On this episode we are joined by Dr. Meg Jay, who is breaking down why it’s important to choose a job after school that prioritizes growth. Your twenties are a time of incredible learning, and the extent to which you take advantage of that season impacts the rest of your life.
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ABOUT THE GUEST
Dr. Meg Jay
Dr. Jay is a clinical psychologist and associate professor of human development at the University of Virginia who specializes in working with twenty-somethings. She’s the author of The Defining Decade, and her Ted Talk, “Why 30 is not the new 20,” is among the most watched of all time.
TRANSCRIPT
Katie Wussow:
Welcome to this episode of Launch Your Life, a personal and professional development podcast for twenty-somethings by 49 Financial. I’m your host, Katie Wussow, and I am the Director of Learning and Development at 49. And this is an episode in a series called Landing Your First Professional Job, where we are sharing stories, wisdom, and practical skills designed to help you get your first job after college. And on this episode, we have a very special guest who is a friend of 49, Dr. Meg Jay. Dr. Jay is a clinical psychologist and an associate professor of human development at the University of Virginia who specializes in working with twenty-somethings. She’s also the author of The Defining Decade – Why Your 20s Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now and her TED Talk, “Why 30 is not the new 20” is among the most watched TED Talks of all time. And we had the absolute privilege of having Dr. Jay come and speak at one of our company conferences the summer of 2022 and her work has really had a big influence on the way that we think about hiring and developing our young people at 49 and investing in the next generation. And her work is really the inspiration behind this podcast so having her on the show was truly a no brainer. And on this episode, we’re breaking down why it’s important to choose a job after school that prioritizes growth. Your 20s are an incredible time of learning and the extent to which you take advantage of that season of learning really impacts the rest of your life. And to Dr. Jay break that down, lets dive into the interview.
KW:
We are so thrilled to welcome Dr. Meg Jay to the Launch Your Life podcast. We’re happy to have you here – can you tell us a little bit about your background and your niche as a psychologist?
Dr. Meg Jay:
Sure, and thanks for having me, Katie. It’s great to be here. So, I am a clinic psychologist and when I tell people that, they usually say “oh well what do you specialize in?” And then I say “twenty-somethings” and they usually say, “why would you do that?” Not really understanding that twenty-somethings are a pretty unique developmentally and they have their own challenges, and their own needs, and so that is where I do the bulk of my work is young adult development, launching your life, young adult mental health. Really just anything having to do with twenty-somethings’ work, love, life, health.
KW:
And you came, and you spoke at one of our company conferences last summer and what really stuck out to me about when you talk about your focus on twenty-somethings is how you say, “it is where all of the action is.” And we just love that about you, as a company, that you want to be in people’s lives where there is just a lot going on. Because there is a lot going on when you’re in that decade of your life.
MJ:
It’s all going on at the same time. That is what makes it really difficult. I won’t bore you with stats but here is a good one. 80% of lives most defining moments take place by around age 35 and so in young adulthood, we go from graduating from high school, from college, and we don’t know who we’re going to be or where we’re going to live or what we’re going to do, whether we’ll be loved, how our lives are going to work out, what that is going to look like. Then usually by mid 30s, much if not most of that has taken shape. All of what is happening in your 20s is those things are coming together or are about to come together. To me, people say why would you work with twenty-somethings, when you look at it that way, my question is why would you work with any other group? Because you get to get in front of all these big moments, the big decisions, the big moves, the big choices, and that is a pretty great space to work is helping people get in front of what is just right around the corner. And obviously, very important and also difficult.
KW:
Yeah, it is that really great nexus of interesting and also really rewarding which I’m sure makes it a very fulfilling place to be. So, this entire podcast series is really inspired by your work, so we have to give you a shoutout
MJ:
Awesome! I love it!
KW:
To really focus on personal and professional development for this age group but this series specifically is about that time when you’re transitioning out of school, or maybe you aren’t in school but transitioning out of something and into your first professional job. What are some of the pitfalls that you’ve seen people when they’re in this season of their junior or senior year of college and they’re starting to go down the path of getting their first job, what are some of the mistakes that you see people making?
MJ:
Without getting too specific because it would depend on the person, I would say the big one is avoidance. That what makes the twenties so challenging, I mean when people ask why would you work with twenty-somethings, they imagine they don’t have any problems, what could possible wrong, so what is challenging about your twenties is that so much is uncertain. All of this stuff is about to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet, or it is happening, but it is still uncertain. So, uncertainty makes people anxious, “I don’t know how to get a job”, “I don’t know how it will go”, “I don’t know if this is the right field”, “I don’t know if this is the right thing.” And the number one knee jerk reaction to anxiety and uncertainty is avoidance and so what happens is people will go oh I’ll do nothing or before I haven’t made any mistakes, I’ll kind of hang back or I’ll undersell myself or I’ll take the safe bet or I’ll take the fun job, and I’m nothing against fun, but maybe not the job where I’m like challenging myself and learning the most. So, you know, I would say there are a lot of different forms of avoidance out there and I see early on in careers, I feel like it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to fall into those avoidant traps rather than saying, okay, you know, what could I really challenge myself by leaning into instead?
KW:
Yeah, I was talking to another person for this podcast who works with students specifically, and we were talking about how you have this sense and when you’re in college, because you’ve chosen a major that you are on some sort of path and that feels a little bit certain. But then when you get down to brass tacks, and you’re having to choose a job you realize like oh, I’ve chosen this major, but this major can be associated with 75 different jobs that you could potentially do and so it can be overwhelming to start to make some of those choices.
MJ:
So yeah, actually, I want to say something about that, and maybe this person did in that segment. Even kind of you look even more closely on that of being in a major or being in college is that your professors give you a syllabi, and they tell you exactly what to do and when it is due and what you need to do to get an A and what you could kind of get away with to get the B and you know what you could really phone in to get to a C. And so, you have this real sense of what do I need to do, when do I do it, and how exactly do I get the outcome that I want? Meanwhile, each of these are only one semester long commitments or a year or so commitment. Then you get out of college, and suddenly there’s no syllabi, there’s no one else to give you the schedule, no one else is telling you how to get an A or what even an A means and that’s a big part of where all the uncertainty comes in. Not only are there so many things that could conceivably do, but I don’t even know on what timeline or what is success. Not to mention that most young adults wind up in jobs that they’ve never heard of when they graduated. So, when we ask people what they want to do when they graduate, some people know like, they know I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a clinical psychologist. Most people end up in jobs they’ve never heard of. So, we’re asking people the answer to a question they only know a few options for and there’s really a lot more out there. And the only way you learn those is by getting out there and starting with one and learning as you go.
KW:
You mentioned that there’s a lot of different forms of avoidance and one possible form of avoidance is under employment. Now under employment, I’m sure it’s not always avoidance, but I’m wondering if you can speak a little bit to the concept of underemployment. Maybe it looks like a fun job. Maybe it looks like an easy job. And how do you define it, and how do you know if you’re in it for the wrong reasons?
MJ:
Really my best advice to twenty-somethings professionally, no matter what year they are in their 20s, is just to get out there and learn as much as you can while you can. Your learning curve in your 20s maps onto your earning curve in your 30s and beyond. And I don’t just mean earning money, I also mean earning autonomy and respect and flexibility and skills and so but it’s really what you learn in your 20s that is what comes to fruition in your 30s and beyond. Plus, people expect you to be learning so it’s a great place to say I don’t know what I’m doing or give me the toughest clients or, you know, let me just take this on and not have to pretend to be an expert as to really lean in to that no matter how you do it. So, underemployment to me is when people aren’t learning. When they aren’t challenging themselves, they aren’t growing, they aren’t putting themselves in a situation where that can happen. Now sometimes you might have an underemployment job during the day. At some point in my 20s I was ringing up health food at a grocery store in Boulder while I was cramming for the GREs which I went on to crush so I could then get into Berkeley for grad school. So sometimes underemployment by day is required for learning by night or vice versa. But I think, you know, twenty-somethings out there who do the gut check, they know what I’m talking about and whether or not they’re out there leaning into growth and learning or whether they’re kind of playing it safe and saying I want the easy job, the fun job, not the stressful job, I just don’t know how to go get the other stuff or I’m afraid to do it.
KW:
What are some signs that you are in a job where you’re learning a lot because I know that sometimes you are learning but you may not be cognizant of it. So how do you know if you’re in a place where you’re really able to accelerate that learning curve that you speak about?
MJ:
Oh, that’s a good question. I mean, there’s probably several ways so I’ll list two or three but the first one that came to my mind is that it is not always a sign of learning but often it’s feeling challenged. It’s feeling stressed. It’s feeling anxious. And I think sometimes young adults perceive these things as there’s something wrong. You know, I’m stressed, my job is hard, I’m worried that I made a mistake, my boss got mad at me or sent me an email saying, you didn’t do this right. They often take that as that’s a sign that I’m doing something wrong or that I’m in the wrong job when maybe it’s really more about like, Wow, you’re really getting out of your comfort zone and you’re willing to make mistakes and to feel stressed and anxious about how far out over your skis you may be. And so, I think it’s tough to learn if we’re not putting ourselves in situations that are new and different and may make us feel stressed and anxious. So, I think if you’re too comfortable, if you’re bored, you’re probably not learning. But learning can sometimes look like stress and anxiety, not that that’s sustainable 24/7 for your whole life. But it’s hard to imagine growing without having that sort of stress in terms of what you know versus what you’re about to know. What I really made a point of doing in my twenty-something jobs and also in graduate school was just leaning into not knowing and saying, I don’t know how to do this, put me there. Or for me when I was in grad school, I want the hardest clients now while I have a supervisor and it would have been easier to not have the hardest clients and I wouldn’t have been so stressed or so worried but also wouldn’t have learned as much and so I feel like just don’t get too comfortable. Don’t get bored. I tell students, clients if you feel like you’ve stopped learning, if you feel like you’re not growing at your job anymore, then maybe it’s time to look for the next thing.
KW:
Yeah, it reminds me of starting a new fitness program. If you start exercising or if after some time off you start doing a new kind of exercise, at first it is going to be really uncomfortable. It’s going to hurt. You’re probably going to be really sore and sometimes it means you’re doing it wrong, but most of the time it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means that your body is actually physically changing in response to the stress that you’re putting it under and I think the same thing probably happens in professional setting as well where that skill development hurts a little bit, but it creates a lasting transformation.
MJ:
Absolutely.
KW:
And I think when you when you encounter those difficult situations, early in your career, it builds a lot of confidence, right? Because confidence doesn’t come from kind of getting yourself jazzed up it comes from, I’ve done something like this before and I figured it out and I can probably do it again. So, have you seen that play out with your clients as well?
MJ:
Absolutely. All the time young workers say I want to be more confident. And I mean, you can sort of do the power pose or take some deep breaths and pump yourself up just to get through the hour like we’ve all been there, we’ve all done that but actual like true confidence comes from just having done something a whole bunch of times before. I think I probably said it when I came and gave the talk at yalls conference which was super fun by the way, and I really liked the group a lot. I think I probably said, standing up here I’m really not nervous because I’ve done this 100 times or more that I’ve stood up in front of people and said what I had to say and it’s generally never been catastrophic so that’s sort of where confidence comes from. I mean, earlier in my speaking career, it was just more of, you just kind of hold your nose and jump in the deep end and you do it and you pull it off, but that isn’t the same as feeling like yeah, I’ve totally got that and the only way to get there is through practice. I mean its skill building and that’s where true confidence comes from.
KW:
One of the concepts that you talked about in your work that has really stuck with me is the concept of identity capital. And you contrast it with a lot of times young people and not young people as well. We go through seasons that where we feel like we’re having an identity crisis, where we don’t know who we are, and we’re trying to do all this self-discovery, and you flip that around and encourage people to go out and build identity capital. Can you talk about what that means and what kinds of things can be identity capital in your life?
MJ:
Yeah, so you know to fill out the identity crisis piece is a lot of twenty-somethings feel like I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I should do. A lot of people email me and say, I don’t know if I should go to med school or go into the Peace Corps and I do not have the answer. And those are both really cool ways forward and they’re both really great identity capital, I have no idea which one that person should do. Only they can decide that. I think the idea of identity crisis is I’m going to figure this out by thinking about it or talking about it or going to therapy about it. I think a lot of what I’m doing in the defining decade and in my work is saying really the only way to figure this out is to go out there and do something and along the way, I said my advice to twenty-somethings is get whatever job or experience that you’re going to learn the most and it’s going to bring you the most identity capital because identity capital are like the things that we do to add value to who we are. So, they’re the investments we make in ourselves or how we spend our time, how we spend our efforts, and how do we grow and change and sort of raise our value because of it. So, usually they get out there and learn is synonymous with get out there and build some identity capital. Take the job where you feel like this is going to build the skills that you need, or this is going to put you in a position to learn a new industry that you wanted to find out or to answer that unanswerable question of, should you do the Peace Corps or med school? I have no idea, but you should probably start one of them or start something related to one of them and figure out which one you want to keep going forward with. Along the way that identity capital will build and then that’s ultimately what ends up becoming your career depends on what identity capital you put together for yourself.
KW:
Outside the box and outside of work, things can also add identity capital to you as well, right?
MJ:
Absolutely. I gave a talk at a finance place in New York, and somebody gave a great example of how they were in a real busy I think, at the time, maybe an MBA program or maybe they were in a consulting job. I don’t remember when this story happened in their life, but they said that they had made time for like a wine tasting class outside of whatever they were doing and it was super intense and busy and everybody said you don’t have time for that don’t do that, you need to focus 100% on work or school and this person made time for this wine tasting class. And then now in the work that she’s you know, being able to chat about wine, you know, there’s endless little wine and cheese parties or this or that but being able to chat about it and know something about it, make conversation about it, that’s a really useful identity capital because we’ve all been at parties or cocktail functions where we feel like oh my gosh, I have no idea what to talk to these people about but she can stand around and talk about wine. So, it’s helped her feel more confident, both professionally and socially. That you know, all kinds of stuff could be a hobby that you have something that you do outside of work, could be something that you did five years ago, but that’s still kind of interesting to talk about now or makes people curious about you.
KW:
Yeah, it is some of those outside of work things that really have a big impact on who you are as a person. Does it translate to a skill on a resume? Maybe, maybe not, but it makes you a more valuable, well rounded, interesting human being.
MJ:
And it sometimes helps lead to those connections. You were asking maybe before we started, I was out of the country last semester, and you asked where I was. And so, for the listeners, I was off teaching on Semester at Sea, which is a global education program – 500 twenty-somethings on a ship, travels around the world, goes to countries and they take classes along the way. So, I was teaching one of the classes and doing something like that people always say, “oh, that’s so interesting, tell me about that. Or, well, my brother did that.” And so, it gives us an opportunity to connect with other people. It says something about who we are and what we value and what we make time for but also you never know what person might have done a wine tasting class or went on Semester at Sea or has a side hustle on Etsy with their crochet projects like you just never know. But if you don’t have any of that stuff, then you probably won’t connect with people on anything else out of work.
KW:
Really good points. Dr. J is probably one of the cooler college professors that there is and always has really fun stories and this is this is one of them. At 49, we’re sort of putting our stake in the ground and saying we want to be about developing young people. And as I hear you talking about young people choosing careers that are really difficult, that are going to challenge them, that are going to put them outside of their comfort zone, I’m wondering – how can we create an environment that doesn’t make all of that learning easy, because it’s not easy, but how can we be an environment that supports people as they’re going through that kind of process?
MJ:
I think it’s just helping people see that it’s intentional and incremental. I mean, it’s like coaching someone in a sport, explaining like, I know that I am getting you out of your comfort zone, one foot at a time, not a mile at a time where you’re in over your head and I’m not providing the support, but making it explicit for people. We’re here to help you grow and change and develop and learn. That’s what we want to do. I wish every company would do that because the bottom line is most twenty-somethings don’t know how to work. I use that broadly like they just don’t, and this is not a criticism, this is just a developmental reality. The successful ones know how to be good students and they might have worked some along the way but most don’t and shouldn’t and couldn’t know how to work at something 40-50 hours a week and deal with bosses who are older not just professors that you don’t ever have to talk to and you can just like turn papers into but interact with people in different ages and generations and how to have the stakes not just be your grades but actually like outcomes for the company. So, it’s just a different world working and school and so I think letting twenty-somethings know we get that, we don’t criticize it, we don’t pathologize it, that’s normal. That’s what I would expect and we’re here to help you learn how to be successful, how to work, how to build identity capital, and that means you’re going to have to do new things. New things make people feel stressed and anxious but we’re going to provide those support so that it’s a healthy learning environment.
KW:
Yeah. One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is by the time you’re a senior in college, you’ve been a student for a really long time.
MJ:
As long as you can remember.
KW:
Yeah! And that’s what work looks like. And it’s not that you go into every class you ever take knowing the material already, but you’ve attained a level of mastery at the skill of being a student. And you know how you study, you know how you can retain the material, you know your systems and going into a work environment is just completely different in every way. And I’m wondering, do you think that most college juniors and seniors are cognizant of the fact that it’s going to be a hard transition, or is that something that takes them by surprise?
MJ:
Oh, that’s a good question. Whether they’re cognizant of it or not, it does take them by surprise. You can know something but to experience it is something else. I mean, I work with some really smart, successful people who have gotten into some really great companies, and they went to great colleges, etc, etc. So, I’m talking about highly competent, capable, smart, interesting twenty-somethings. Then they get these amazing jobs at these cool corporations and part of what we do on our sessions is “I don’t know how to ask my boss if I can have the Friday off so I can go to a wedding.” That’s what we talk about. And these are super smart, capable, successful people who landed amazing jobs, but they’ve never had to ask a boss – I just started but I already need a long weekend for a wedding. How do I do that? Or “I don’t love the team that I’m on, but I see this other team in the company that looks good to me. Am I allowed to want that? Am I allowed to talk to somebody? How do I do that? Or how do I have a conversation with a client on the phone? How do I send a professional email? To people who’ve been working a long time, that might sound silly, but to be fair developmentally, if you’ve never had to do that, why would you know how to do it? And most of those skills aren’t required in college. If you miss a class, no one needs to know, nobody cares, you don’t have to interact with professors or people that you don’t know if you don’t choose to. So, it’s really a whole new or a largely new skill set. And also, no offense to colleges, but okay, maybe some offense and I’ve worked at one, so I own this, but these colleges breed some bad habits, you know that it’s possible to pull the all nighter and parachute in with the A paper, but that becomes less possible in the workplace and it certainly becomes less respected. Even those sort of Mad Scientist workers who can kind of pull it all off the night before, people don’t really like to work alongside that and so eventually you kind of have to figure out how can I be sort of a collaborative team player that lets people in on my process and what I’m doing and what my progress is and when will that thing be ready. This whole like I got it and I’m going to parachute in on the last day with the end result works for college, but it doesn’t work in the workplace.
KW:
Yeah. Or just the I’m technically doing a group project, but I’m just going to take over and do all the work or the opposite I’m just going to let the other people do all the work.
MJ:
Yeah, I’ll be a social loafer and I don’t have to be friends with these people. I’ll never see them again after the semester. Well, actually in the workplace, you will. This is no shade, no criticism, this is just normal. It’s a different setting and so it’s a totally different skill set. That’s why a lot of young workers avoid work because they’re cognizant, consciously or unconsciously, that this is a really different world and they’re really not sure how it goes and they’re not sure how they’re going to do so they kind of hang back or under employ. It takes a lot of guts to get out there and say, Man, I’m really over employing myself. I’m putting myself in a situation where I’m going to be challenged and I’m going to learn a lot. But you know, your 20s is a time when you’re having explosive brain development, your personality’s changing, so much about your life is changing. So, if there was ever a time to hit the gas on the learning, it’s in your 20s because that isn’t just sort of the skills you have, you know, like juggling, it just truly becomes who you are. That’s where the confidence comes from is feeling like it’s not just that I know how to do these things but I’ve really got it. This is really who I am. That happens eventually, not overnight, maybe not in the first year, but it happens.
KW:
Yeah. I’m wondering if there’s one skill or one piece of advice that you would share with people as they enter into a season of intense learning, that can feel stressful, that can cause anxiety, that can be hard – what is one thing that can really help weather that kind of a season?
MJ:
Yeah, this is going to sound very vague so maybe I’ll pick up sort of the vague one and then maybe a little bit more of a tangible one and this would apply to any field, both of the things I have in mind. People ask me a lot what’s the one thing to guarantee success? I’m not a one thing kind of person.
KW:
Classic podcaster question. Sorry about that.
MJ:
That’s okay! But one of the things that I say a lot about is just becoming more comfortable with uncertainty, because I talked about uncertainty is there, it’s big, you’re going to feel uncertain through much, if not most of your 20s, and being able to tolerate that as you gain skills, as you learn, as you gain identity capital. None of those things happen overnight so you have to be willing to keep showing up to work, not knowing how you’re doing, not knowing what your boss thinks of you, not knowing whether this is the right career, like you just have to keep tolerating that until these things do become clearer. So asking people, calling your mom and asking, she doesn’t know. I love to get emails from people so go ahead but asking me over email, I don’t know. Those calls and those emails are about really having a hard time tolerating the uncertainty that’s going to be there until it becomes clear of like I am good at this, I do like this, this is the right job for me. So that would be the someone vague one. I would say the other one is really learning how to cultivate relationships at work. I think people don’t recognize it’s kind of like what you were saying you really can’t be the lone wolf in the workplace like maybe we could have in college. Working from home, we could talk about that if you want but, I totally get the conveniences of hybrid work or working from home, and I’ve been working from home office or working from a laptop for many years but that can be a way to hide and avoid and it’s not the best way to sharpen your skills in terms of connecting with people, collaborating, communicating, being a team player, and you need that. Not just for your skill set, but it’s also how this thing leads to the next thing and people think of you for the next thing and the kind of networks that you’re making in your 20s, your professional networks actually become ones that you’ll draw on again and again, in yours 30s and in yours 40s and so, working at your home, might not always facilitate that.
KW:
Yeah, really good point. And there’s a lot of data out there that talks about the impact of having friends at your job on just overall enjoyment and job satisfaction and that’s always stood out to me as well.
MJ:
And you know, I was just talking about you know, saying I have really smart and interesting twenty-somethings who have great jobs and I was just talking to one of them last week. His homework was to send an email or slack chat or however they’re communicating to ask somebody for coffee, who he’d been meaning to and hadn’t and then he was like, this is awkward and I haven’t done it and I’m like okay well this is homework, and I’m like creating a syllabus. I told him you need to do this before we talk next. You do kind of have to make yourself it’s like, going up to somebody at a party like sometimes you just have to make yourself reach out to people and initiate those conversations so that you have relationships that you need to be successful but also, happy and healthy at work.
KW:
Yeah, good advice for all ages, as well to make yourself reach out to people and connect and build relationships intentionally because it can be easy to get complacent in that area. Well, we really appreciate having you on the show. We love your work, and we love the way that you’re serving young people. And we highly recommend to the listeners, the book, The Defining Decade, which I’m sure you can find at most any bookseller by Dr. Meg. Jay. Is there any other way you would recommend that folks engage with your work that we can share?
MJ:
No, I think for the podcast, The Defining Decade is the best way! I will say the book was updated. The re-released updated version came out in 2021 and it has a gray cover. The old version, also awesome, but a little bit outdated at this point, has a white cover so look for the gray cover. That’s what you want – The Defining Decade but the gray cover.
KW:
Yeah, it’s good to update for the COVID realities, I’m sure.
MJ:
Yeah! People ask me how life change for young adults in the last 10 years and the number one way to technology and social media so there’s a lot more in the book about that now. So anyway, I hope people find it and find it useful.
KW:
Amazing. We will link to it in the show notes so that you can find it and we’ll do our best to link to the gray cover.
MJ:
Oh, I know you can do it Katie.
KW:
You know, there’s still things I’m working on. I’m not in my 20s anymore, but I still have some growth areas.
MJ:
You got it. I’m not worried.
KW:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much Dr. Jay. That is all we have for you on this episode of Launch Your Life. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a rating and review. It is absolutely the best way to show your support and help other people find the show. Maybe pass it along to a young person in your life. Thank you so much for listening. We’ll catch you next time.
