Hosts, Kristine Simpson and Julia Kent, are really excited about this week’s topic. Julia introduces this week’s topic: a TED Talk by Meg Jay called Why 30 is not the new 20.
Lately it feels as if 25 is just a bit too young to get serious. In her psychology practice, her book The Defining Decade, clinical psychologist Meg Jay suggests that many twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation about what Time magazine calls the “Me Me Me Generation.” The rhetoric that “30 is the new 20,” she suggests, trivializes what is actually the most transformative period of our adult lives.
- Forget about having an identity crisis, get identity capital. Do something that adds value to who you are and make every experience count.
- Don’ fall in to the urban tribe. Avoid hanging out with the same people all the time, expand your network. She says weak ties are where real opportunities arise in life. A weak tie is a friend of friend of friend. As Young PR Pros has preached in the past, this strengthens the message of the importance of networking and building a strong network of valuable friends and prospective employers. Remember half of new jobs are never posted.
- Pick your family. You can’t pick your mother, father, brother or sister, but you can pick your close friends and spouse. Jay says uses the analogy of musical chairs. When you are twentysomething dating is fun, everyone is just running around. But when you hit 30 or 35, people start sitting down and often people will sit in the closest chair to them because it is convenient. Don’t set yourself up to have an empty chair. Each relationship you choose, each job you choose, make them count. You don’t have to have all the answers and you might make mistakes, but your twentysomething years are the time to have those “aha” moments.
You can view the entire TED Talk here:
We want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on Meg Jay’s talk? Post your comment below or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or in our LinkedIn group, or on Pinterest, or send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinesimpson or @kentjulia.