Young Millenials and Old Gen Zs: The Broken Promise Generation

If you were born between 1990 and 2005 you would be classed as either Millennial or Gen Z.

I have a more accurate name for you. The broken promise generation.

I was born in 1997, making me 27 at the time of writing this. I was given certain promises growing up about life and my future.

Be a good kid. Fit the mold. Do well in school. Get good grades. Decide what you want to do with your life. Go to college. Meet the girl of your dreams. Graduate. Be paid well in your respected job. Buy your first home by the age of 25. Get promoted. Start a family, dog included. Go on a couple vacations per year. Retire by the age of 60. Live out your golden years in peaceful serenity. Die

I was told if I worked hard, if I did what I was told, if I played by our your rules then this is what I would receive.

That was a lie. The truth as we know is far different.

In this idea we're going to talk about these broken promises and what you can do about it.

Broken Promises

It starts at school.

School did more than tell you what you needed to learn. School taught you how to think. How to conform. How to fit the mold you were assigned.

You were being prepared for a world that needed obedient soldiers, compliant citizens, civil servants and well behaved workers.

It's crazy to think that by the age of 18 you need to decide what to do with your life.

Most of you choose college even though it is severely overpriced.

You were told your degree would guarantee you a high-paying job.

52% of graduates are working jobs that do not require college education. 75% of them remain in that situation for more than 10 years.

Those who get jobs find they are paid the same sometimes less then bartenders and servers.

You paid more for a degree and have gotten less out of it than everyone else who came before you.

Most of you have a goal of owning your first home one day soon. That dream is rapidly slipping away.

In 1980 the average home cost $76,000. Today, the average is $500,000.

There has been a large divergence between the number of 60-year-old home owners and 35-year-old home owners.

It's only going to be harder for us.

Every year you get poorer. Inflation and the cost of living continue to outpace pay rises.

Most of you reading this won't retire in your lives. You will be working until you die.

But maybe you will meet great people along the way. I hope so but the statistics tell a depressing reality.

When Gen Z is asked how many close friends do you have? The most common answer is zero.

50% of Gen Z adults have never been in a relationship.

Gen Z is not dating

People are not getting married.

Birth rates are plummeting.

We've been tricked into living lives of connected solitude and we are lonelier now than ever before.

It's no wonder why Gen Z is called the doomer generation. The game was rigged against us.

Until now.

The game has changed

Moore's law states the number of transistors in a microchip doubles every two years.

Developments in technology is exponential. Developments in human psychology is not

The beliefs given to you about the world no longer apply because that world doesn't exist anymore.

When you go from school to college to your first job to the rest of your career, you progressively get more and more specialised to doing one thing.

Specialization makes you vulnerable. Your stock portfolio might be diversified but your skillset isn't.

Here the truth about money.

You are paid in relation to how much value you bring to the company.

If you can do something the business wants and they can't get it anywhere else or from anyone else, you will be paid very well.

Think about it if the demand for your skill is high and supply is low, your value skyrockets.

But if the demand for your skill is begins to decrease and the supply begins to increase, your value plummets.

Here's the rule:

If you want to be paid in the top 1% you have to do what everyone else can't or won't.

The average engineer is as valuable to the average engineering company as a forklift operator is to a supermarket.

Think about that.

Automation destroyed manufacturing jobs.

AI is going to replace a lot of specialist jobs in a lot of sectors.

There's a reason why tradies are getting paid way more than many university graduates. There is a shortage of people (usually men) doing real shit. The world needs people to build buildings, tar roads, and lay pipes.

They are solving problems people need. Only they can do it.

You can carve your own path instead of following the plan assigned to you.

But you need to aim at the problems in front of you.

How to take back control of your life

For the first time ever it is possible for you to follow your curiosity and your interest — multiple of them and thrive.

Self education is the key. I have two goals when I self educate.

Goal 1: Understand myself better

A process of self discovery of what I want in my life and what I don't want.

What projects do I want to work on?

What motivates me"?

What are my weaknesses?

What are my insecurities and why are they present?

You get the idea.

Goal 2: Understand the world better.

You are a player in this game whether you like it or not.

That means you have to play on the field you are on. What does your competition who are doing better than you know that you don't?

Understand the game.

Aim at problems in your life.

Aim at problems other people's lives.

That's how you win.

The 3 big problems

When we look at the problems in most people's lives and the promises that were broken, they can be categorized into three big problems.

This is what you are aiming at.

Problem 1 — You don't earn enough to be free

Money.

A lot of what we talked about today is dependent on money.

Your freedom to control your time and actions is dependent on money.

I don't care how you feel about it. This is a fact.

Fortunately, there are so many options for you to decide how you are going to pay more money.

Remember your value skyrockets when you can solve problems in demand when the supply is low.

You can do this by becoming a specialist for someone else or yourself. But you can also do this by becoming a generalist.

It's crazy to think that we can be paid for sharing ideas in the form of a newsletter, youtube videos and podcasts.

The internet has become a public journal that people can add to. The things you have learnt to solve your own problems if shared effectively can be valuable to others.

This is the journey I am on. You get to come with me and watch me do it.

Problem 2 — You are lonely af

Loneliness is the silent pandemic

Since you read to here, there's a pretty high chance you feel alone atleast some of the time.

Maybe you don't have many friends. Or your dating life is non existent. Or you feel like you don't fit in. Or maybe all three.

A lot of people feel this way.

If you have ambition, it's really easy to pour yourself further into your work

If you are lost, it is easy to retreat further into yourself.

The internet has become the place where people go to satisfy their appetite with empty calories.

When people say money can't buy happiness, it's usually because they neglected the relationships in their live. We all do this. It's hard to maintain things that are a slow burn. The pain isn't immediate. But one day you'll look up see you're alone.

Relationships are the one thing that has the greatest impact on your life satisfaction.

I have no solution for you — only a guiding principle

We need to be less solitary. We need to do more fun things. We need to do those fun things in the real world with real people.

Problem 3 - Your health is fucked

Listen — I'm rolling my eyes at this too.

You've heard it all before.

Yet, most people have some type of health and fitness goal. Something they want to improve. A problem they want to solve.

• Improving your sleep

• Eating a nutritious diet

• Doing regular exercise

is simple. But simple does not mean easy.

If it was easy, health and fitness would not consist of billion dollar industries.

Here's the point of all of this:

It doesn't matter what promises were broken.

You have the ability to take control of your wealth, your relationships and your health.

The tools have never been more available. All you need to do is figure it out.

Aim at the problem that resonates with you the most.

Solve the problem by following your interests.

Learn more about yourself

Learn more about the world

Play the field.

Win.

And with time you will be carving your own path to the life that you want. Not the life you were assigned.

Sensible people do what they love for a living.

— Josh