Helping Young People

I love talking to young people in their early twenties when I’m out and about. I always ask them, “So, what do you do?”

More and more, the answer is some kind of gig work. DoorDash, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, online selling, delivering, flipping things, or one of the dozens of other ways people can make money today.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. I actually admire their independence and willingness to hustle.

But I usually tell them something they probably don’t expect to hear from me:

At some point, go work for a good, successful organization.

Not necessarily forever. I certainly didn’t.

But spend some of your younger years working inside a successful company and learning how the real business world operates.

Because there’s a huge difference between earning money and building a career.

When you work for a successful organization, you learn things you may never learn working by yourself.

You learn about management, budgets, expectations, deadlines, accountability, customers, vendors, competition, hiring, firing and dealing with different personalities.

You learn what good management looks like.

Sometimes you learn just as much by watching bad management.

And if your ultimate goal is to own your own business someday, this experience becomes even more valuable.

How can you expect to build and manage a successful organization if you’ve never experienced how a successful organization actually operates?

You’re basically getting paid to learn.

Another huge benefit is the people you meet.

Inside a successful organization, you’re going to come in contact with some extremely talented people.

The young manager sitting next to you today might be a CEO someday. Someone else may eventually own a company. Another person may become one of the best people in your industry.

Being around people who are better than you makes you better.

It’s the same in sports. If you compete against people who are better than you, you have to raise your game.

Business works the same way.

You also spend those years building something that’s almost impossible to put a dollar value on:

A network of business associates.

Not just friends.

People who have worked with you. People who know your abilities. Managers who respect you. Vendors who trust you. Customers who remember you. Mentors who want to see you succeed.

Those relationships can follow you for the rest of your career.

Someone you worked with at 25 could open a door for you when you’re 45.

You don’t get much of that sitting alone in your car delivering somebody’s dinner.

This is the part of the gig economy that I think young people need to understand.

For the most part, it’s a transaction.

They need something done.

You do it.

They pay you.

That’s it.

They’re generally not investing in your career. They’re not developing you to become their next manager. They’re not grooming you for leadership. They’re not building your retirement or creating a career path for you.

They’re buying a service from you.

You could spend 30 years becoming an incredibly successful seller on eBay. You could sell millions of dollars worth of merchandise and know that platform better than almost anybody.

But if you stop selling tomorrow, eBay keeps going.

Your 30 years of experience doesn’t automatically give you ownership in eBay, a pension from eBay or a management position at eBay.

That’s not necessarily wrong.

But understand the relationship.

You are building your business on their platform. They aren’t necessarily building you.

This is the part nobody wants to think about when they’re 22.

Someday you’re going to be 62.

A traditional career can provide things beyond your paycheck.

You may have a 401(k) with an employer match. Some jobs still offer pensions. You may have health insurance, paid vacation, paid sick time, disability coverage and other benefits.

You’re also building Social Security benefits through your earnings.

Those things aren’t very exciting when you’re 22.

They’re incredibly important when you’re 62.

If you’re going to spend your life working independently, you can absolutely build many of these things yourself.

But you have to build them yourself.

This may be the biggest danger of thinking only about today’s income.

If your entire financial life depends upon your ability to work today, what happens when you can’t?

Suppose you’re 35 years old. You’re married. You have two kids and a mortgage.

Then you get seriously sick or injured and can’t work for six months.

Maybe you can’t work for two years.

Maybe you can never do the same work again.

What happens to your family?

In a traditional job, depending on your employer, you may have short-term or long-term disability insurance, paid sick time, workers’ compensation for a job-related injury and other protections.

In the gig world, you’re largely responsible for creating those protections yourself.

You can buy disability insurance. You can fund your own retirement. You can buy insurance. You can create an emergency fund.

But nobody is automatically doing it for you.

That’s the part of saying “I work for myself” that doesn’t sound quite as exciting.

When you work for yourself, you’re also your own benefits department, retirement department and safety net.

You can make money doing almost anything.

You can find something somebody threw in the trash, clean it up and sell it for $50.

You made money.

Nothing wrong with that.

But after you spend the $50:

What did you build?

That’s the question I think young people need to ask themselves more often.

Not:

“How much money did I make this week?”

But:

“What am I building while I’m making money?”

Am I building skills?

Am I building knowledge?

Am I building a reputation?

Am I building relationships?

Am I building retirement savings?

Am I building Social Security benefits?

Am I learning how to manage people?

Am I learning from people who are better than me?

Am I creating something that will still have value when I’m 40, 50 or 60?

That’s why I think of the hamster running on the wheel.

He’s working his butt off.

He’s moving fast.

He’s putting in the effort.

But when he stops running, he’s standing in exactly the same place he started.

Your working life shouldn’t be like that.

Every year you work should leave you with something you didn’t have the year before—more knowledge, more skills, more relationships, more savings, more security, more credibility and more opportunity.

There’s nothing wrong with gig work. There’s nothing wrong with a side hustle. There’s nothing wrong with making extra money.

In fact, I love the entrepreneurial spirit behind it.

Just don’t confuse making money with building a career and a future.

Because after 30 or 40 years of working, you don’t want to look back and realize you spent your entire life running faster and faster on somebody else’s wheel.

Make money today. But make damn sure you’re building something for tomorrow.What’s



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