Paul Angone's Blog, page 9

What Johnny Cash Taught Me About Truth and Purpose

 

If you were hit by a truck and had one song to sing, what would it be?

That’s the question a music producer asks a struggling door-to-door salesman who’s dreaming of being a musician in one of the most powerful movie scenes I’ve ever watched.

The movie — Walk the Line. The struggling musician — Johnny Cash.

Today I climb up the mountain to talk about this incredible movie scene, and a question I think we all wrestle with:

Why am I afraid to sing the song that I know I need to sing?

Why are we afraid to live the truth inside of us?

How do we become that breathe of fresh air for others and say the truth we’re all experiencing, yet are afraid to admit?

How do we live on purpose with purpose?

How do we live a little bit more like Johnny Cash?

(Watch the video on Johnny Cash here)

Millennials are Not the Problem — the Stereotypes are!

 

Bashing Millennials on the Internet these days has become more popular than Kim Kardashian and videos of cats afraid of cucumbers — combined.

(Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but I’m a Millennial so you’ll have to excuse my entitled view and lack of common sense…See what I did there…)

And at the core of the fierce Millennial debate there seems to be one question at the forefront  – What’s wrong with Millennials these days? 

Like The Most Interesting Man in the World — Millennials seem to be a walking paradox that makes for great entertainment.

Entitled. Narcissistic. Lazy. The Facebook Generation all about instant gratification. Generation Me. These are the words used to describe the “Millennial Problem.”

Why is it that stereotyping certain topics is completely taboo, yet stereotyping an entire generation is all the rage? 

Yet, maybe it’s not entitlement, narcissism or laziness that is expanding the chasm between the generations these days. Maybe the generational chasm is growing because of all these stereotypes.

The Danger of Generational Stereotypes

We need to stop throwing out the same tired buzzwords to define the “Millennial problem.” (Click to tweet that)

We read a NY Times or Huffington Post article, or people watch someone under 25-years-old, and all of the sudden we think we have Millennials pegged.

Many of us are not taking the time to truly understand Millennials because it’s much easier to have the three word answer than to take the time and effort to ask the right questions.

Buzzwords can’t be gospel truth.

Some Millennials will act entitled, some won’t.

Some Millennials will have an IV of technology hooked to their veins. Some still like the feel and smell of a paper book.

Some Millennials will persevere and work their ass off. Other Millennials will take repeated naps and watch Netflix.

Some Millenials will get married young. Some will cast marriage off like a pair of worn tennis shoes.

Some are immersed in social media and their iPhone, and yet at the same time feel very much alone.

Some Millennials are struggling with Obsessive Comparison Disorder. Some aren’t.

Some Millennials embrace being called a Millennial. Others can’t stand it.

As I wrote in my book 101 Secrets for your Twenties, “why do we think we can sum up an entire generation with a simple label like a box of Wheat Thins?”

Let’s be careful not to treat generalizations as facts. Because the problem is that these stereotypes become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Millennials Become What You Label Them

Stereotypes become your reality.

If you think Millennials are entitled, then you’re going to continually look at Millennials through that lens. Your perception will define your reality. You won’t look for examples of self-sacrifice or hard work because that would be contrary to the truth you already know.

Because you’ve read an internet article on Millennials doesn’t mean you understand them. (Click to tweet that)

Because you have twentysomething children does not mean you know what all twentysomethings are going through.

There are 1.3 billion Millennials in the world. That’s like taking the United States and China and replacing every person currently living there with a Millennial.

Each of these “Millennials” are complex, unique individuals.

Millennials, just like every generation, have grown up in a wide array of circumstances and backgrounds specific to this time in history. They’re going through a real struggle of transition, uncertainty, doubt, depression, and frustration as life has turned out nothing like they planned.

And just because you don’t want to acknowledge that the struggle Millennials are experiencing is legitimate, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

I have two books geared directly for Millennials in their twenties and thirties. I’ve spent close to a decade researching emerging adulthood and Millennials, writing about what is truly at the heart of the twentysomething struggle. Yet after all of that I will not be so brash or arrogant to say that I have Millennials completely pegged.

So how do we move beyond stereotypes and actually bridge the Generational-Understanding-Gap towards healthy, productive, edifying relationships between generations?

Open, Authentic, Conversations

Boomers, Gen X and Millennials need to come to the table and have open, honest conversations.

Boomers and Gen X would do us well to remember, and Millennials would do well to forget.

Boomers need to remember what it was like to be in their twenties to help Millennials through their questions.


Millennials need to forget about having all the answers, and be open and vulnerable to learning from those who have gone before.

Parents, bosses, pastors remember when you were anxious about the future and overwhelmed with doubt? Where you were barely getting by yourself and struggling to find your place?

Millennials weren’t around when our parents were thick in the struggle.

Millennials didn’t see our parent’s sacrifice as much as we saw our parent’s success.

Leaders need to engage Millennials with authentic, transparent communication.

Boomers the more real and honest you can be about the difficulties you faced growing up, the closer the Understanding-Gap will become.

If bosses can go back and remember how they felt when they were nothing in the office, they can help empathize with twentysomethings and help them find productive ways to grow, instead of casting them aside as lazy.

The biggest obstacle facing most Millennials today in the office is not a lack of work ethic, but a lack of understanding.

How can leaders come alongside Millennials and help co-create their career path?

Millennials are desperate for mentors who are willing to tell the truth of their own struggle. (Click to tweet that)

As 77-year-old author Parker Palmer wrote:

“When I was young, there were very few elders willing to talk about their darkness; most of them pretended that success was all they had ever known … I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realize I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining the human race.” – Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Boomers. Millennials. Gen X. There’s similarities in our struggle.

Even though the Internet might disagree, we all are still humans.

The more we can seek to understand and identify with the other side, the less we’ll rely on stereotypes and the Internet to bridge the gap for us.

I’d love to hear from you within the comments below:

Have you experienced stereotypes because of your age?

NEW VIDEO — The worst advice ever on becoming a grown up

 

Have you ever worked a job that was slowly eroding you from the inside-out?

I have.

It was working at a magical place where good moods went to die.

That place? A call center.

You might have heard me talk about my call center exploits before. Even now years later, the angst and nausea that accompanied me every day to work, still feels all too real.

Wait…shoot…I just threw up a little in my mouth just thinking about it….Hold on…

And there at that call center, sitting in front of an amazing chef that should’ve been working anywhere else but there, I received the worst advice about what it means to be an adult.

And the worst part about this grown up advice — too many of us get stuck believing it.

In today’s All Groan Up video, I hike up the mountain to relive my call center days and talk about this terrible advice that way too many of us are living by. Watch it here.

Sometimes the best plans we can make is to plan to continually make new plans.

There’s too many people content living crappily ever after.

There’s too many half-dead adults for us to just quietly join the ranks.

Let’s light our grown up pants on fire and keep making this Groan Up climb together.

If you missed the opening video of this new series on All Groan Up, you can watch it here. 

 

4 Things Keeping You From Finding Your Purpose in Life

 

What’s holding you back from finding and pursuing your purpose in life?

Is it a lack of time, opportunities, or money?

Yes, these are obstacles. Sometimes big ones. Rent or a mortgage doesn’t magically pay for itself. Then for some reason it takes food to live. And people charge money for that food. What’s up with that?

However, I’d argue these reasons above are actually NOT the biggest things holding us back.

What’s keeping us from pursuing our purpose is much more subtle, yet paralyzing.

Lack of Intentionality

Have you had those times when you’re driving in the car, and then you realize you can’t remember any part of the last fifteen minutes of the drive.

That’s scary stuff! Yet, we live our lives much in the same way. Which is even scarier!

Most days are spent stumbling and shuffling around without any clear idea where we’re headed. Or why we even started going in that direction in the first place.

All of us live intentionally. Problem is – most of us live intentionally unintentional.

We have this nagging feeling that something is eating at us, yet we don’t take the time to try and identify what it is.

It’s much easier to pretend problems don’t exist. Intentionality takes courage. It’s easy to sink and stay where it’s comfortable.

Yet, like ignoring a termite problem — just because you pretend they’re not there, doesn’t mean grandma’s oak nightstand is safe.

You have to stare your biggest problems, questions, and fears in the face and then intentionally do something about them.

Or not, and let the termites slowly eat everything around you.

2. Fear and Insecurities are Crushing Your Confidence

As I first wrote in 101 Secrets For Your Twenties, “Insecurities are just like Swamp Things. Just when you think you’ve escaped, they rise up for a surprise attack…Crush your insecurities before they crush you.”

Just because you grow up doesn’t mean you grow out of your insecurities. No, sometimes if you’re not careful, you grow into them.

I think we all struggle with this insecure feeling of “I don’t have what it takes” at some point. Even if it’s not exactly something we’re raving about on Facebook.

Yet, too often these insecurities, these fears of “what if I fail”, keep us stuck.

We let that voice, that “Liar”, keep us from stepping outside our comfort zone and pursuing our purpose.

But that voice is a lie.

You are good enough.

You have an unique flavor you bring to the world that no one else can. Sometimes we just need to tweak, experiment, hone, and own what exactly that Signature Sauce looks like and how it is best applied.

But you don’t ever completely get rid of fear. You start by doing something in the face of fear, and then the next time it’s a little less frightening.

And you know what, if you pursue something bigger than yourself, you will fail. It’s a given. So just take a deep breathe and give yourself the grace and space to fail, without calling yourself a failure.

You fail, learn, tweak, adapt, and do it again more strategically.

The biggest failure of lives would be if we never had any.

The possibility for greatness and embarrassment both exist in the same space. 

3. Not Understanding Your “Why?”

Most of us are struggling to get what we really want in life because we’ve never actually defined what it is.

Or we’re living someone else’s “why”. We’re trying to duplicate someone else’s vision or trying to replicate someone else’s formula for success.

But to pursue something big, you have to understand deep in your bones why you’re doing it.

Most of the time that “why” is even rooted in your personal pain, problems, or challenges that you’ve had to overcome in your own life. You know what it feels like to struggle with something in a deeply personal way. So you’re passionate about helping others not have to face that same problem alone.

Defining, owning, and honing your “why” dynamites obstacles. Because there will be too much riding on what you’re pursuing to give it up without a fight.

When you know your “why”, failure doesn’t stop you. Failure just means you need to find another way.

4. Lack of Support and Community

I can’t stress enough how important it is to pursue your purpose in community. You can’t do this alone.

Living out your purpose is not done in isolation. You will only go as far as your relationships will carry you.

Every one of my meaningful and significant achievements in my life can be tied directly to a relationship.

What relationships do you have and what relationships do you need?

How do you figure out if you have more Rocket Booster Relationships or Anvil Relationships?

Your purpose — your Signature Sauce —  doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Your relationships can enhance and help bring your Signature Sauce to life.

Or they can burn it and leave you with that weird black stuff stuck to your life that you spend the next five years trying to scrape off.

Pursue your purpose on purpose with purpose.

Reminder: my Signature Sauce online program is currently open for enrollment for the first time in six months. Snag your spot in the Signature Sauce online course before it fills up.

How to Find Your Career Calling in Your 20s

Today I’m excited to bring you this excellent guest-post from Anthony Moore, the founder of StuffGradsLike.com and author of the new book Buyer’s Remorse: The Life You Thought You Wanted in Your 20s. Enjoy!

What’s career calling?

Seems like a cruel joke nowadays, huh?

You might be reading this from your bare-bones cubicle in between entering obscure formulas into data sheets and hoping to get an email about some more work to do, because it’s only 9:13am and you’re already done with the day’s work.

Of course, your college-age self had high hopes for the fulfilling career that degree would get you. You felt you had an articulate, clear calling as you prepared to accept that diploma and smile for the camera with your cap and gown.

But nowadays?

Not so much.

Finding your career calling in your 20s has become something that reminds you of trying to solve that twisted-nails puzzle that stumped all your 6th grade friends. No matter how delicately, roughly, quickly, or slowly you pulled and twisted those 2 nails, they wouldn’t come apart.

In your 20s, you think you finally find your career calling, only to realize 3 months into that new job it’s not what you thought it was. So you go back to your usual Netflix-bingeing and waiting for career-inspiration to strike again.

But rest easy, 20-somethings. The decade of your 20s has secret, well-hidden answers to your career calling. Here’s 3, for starters.

Work in a variety of different careers

The worst thing you can do in your 20s is play it safe. This is especially true of your career.

I have a friend who is unhappy, bored, and unfulfilled in his current job. He works as an office administrator for his dad’s company. He has a lot of aspirations – to work for DC comics, to start a podcast, to be an entrepreneur, to be a sports analyst, etc.

The problem is, he’s not making any progress in any other career goals. He’s just working 9-5, paying the bills with a stable job, even though he doesn’t like it and can’t imagine working there for another 6 months.

Maybe this is you. My advice to you – try that podcast. Consider quitting your job for a new one. Target entirely new industries to work in.

Try new things. Don’t stay in an unfulfilling job for too long. That way, you’ll have gained invaluable career knowledge when it’s time to really choose a career down the road.

Informational interviews

Step 1: Find people you want to meet who are working in a career you’re interested in (LinkedIn and your college’s alumni database are good places to start).

Step 2: Take them out for coffee/lunch and ask them strategic career questions that give you answers.

I did this tactic over 20 times in my early 20s. I had a ton of questions about a career in writing/marketing/coaching/speaking/whatever. Here is the exact email template I used when I reached out to these professionals:

Hello Mr. ______,

My name is Anthony. I found you through (your college)’s alumni database on LinkedIn. I saw that you’ve worked at ____, ____ and ____. Since I graduated in 2012, I’ve become very passionate about the _____ industry.

I’d love to get your expert opinion on some questions I have about the industry. Could I please take you out to coffee sometime for about 30 minutes and ask you some questions about the _____ industry?

The reason this email had an 80% success rate for response is because professionals love coaching teachable 20-somethings (and they also love to talk about themselves!).

Can’t figure out what to do about your career in your 20s? Ask people who already are where you (might) want to be.

Buyer’s Remorse strikes everyone – just go with it.

At some point in your 20s, you will experience a sinking feeling of buyer’s remorse; “Is this what a career in ____ is??” you ask yourself disappointingly. “Is this all there is?”

Yes – and no. Our 20s are characterized by changing emotions, interests, passions, and motivations. A career you may have been chasing for years can be a major letdown after working in it for less than a year.

That’s OK. It happens, to all of us. The savvy 20-somethings are the ones that realize this is just how life is in our 20s, and spend time learning all they can about whatever career they’re in at the time so that when our emotions and passions finally begin to solidify…

We have an entire database of knowledge about ourselves and our career aspirations.

Finding your career calling in your 20s is tough. Really tough. It’s always shifting and changing, usually right at the point where you say to yourself, “You know what? I think I finally found my career.”

Try new careers and see what you like – and what you don’t. Ask others who are already working in the field you’re interested in. And most importantly:

Just go with it. Buyer’s remorse might strike, but that just means it’s time to start searching for another piece of the puzzle you’re making in your 20s.

_____

Anthony Moore is the founder of StuffGradsLike.com and author of the new book Buyer’s Remorse: The Life You Thought You Wanted in Your 20s. Follow him for answers and solutions on how to be successful in your 20s. He also likes winning at ping pong and eating too much Dominoes pizza. 

7 Most Important Skills You Need in Your 20s

For most of my 20s I felt like a complete failure. I wanted to do big things, yet I couldn’t even handle the small.

I wanted to pursue my dreams, yet all my dreams felt like they were suffocating like a salmon on a summer sidewalk.

At one point I remember literally hoping that my email was broken because that would at least explain why I couldn’t get anyone to email me back.

I began to wonder if truly becoming an “adult” meant letting your dreams die.

It was cleaner that way.

Yet, my biggest dream of publishing a book to encourage our generation was a dream I couldn’t let die. No matter what reality was telling me. It was too important. I knew the pain and frustration of feeling all alone in this twentysomething struggle. I needed to help others find a way out, even if I didn’t fully know the escape route myself.

I just needed to learn new skills to survive on this journey.

So here are the seven skills I learned the hard way in my 20s. I wish I would’ve worked on these skills starting at 21 years old instead of at 26.

This advice can definitely apply to anyone, yet your 20s are setting the direction for the rest of our lives. It’s crucial we point our boat in the right direction now or risk sailing around in circles in some New Jersey harbor.

The Skill of Having a Long-View

Our generation gets knocked for having big dreams.

Yet, I love our “unrealistic” dreams. You can’t stay realistic and create something new. If you’re going to create something new, by definition it’s not going to be real until you make it so.

As I write in 101 Secrets For Your Twenties:

It’s not our big dreams that are the problem. It’s our krizaaaazzzy timeline of how quickly we wanted those plans and dreams to be sitting on our doorstep with a big Christmas bow.”

Developing a long-view is a skill. It’s the ability to see beyond the immediate setbacks, failures, and successes.

You can’t let your dream always be do-or-die depending on the ebb and flow of the day.

Your twenties are an Ironman marathon, not a sprint.

When you develop a long-view you’re able to take the gritty steps towards your future, even when the present feels enveloped with sullen winter-gray.

When you develop a long-view of your dreams, failure becomes a slight detour, not a complete rock-slide blocking your path.

Success in your 20s is about consistency, humility, and many other unsexy words that won’t make the Twentysomething Hallmark Collection.

As I write in All Groan Up:

Don’t chase your dreams, grow them. It’s just like a farmer whose whole existence relies on one simple belief: If we plant something in good soil and consistently water it, God will spark life underground.”

You might not see the fruit of your dreams for a while. Yet, you can’t stop planting seeds in the ground.

Learning The Discipline of Yes or No 

Successful people have mastered self-control in the small. The skill of saying no and yes at the right time to the right things.

It’s not complex. It’s simply trusting your gut and having the strength and wisdom to follow its lead.

It could be as simple as consistently saying yes to going to bed at the right time.

Saying no to that next round of drinks. Saying yes to the lunch with a friend of your parents, even though it’s bound to be awkward. Saying no to the relationship that’s as healthy as sipping motor oil. Saying yes to reading and exercise. Saying no to office birthday cake.

We can’t consistently make bad decisions in our 20s and then expect things to magically become better.

Knowing How to Leverage the Best of Who You Are

The most important thing to own in your twenties is yourself.

Like renting vs buying a house. When you rent, you don’t put in the time, effort, and money to make your place dramatically better. Why should you?

Yet, when you own your home you’re always looking for ways to improve it, to leverage what you have and make it better.

Same applies for you. It’s like you’re renting the best of who you are, instead of truly owning it and finding ways to make it better.

As Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art:

Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

Self-awareness is a crucial, underrated skill.

No one can do what you do or be who you are. Own it. Leverage it. And watch the returns pour in for years to come.

So the question is – who are you? What are your key values, strengths, and pivotal plot points of your story that make you who you are?

Not sure where to start? Check out this free 3-part video mini-course I created called: Get UnStuck

Knowing How to Invest Your Time with Purpose

One of the biggest advantages you have in your twenties is time.

No longer is your time tied up with homework and you might not yet have the time-sucking vacuum that is a house and kids.

And every day you have a choice – will I invest my time in things that build or things that destroy?

How wisely do you invest your time, energy, and creativity in things that will produce high returns?

Will you deposit your time in things that will produce value? Or will you continually make withdrawals of your time and spend it on things that will never pay it back?

How you leverage your time now will be the key to your success later.

How to Mentor and be Mentored

Every twentysomething should have a mentor and be a mentor.

Twentysomethings should continually be learning to learn and learning to teach.

As I write in 101 Secrets for your Twenties:

“[We can’t] be smothered in Twentysomething. We need to sweeten our lives with some Generational Potpourri–a collection of
 age ranges with different backgrounds and experiences to spice our lives up.”

I think many people in their 20s and 30s are frustrated that we can’t find support, yet we don’t take the steps to actually look for it.

Don’t expect a mentor to find you.

Maybe it’s pride or a lack of time that’s holding us back from seeking help, but I think the real obstacle is fear.

A fear of being rejected, a fear of commitment, and maybe a fear of someone shining a light on “all our stuff” and challenging us to do something about it.

How to Strategically Work a Crappy Job

As I often say, “Crappy jobs are a twentysomething right of passage.”

Yet, sometimes we can learn the most in the jobs we like the least.

Every job, no matter how terrible, has something to teach. What skills can be gained NOW that you can leverage LATER? Even if you can just find one thing you like about your job. Hone in on that one skill and grow it.

How to Fail Well

Growing up we received awards, gold stars, accolades, and most importantly, immediate feedback on how we were doing (most of which was overwhelmingly positive).

After college, immediate feedback is gone, trophies are packed away in your parent’s attic, and tangible success can feel like a fairytale of the past.

In your 20s you must learn to fail well – to fail without calling yourself a failure.

I’d love to hear from you within the comments on this article:

Which one of these skills are most difficult for you right now?

Special announcement – New inspiration to help you thrive

Groan up life is a climb, isn’t it?

And with every step I have this deep yearning to arrive. To “make it”. To put my flag in the ground that says I was here.

Yet, it feels like I just keep climbing. Can you relate?

That’s why I’m excited to announce starting today a new vlog element for All Groan Up where I’m literally climbing up into the mountains and filming videos of me talking about how we get unstuck, find our purpose, unhook all the crap that tries to drag us down, and thrive in our twenties and thirties.

Why am I adding more videos? And why am I filming them on mountain ledges?

To make more authentic, funny, inspirational content to encourage you and give you a glimpse of me you’ve never been able to see before.
With the whole metaphor of the climb, it seems fitting to film these videos while literally climbing in the mountains where my mind is firing, instead of putting more videos into this world in front of large bookshelves (so you can see how smart I am) and a fake green plant.
So I can work while also working off the jiggle and the jam, the goo and the grizzle.

Check out this first new intro video below. It’s less than 2 minutes and I promise you’ll be inspired. Also make sure you watch until the end to see me almost break my ankle.

I’ll still be writing my usual articles here at All Groan Up as well, but I am excited to bring more of me in these videos to encourage more of you.

I’d love to hear what you think of this new intro video in the comments, with more new videos from up in the mountains coming soon. Also subscribe to my Youtube channel to be notified right away when the next video is live.

Let’s do this Groan Up climb, literally together. Much Love!

Paul

The 7 Stages of Your 20s

What stage of your twenties are you currently in?

Are you smack dab in a quarter life crisis?

Or is your quarter life crisis a thing of the distant past?

Not sure?

Check out the seven stages of your twenties below and see where you fit. Now you might skip a stage, or repeat a few of the stages well into your thirties, forties, fifties and beyond.

However, after 10+ years of research, writing, and receiving thousands of emails from twentysomethings from around the world, here are the seven most distinct stages of your twenties. As supported by hilarious GIF’s and videos, of course. (If you’re reading this in an email and the animated GIF’s are not showing up, you really should click over to the article)

Freedom!

You’ve turned in your last paper. Snagged your first “real world” job. Moved out of your parent’s house for the first time. Now you’re free. No one is there to tell you what to do or not to do. It’s exhilarating! And slightly terrifying when you’re being honest with yourself.

As I wrote in All Groan Up about my “Freedom” stage:

“We were playing an extended game of make-believe that we were becoming full-functioning adults. I expected to hear our parents yelling to come home for dinner. But they just kept letting us play.”

2. First Fall! (plus your 2nd, 3rd, 4th…13th..125th…)

Invincibility feels amazing until your face unceremoniously meets the ground.

Or at least that’s how I remember it.

With all that freedom going to your head like a child actor turned teenager, the first fall is only a matter of time. The only question is how big the crash will be. And how many times you will repeat it.

In my early twenties, I didn’t handle all the questions and ambiguities very well. I began a search for rock bottom, thankfully instead I found a rocky ledge of grace. Read the whole story in my new book All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!

3. Groan Up Life

The biggest surprise about becoming an adult that no one ever talks about?

Adulthood.Never.Stops.

Yet, somewhere between growing and grown, you find yourself in the groan up stage of your twenties. Where cubicles and college loans become your mainstay.

Where thinking of doing your bosses job twenty years from now makes you throw up a little in your mouth.

Or you don’t have a job at all. And you find yourself laying on the couch on a Wednesday afternoon with Hot Pocket crumbs all over you, watching Saved by the Bell reruns, wishing you could end your membership to The Many. The Humbled. The Unemployed.

4. Quarter Life Crisis (aka Put Me Back In Bed)

When I realized that TV and movie satires about the inane ridiculousness of work had switched from being comedies to very personal, deeply depressing documentaries, I took my first sick day. I liked watching TV shows that made fun of mindless cubicle life because they were ridiculously funny, not because they were ridiculously true.” – All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!

I remember in my mid-twenties when going through years of quarter life crisis, asking myself every day, “Is this really what I’m going to do with my life?”

When those big dreams of what you’re going to do with your life become squashed under the mundane grind of groan up life, even eating a bowl of cereal in the morning can become quite a task.

Yet, it’s in those seasons where your dreams begin to die that your purpose is sometimes born.

And it doesn’t hurt to read a funny list of secrets for succeeding in your twenties to help you pull through.

5. Grumpy Old Man

The Grumpy Old Man switch is gradual.

But one day as a group of college students cuts in front of your car — with their smiley, hopeful, perfect faces — and you hear yourself mutter in disgust, “freaking kids these days” you’ve officially entered Stage Five Clint Eastwood.

And not young cowboy Clint, either. No, grizzled, sand-paper on the back of his throat Clint, wielding a shotgun on his front porch.

Life has smacked the hope out of you and you’re now about to partake in the long, drawn out fight to get it back.

But don’t give up. Keep warring for hope.

Life transitions are tough. Yet, there’s something of strange importance that happens to us when we’re stripped of everything we used to depend on.

You might just get a few wrinkles and gray hairs before you make it through.

6. Getting Your Groove Back

You start finding that stride again. The strut is returning, yet this time it’s a walk of humble confidence. You’re beginning to understand who you are and who you’re not, and you’re at peace with both of these realizations.

You start working in a good job that you’re actually good at. Success that felt like a UFO you could never quite take a picture of becomes a reality.

However, at this stage many people stop and become content with being comfortable again. Life becomes easy and that’s how they want it to stay.

Yet, the biggest enemy of doing something great is comfort. It’s impossible to do something big in this world and remain comfortable in the process.

7. Uncovering and Leveraging Your Signature Sauce

Stage Seven is for people who truly want their lives to mean something more. At this stage you find where your passion, purpose, and career collide. You’ve gone through countless failed experiments. You’ve put in the hard work. You’ve worked your fair share of crappy jobs.

Now you’re blending the key ingredients within you and serving the world your Signature Sauce.

Yes, some people never make it to this stage.

Some stay stuck.

Some master being a grumpy old man and stay that way.

Being miserable becomes a strangely comfortable way to live.

But I believe it should matter that you want your work to matter.

I also believe that you have a unique flavor that you bring to the world that no one else can. Dish out your Signature Sauce. If you don’t, it will become that sick, black stuff on the bottom of the pan because you never took it out.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments on this article:

What stage do you see yourself currently in (even if you’re not in your twenties).

5 Simple Strategies for Getting Hired at an Amazing Company

This post is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

Looking for a job is the most important job you’ll ever have.

It also can be the most frustrating, thankless, and disheartening experience as well.

As I wrote in 101 Secrets For Your Twenties, looking for a job “pays nothing. It’s discouraging. And no one will care if you don’t show up for work.”

When you join the many, the humbled, the unemployed, it can be hard to find your motivation and find your way out.

But you also could be currently employed and feeling just as stuck. The writing on the wall is smacking you in the face that it’s time for a change; yet finding a new job feels overwhelming.

So whether you’re currently “in-between opportunities” or ready for a change, how do you find a job that’s a great fit within a top company? How do you plant yourself in a career field that you can really grow in?

1. Connect with people currently working there

The most effective strategy to finding a job, and figuring out if people enjoy working there, is to actually talk to the people who do.

Sounds great, Paul. But how the heck do I talk to people who work at the company I’m interested in?

Here are a few ideas:

Make LinkedIn Your Best Friend

Once your profile is up and humming along, do a search in LinkedIn for the company you want to work for. LinkedIn will pull from your connections (and your connections’ connections) all the people who work at that company. Who knows, your roommate from sophomore year might be a hiring manager, ready to squeak open a few doors for you.

Research your college career office and alumni database

If you’re a college student or graduate, access your school’s alumni directory through the alumni or career planning office. Not sure where to find any of this, ask your school. This is a great resource to find people who work in specific career fields, with the added connection of being fellow alumni.

Ask Friends

Put out a brief message on Facebook asking friends if they know anyone who works at that company. If you’re currently employed and trying not to be fired during your job search, this might not be the best idea. But, if you’re unemployed, this could be a simple way to see who knows someone who knows someone.

When my wife was going through a career change, wanting to make the transition from college admissions recruiter to financial advisor, on paper it didn’t look like she had a chance.

She started reaching out and meeting with old friends and work acquaintances. Lo and behold, an old acquaintance she met during a brief college internship (completely unrelated to finance), happened to be friends with a former VP at a financial institution. Her old boss introduced her to the former VP. They spoke briefly. Then voila, he recommended her to a hiring manager with his stamp of approval. She worked in the financial field for the next seven years.

You never know who knows whom.

2. Make informational interviews your #1 goal

Once you have a list of people you want to contact, now it’s time to reach out. Most likely you’re doing this through email or a social media messenger, so make your message short and sweet.

Make it a short, creative, three-point email. Literally do a 1. 2. 3. People read lists, not life-stories.

Here’s how to structure it:

1). Your name, degree (with a quick inside joke or comment about your alma mater or mutual friend or whatever it is that connects you both).

2). Compliment them on something.

Before you reach out, find their Twitter profile, website, company, cute picture of their dog, anything, and compliment them on it. Not cheesy, gushy, or fake. Just one line of praise that’s specific. It shows you’ve done your homework and instantly draws them into liking you.

3). Ask for 15 minutes

Ask for 15 minutes on the phone to talk about the field they work in and how they became successful.

Key points here. I think at first you should try for a phone call, not a lunch. There is a war for people’s time these days. Don’t ask for dinner and a movie and scare them away. Then you want to make it crystal clear that you’re not asking for a job, you want to hear their story of success, which leads me into my third strategy:

3. Make informational interviews about them, not about you

Don’t go into an informational interview looking for a job; go looking for a meaningful connection.

When doing an informational interview, make sure the conversation is mainly about hearing their story of success, not yours. People love talking about themselves and how they ascended from “coffee-fetcher” to the “successfully-fine-self” they are today. Ask them questions about their pathway to success.

This informational interview is a way to make a real connection, while also learning more about the company itself–what type of people they’re looking to hire and if you can see yourself working there.

I’ve proposed in the past, and will keep on banging this drum, that we need stop networking and start relationshipping instead.

Stop networking like a machine. Start relationshipping like a person.

After 15 minutes, even if the conversation is going really well, stop and say, “It’s been 15 minutes and I want to be respectful of your time.” If the phone call has gone well, especially if you have them talking about themselves, most likely they’ll want to talk longer. Or, even better, maybe they’ll say, “Hey, why don’t you swing by the office someday and I can show you around.”

Music to thy ears.

After the call make sure to thank them through email, and give them a Twitter shout-out if they have an account.

“Just spoke with @_____. Wise, witty, and gracious. Please follow her for superb ______ advice.”

4. Learn the in’s and out’s of the company’s hiring process

Hopefully you’ve made some legitimate connections at the company you’re looking at applying to. Now, it’s time to send in your application. Go to that company’s website and read up on their suggestions for how to apply.

Some companies won’t have much info there and it will feel like you’re tossing your resume into an electronic black hole, however, other companies have extremely helpful insider tips on how to give yourself the best chance at snagging a job. For example, Wells Fargo has great videos from their actual recruiters, walking through step-by-step advice how to give yourself the best chance when applying.

5. After you apply, let your connections know

After you apply, send a quick message to your contacts, again thanking them for their time and letting them know that they were so encouraging and informative that you’ve gone ahead and applied at their company for _________ (put your position there).

Then write that you’d be incredibly grateful if they have any suggestions for improving your chances at landing an interview.

Turn that Job-Hunt into a Job-Feast

As I wrote in All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!: “The job-hunt today is Millennials’ version of the Hunger Games, except without the cameras or any interaction with Jennifer Lawrence.”

There’s a lot of competition out there, so implement these strategies to turn your job-hunt into a job-feast. Searching for a job is the most important and exponentially rewarding job you’ll ever have.

Do the job-search strategically now, and watch the benefits pour in for years to come.

How to Make a Choice When You Don’t Know What To Choose

“Drowning in options is a terrible way to die.” – Paul Angone

We are suffocating in choices. Options. Possibilities. What if’s. A Google Search supplying you with 3,457 results.

Every choice you make means you’re not choosing 25 other options, something we understand all too well.

Whether it’s choosing the right place to live, the right spouse, the right career, the right Pandora station, the right Pad Thai, or what the heck to watch on Netflix, every decision feels like an anxiety attack waiting to pounce, claws first.

As I wrote in All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!:

Our generation has more options at our disposal than any other in the history of humankind…Instead of singing the ABC’s in kindergarten, we chanted, “I can do anything; I can be anything.”

But what happens when we feel like we’re doing nothing? What happens when all the choices and options become the never-ending cereal aisle that we can never leave? What happens to us then?

How does our generation deal with all these choices? And even better, how do we find some way to make the right choices without driving ourselves crazy?

When you don’t know what to choose, do these three things…
First, make a choice that you need to make a choice

It sounds straight-forward. But we become so paralyzed in choosing something that we end up choosing nothing instead.

Not making a choice is a choice. And probably the least constructive choice you can make.

Because you don’t learn anything staying in the same place. Just like a river, when water stops going downstream, it becomes a place where muck, mire, and sickness set in.

We need to keep flowing downstream even if we don’t know exactly what awaits us around the bend.

As former US President Teddy Roosevelt so aptly put it:

“Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action.”

Make a choice that you’re going to make a choice.

If you’re struggling to figure out what your passion is and what you want to pursue, pick something.

If it doesn’t work out, that’s great. Well, maybe not great. But every time you figure out what you don’t want to do, you come one step closer to figuring out what you do want.

It’s a game of emerging adult elimination. Every time you cross something off the list, you get closer to naming a winner.

As Kevin Garcia wrote in a great guest post for All Groan Up, “…if you don’t like what you are doing, do something different. And after that, do something else until you find your niche, a place where you flourish and are exactly who you were made to be.”

Do it big. Do it small. Just do something.

Find your “73% sure” and give it a try.

Second, limit the extra noise…

We are experiencing a glut of opinions, voices, headlines, and information you just can’t miss.

And. It’s. All. Just. Too. Much!

We can’t take it all in. It’s impossible. You could research the same question for years and find a hundred contrary opinions telling you that each step you take is assuredly the wrong one. We have to limit where we’re getting our information from.

“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”

― Bruce Lee

Hack away at the inessentials.

Block the things that are blocking you from making choices and moving forward. Find the trusted resources and give them your ear.

Third, create a framework that you can bring your choices to

Making big life decisions is much easier when you know where you’re making your decisions from.

What do I mean?

We spend every moment with ourselves, and yet there’s so much we don’t know. Sometimes the hardest place to accurately look is in the mirror.

What matters the most to you? What are your soul values that instruct your decisions, and concurrently inject you with anxiety when you’re making choices contrary to them. How do you know what you want to serve to the world, if you haven’t asked yourself what your Signature Sauce is?

Honestly, that’s the power of the Signature Sauce program I’ve created, which I’ll be launching again soon. It helps you construct a strategic framework to help you make strategic life choices based on what is most important to you.

If you don’t know what you want or why you want it, pursuing your purpose will feel like trying to grasp fog.

Make your choices more concrete by laying down the foundation that you’re making choices from.

Make a choice that you’re going to make some choices this week.

Get action. Don’t wait. Drowning in possibilities is a terrible way to die.