Message to my Generation – We Suck!

This is an excerpt from a web series called This Week in Startups or TWiST hosted by Jason Calacanis (episode 47 if you want to check out the full program). I love this video. I love it because it is 100% true.

My generation has grown up in one of the most prosperous times this country has ever experienced. Everything was great in the 90s. This has lead my generation to become soft. We’ve been raised to develop a sense of entitlement. Things have been given to us so easily by parents who wanted to provide a better life for their kids. Through this nurturing, my generation has developed a sense of self worth that is not in line with our actual worth. My generation thinks that the world actually gives a crap about them. We think that because we exist, we are special.

Though most people my age and younger will be not enjoy this video, its a necessary watch. I can say this because even until this day I struggle to escape that 80% he’s talking about in the video. Here is my story.

When I got out of college, I thought I knew everything. I thought I was an awesome web designer. I thought I deserved to be paid like an awesome web designer. I went job hunting truly expecting every resume I sent out to come back saying, “Wow, where have you been this entire time? When can you start???”

I got nada.

I ended up getting a job at a local design shop in Honolulu. It was my first REAL job, I had no connection to these people other than the fact that I applied and got hired. It was the most necessary experience I’ve ever had. Right off the bat, they broke me down. They told me straight how much I sucked at designing. They told me that I would work for free for them and if I improved they would hire me. That they could not justify hiring me until I could produce work that they could actually use for clients. I remember being very shook up. This is not the world that was sold to me growing up. I was supposed to be a genius.

The first three months, I got digital equivalent of having my work crumpled up in front of my face and thrown into a garbage can. It was brutal but I stuck it out. I learned more about designing in 3 months than I did in 4 years in school. One night my bosses took me out for drinks and sat me down. “Alright Ryan, we like you, and we’ve decided to bring you on full time”

“Here it is! The payoff for all my hard work! ” I thought.

“And we’re going to start you off at $10 / hour”

I distinctly remember being hit was two very different emotions. I was validated; I was good enough to get paid, yet I was also crushed; the amount I was to be paid was so little. Is that what I’m worth? I remember thinking.

This is not what they told me in college. I took the offer, and thanked them. I worked there for four more months and quit.

I thought I was worth more than that. How could I not be? I’m good at designing now. I started my own company. It failed. I blamed market conditions and tried again. Failed. I blamed the clients. I tried again, failed. My partner didn’t want to stick it out. I came up with all these excuses for my businesses failing. It has to be external! It can’t be that what sucks is me?

Two years later I’m sitting in my office in Halawa, I remember at noon one day looking in my wallet. There was no money just a bunch of receipts. I had enough money in the bank to pay rent for maybe two more months. We had a tin of cookies in the office. I remember crying alone eating them because I realized that was my lunch for that day. I was a failure. My past failures were all because of me. I came to realize that day, the world doesn’t owe me shit.

I soon took a job at a great company to pay my bills. Actually I should be more honest. I was given a job at a great company because my uncle married the owner of the parent company’s sister. Like a bad habit, my Gen Y ego was back.

I got to choose my own title and like the piece of crap Gen-Yer I am, I said, “New Media Director” as if that meant anything. My starting salary, $32k. Not what you would expect for a “Director” but hey I had the title and boy did I like telling people my title.

I worked my ass off for that company for the first year. We had a great team, I really liked my boss and coworkers. There was pretty much only one person I did not like at the company, but its all good, he doesn’t really affect what we do. It was the first time up to that point I enjoyed going to work every day.

One day we’re all called into my boss’s office for a meeting for some “good news”. The president of our company decided to promote the one person who I did not like above all of us, even above my boss. We’d all be following his lead now. It felt like someone punched me in the gut.

I realized my title that I had been so prideful of never meant anything. I was so busy looking down at people below me, I never looked up to see how small and insignificant I was. This asshole who I really didn’t like was promoted above us, given a better title and more money. I realized, in that situation, at that job, I was not the master of my own destiny.

My work rate declined as I became less and less inspired to put my best in if that person was going to get the credit.

Eventually through circumstance and fortune, Aaron (one of my business partners) approached me with the idea and opportunity to create Ukuleleunderground.com. After thinking it over for a little while, I agreed and we (Aaron, Aldrine and myself) put our heads down and got to work.

2 years later, through countless hours, blood sweat and tears we have a company that is respectable and still growing. We have not achieved anything near our final goal but I do believe we have made our little dent in the world.It’s a small dent right now, but we hope to make it much, much bigger.

I cannot say that I have completely escaped the 80% Jason talks about in that video. To this day I still fight to stay on task, I still struggle to not let my ego get the best of me. I am human, but I am trying to improve. I have realized that for a long time I was a part of that 80%. That 80% who thinks the world owes them something. The world doesn’t owe me anything, I need to earn it.

Here’s to joining the 20%