As midlifers seek the fountain of youth, chances are they’re not noticing the younger folk glancing enviously their way. “I’m looking forward to my 40s,” says Mikey, a struggling entrepreneur in her mid-20s. “I plan to suffer my midlife crisis at the wheel of a new red Porsche.” Recent college graduates have always grappled with hesitation and self-doubt. But in their new book, “The Quarterlifer’s Companion,” co-authors Abby Wilner and Cathy Stocker suggest that these feelings can signify a legitimate problem. The quarterlife crisis – which typically hits between the ages of 21 and 35 – is, according to Wilner, a “state of intense anxiety resulting from the uncertainty and instability accompanying the shift to adulthood.” The crisis generally sparks feelings of helplessness and isolation. And various culprits like student loans, inflation, job competition and parental pressure are to blame. The key factor, though, is the void created in the… Read More
Life
What is it with the kids?
CHICAGO Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales. Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: “So, we call you guys the “Entitlement Generation,” the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today’s young work force. “You think you’re entitled to everything.” Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twentysomethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers. Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company. “We’re seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work, kids who had too much success early in life and who’ve become… Read More
Newsletter December 2007
Finally I am getting this out to you. Many of you had signed up for my Daisy Swan & Associates newsletter in the past, and many of you haven’t but somehow you’re on my email list. Honestly, some of you are on my list and I don’t know how that’s happened so if you didn’t want to be, and don’t want to be, you are welcome to unsubscribe below. I won’t take it personally – well, maybe a little. I do hope you’ll read to the end of this so that you can decide if you want to stay on to see what’s coming up in the next few months. I promise I won’t inundate you with fluffy pieces about my personal whereabouts and chatty pieces about my life. You have enough of your own life to pay attention to – I’m certain you don’t need my stuff too. Read More
Making My Own Path
Guest Blogger – Colleen Cooke Have you ever said no to making $100K four times? When opportunity knocks, typically I open the door. However, in the last six months, I’ve turned down at least four terrific opportunities.Like many women focused on their careers, I had my first child in my late thirties. My daughter is amazing and almost four now. People told me that life would change, and it did. Yet, I tried to keep doing what I had done; work 50-60 hour weeks while juggling the rest of my life, family, friends, and household. After three years of living in denial and becoming depressed (all while rapidly approaching my fortieth birthday) it finally sank in life had unequivocally changed. I needed to catch up with my life and make some changes. What I was doing wasn’t working. The real epiphany came after I was offered a terrific role… Read More
Did you know this?
Challenges and Opportunities are Abundant Men in their thirties are earning less than their fathers earned at the same age. That’s the disheartening news I read in the LA Times (Sat. May 26th, 2007) that cited an ongoing study called the Economic Mobility Project. Opportunity for advancement and increased income would appear to abound in this time of innovation and new business development. However, earnings figures show that earnings opportunities for young men are slow to develop upwards due to competition with healthy baby boomers and savvy businesswomen. What does this mean for young men (and frankly, women too)? Where there is challenge, there is opportunity. You can sharpen your awareness for opportunity and find the efficiency gaps in your work place. Leverage your strengths maybe they include creativity, technological savvy and a willingness to learn. Identify them and then let your boss know you’re ready for more responsibility… Read More
Support for Helicopter Busy Parents
You know I read a lot. Lately there are a lot of articles around about helicopter parents…parents who hover over their kids seems to be the usual definition of this phenomenon. These articles have been cropping up a lot lately because school’s just started and administrators are aggravated by these ‘over involved’ parents, and parents are now getting worried that they are becoming this type of parent if they are trying to be helpful to their kids. Well, I’m in favor of parental involvement. I’m in favor of parents educating themselves about what the world offers and how important it is for parents to know what kids are facing in the world. Parents shouldn’t be doing for their kids what their kids can do for themselves, but there’s nothing wrong with parents or teachers or other mentors showing kids how to do something the first time. Why not help someone… Read More
Digital Dilemma
I know it’s an understatement to say we are living in extraordinary times. The fascinating and radical transitions our world is experiencing with online media and advertising, the telecom craze and the global marketplace is staggering. Maybe I read too much — I don’t think so — but when I read article after article about the new developments in business that combine creativity and commerce all I see is abundant opportunity within reach for everyone. Everyone, that is, who is courageous enough to reach out and touch it. Colleen DeCourcy is the new Chief Digital Officer at TBWA according to today’s Wall Street Journal. Clearly she has a big job ahead of her — bringing an agency to workable consensus of how to function by integrating digital as Standard Operating Procedure. The paper (I hope newspaper’s never go away — what’s better than standing at the kitchen counter with a… Read More
Biological clocks
While I was on vacation at Hilton Head, SC last week I had the chance to read the last few months of People magazine. One article that really grabbed me was about Alexis Stewart, Martha Stewart’s daughter. At 41 she is feeling heartbroken because she’s not been able to get pregnant. I have had clients and friends who have suffered through this agony — a strong and appropriate word. I had my son when I was almost 38, after having one miscarriage. I had always wanted to be a mother so when I had that miscarriage I went into a terrible spin about what my life would be like if I weren’t able to fulfill my dream of being a mother. It was an awful, scary time. Thankfully I gave birth to my son not long after that, and I am grateful everyday for the opportunities I have to parent,… Read More
Boredom
I haven’t been bored in so long, but I know what it looks like, feels like, and what it can do to a person. Boredom can take us in a few different directions… * motivate us to do something to change the situation that’s boring us * frustration, irritation and anger toward who we think is boring us * demotivate us into depression and the blob state of no movement A lot of parents romanticize how they were bored when they were kids during the summer and how that spurred them to figure out new games and spend time outside exploring. There’s something to that. Being forced to change your perspective and look for something can jumpstart a person into action towards a new activity from which they learn. I think adults have a harder time with boredom because it’s so insidious. Work and family demands can keep you in… Read More
How To Fail Successfully: When to give up on our ambitions? Glenn Kurtz learned the answer the hard way
By Chris Colin, Special to SF Gate Monday, June 18, 2007 It’s not that Glenn Kurtz coulda been a contender. He was one, contending more in his little finger than most of us do in our lives, and then it all came apart. OK, not one little finger but 10. At an age when the rest of us were mastering shoelaces, Kurtz was setting out to become a classical concert guitarist. As best I can calculate, this is statistically like setting out to become a seven-foot-tall lottery winner who gets struck by lightning every few weeks. “The number of people who make a living as concert guitarists of the kind I was trying to be is extraordinarily small. I can think of at most 10 people who make their living exclusively by performing classical guitar. And that’s what I wanted to do,” Kurtz,… Read More
