This book center around the Jay’s experience as an clinical psychologist seeing people in their 30s and 40’s who are struggling due to ‘lack of vision’ in their 20’s.
I enter my twenties last month and found this would be the best time to start reading this book. I picked it up last week and is midway through it and here’s what amazing lessons from it:
She highlights how the job market has shifted for people coming out of college:
“The Great Recession and its continuing aftermath have left many twentysomethings feeling naïve, even devastated. Twentysomethings are more educated than ever before, but a smaller percentage find work after college. Many entry-level jobs have gone overseas making it more difficult for twentysomethings to gain a foothold at home. With a contracting economy and a growing population, unemployment is at its highest in decades. An unpaid internship is the new starter job. About a quarter of twentysomethings are out of work and another quarter work only part-time. Twentysomethings who do have paying jobs earn less than their 1970s counterparts when adjusted for inflation.”
All of the options that we have seem to be to our detriment. Many of Jay’s patients describe feeling lost in a see of options, not able to dedicate themselves to anything because of so many alternatives.
Jay starts off the “work” section of the book by introducing the idea of “identity capital,” which is the collection of skills, relationships, and professional resources we build up over our lives. (Erik Erikson)
Many people in their 20s aren’t building up any of them by sitting around at home or taking dead-end jobs. GPA and college degrees don’t really count, since everyone has them.
Never building up this capital and never getting good jobs leads to depression, sitting around at home, drinking, the opiod epidemic…
Jay’s advice : take the job with the most career capital. Where you’ll build the most relationships, learn the most, grow the most. NOT necessarily make the most money.
Jay goes on to highlight how important weak ties are for the job market. Weak ties tend to be the best sources of employment, and a large network of weak ties gives you the broadest reach and greatest perspective, instead of a few very close ties.
Jay’s advice : build up your network of weak ties, instead of only spending time with your close friends. It’s the people you rarely talk to who might lead to fortuitous relationships down the road, and you want that broad exposure.
We all have “unthought knowns.” Things we’ve forgotten about ourselves, but still know under the surface. In context here, Jay is referring to the dreams of who we want to be and what we want to do that get stiffed by “practicality” and our peers.
Jay’s advice : Introspect and try to find what you know about yourself but are afraid to admit to yourself. What do you want deep down, but don’t know how to get, or are afraid you’ll fail at?
After graduating and being fixed on the college process, many students feel they’re “failing” in their 20s because they don’t know how to get an A anymore. They’re used to having a formula for success, and now that it’s gone, they feel lost.