Yesterday I asked my friend Doug Leyendecker, a corporate recruiter in Houston, what his advice was for young people who are having a hard time finding a job. Doug is a creative type and I love his ideas–he suggested that young college graduates should head for Mumbai or Shangai and spend a couple of months networking and finding jobs in global economies that are booming. His vision is that the future is there, not here. I probably agree though I can see that not every graduate would have the courage to run to such an adventure. Especially in a world of helicopter parents, it will be the elders who will have as much trouble letting go! And yet, let go they must. I notice that there are a lot of young graduates returning home. They are having a difficult time translating their limited experiences in jobs. What will it take for them to take flight? I believe they must take some risks–maybe going to Mumbai will not be one of them–but they must be willing to try new things and not have preconceived notions of what they should be doing. Nobody started as a manager! We all started at the bottom of some pile. My first glorious internship was with the Associated Press in Rome during college. My task was to tear out sheets that were printing out of the old telex machines and tearing them to put them on the right spindles. Not exactly a high powered job and yet I relished the opportunity and it eventually translated into a paid position. I hope the young graduates are as willing to look about and see that their future can start now–that they need to start asking serious questions about what their skills are and start applying them. Not an easy task and I encourage them to find guidance from peers, elders, coaches…anyone they can find! We have to hope they will find that being persistent is more important that being on the top…it is the only way to get anywhere! And they will find that some hardships become a good foundation of experience and can be translated not just into wisdom but into jobs!

Life is Amazing! Live Well.

Anna Grassini