20-something’s learned inability to cope with the future. And, as one of those 21-year-olds living alone and being terrified of getting trapped in a position of blank walls or failure, I needed some clarity on what the heck is going on with my life. Whether or not you feel out of control now or in the future, I believe you probably will soon enough. You’ve got to start somewhere.

One of the biggest problems that I’ve faced during my 20s is everyone telling me things—how to work, how to live and how to act—but nobody asking me or listening to what I might have to say about matters. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that I really know anything, but I do understand my liver experience and the obstacles impeding my movement right now.

Still, I’m a sucker for mentorship. I crave relationships with leaders who know better than me I. All aspects of life—the ability to learn from someone who you hope to become one day is an opportunity that I suggest you never take for granted. Yet not all mentors operate in the same way. The mentors that I’ve found support me best might be ones that scare you away. I seem to turn most to mentors who are willing to come down into the trench that is my obstacle and help me diffuse the bombs in my life, not the people who stand over the out and tell me not to have climbed in, in the first place. As a result, many of my mentors are young—do they know what they are doing? Hell, yes, they do. Are they incredibly smart, agile, and tactful? Duh! —but what attracts me most to them is that their advice is meaningful and applicable to me.

So, here at am, a 20-something asking you to descend with me for a moment into the trenches of Jay’s psychology to psychoanalyze ourselves so that we may improve upon our work, love, and body. Let’s jump in now before we have to look back and say, “man, I wish I’d started when I was less afraid!” This analysis will be a three-part series. Why? You may ask! Brevity is the soul of wit. To that I say, fair, grab a communications job! You’re hired. But I think in particular unpacking these three sections of our life is incredible advantageous to the process, so skipping too quickly into them can make them overwhelming, but also has the potential of rendering them useless. So, welcome to phase one: work.

Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work

• Make connections everywhere you can, especially outside of your swim lane.

• A weak tie is someone you don’t know very well who will make the largest impact, ex. An old boss or LinkedIn connection with profound impact in securing you a job or conversation.

• Make yourself valuable and offer increased benefit when someone connects with you. Do this by selling the story of your perspective.

If you have the time, let’s go through the learning process to make these behaviors stick! Thinking them through in greater detail by reading this blog, or the book will allow you to take action to implement them in your life, not just have awareness.

My buddy, Mark Manson, says that the more you leave yourself open to the possibility of what could be, the unhappier you will become with what you have. He says that scaling your vision down to one job, one partner, or one dream will free you up to feel better as well as moving you closer to seeing those results come to fruition.

That being said, it is important not to become pigeonholed once you begin working at a company.

I love my job, but I also think that during that first year, you should be seeking connections with people across industry, business area and educational opportunity for advice and to become more sure that he what you have is the best you can find, as well as to know what is available in the future so you can make a plan to work towards it. As Jay says, simple exposure can lead to dramatic transformation.

Interconnection is born from those searches. A network forms what Jay calls the “strength of weak ties”, through which she is referring to the unique value of people that we don’t know. As people, we value connection among those we are similar to—same careers, ages, hobbies. That’s why you probably aren’t besties with that 75-year-old Prob and Stats Professor that you learned from but never spoke to freshmen year. But interconnectedness is also not what you may think. Your bestie, the people you call in an emergency—flat tire, he didn’t text you back, you got denied—are not going to be the people that, despite being valuable for numerous other reasons, help you get ahead.

Someone told me that I’m the sun of the people that I spend the majority of my time around. When I heard that, I only liked 2/5 of them and had an identity crisis, but I digress. I do find this to be true though. In December, I made the decision to move out and away from my college roomies and besties to go halfway across the country to a job among people that I’d never met. Why? Because at that time, the separation from what people ‘like’ me were doing—aka 21-year-old college students going to class were not what I needed to take advantage of the opportunities that my unique situation had afforded me.

I reached this opportunity from a relatively weak tie—my current boss, who knew nothing of me except for my reputation and potentially resume took a shot into the dark by hiring me. Her choice is a perfect example of how maintaining your weak connect is on can make all the difference in your career now and down the road.

Jay describes the Ben Franklin effect, which states that behavior shapes attitude (36). If your behavior, I.e. the confidence and willingness to reach out to people who you don’t know, to put your name and skill set in their radar defines some of your ability (although I’d argue that ability is within the character of how you pursue your ambition) then that pro-action is enough to justify their attitude for choosing to take a risk on you with their time, job opportunities or energy.

You [reaching out + presenting a case for why they should remove you when an opportunity arrives + your follow through x reminders] X [knowing what you want + need to get there] = receiveing a shot at an opportunity that you want

So many youngsters like me felt weird in the beginning, reaching out to ask people for things that ‘weren’t their job’, such as advice, recommendations, or connections. I felt fear that I wasn’t good enough, awkward for asking for something that I didn’t technically earn, and shy to pulling favors. Now that I’m in a role, I know how easy it can be to shoot an email off to a connection or coworker to simply facilitate a meeting that will ultimately save the hiring manager and job seeker time and effort. Ultimately the real work of the ask is another person’s problem, so if pulling a string for a phone call or email is worrying you, just do it! People have the right to say no, but also the opportunity to help you anyway by thinking of you in a room full of opportunities, even if you don’t ask them to.

Great – so you used your connection to secure the face-to-face meeting. This person cares at heart somewhat, but the greater likelihood is that you will have fifteen minutes to convince this person that they should bring you on as part of their team. So, you need to make a slightly elaborated elevator pitch. My advice? Sell them on a story if who you are and how that is relevant to proving why your perspective is needed—this will show them that any other candidate is a downgrade because they don’t have your set of experiences, insights, or personality, which can in some cases, make or break a team dynamic. This story too, is bound to change. That’s normal. If you don’t feel like you were the same person back when you were when you made your resume, that’s good. It means you’re growing. You don’t fear the choices of who you are or are becoming. You just fear being ordinary, just like everybody else. (Isn’t that an ordinary fear?)

If you’ve made it this far, you’re already one step closer to realizing your best self in anything professionally that you set out to do in your 20s. Congratulations!