The world that your parents grew up in is no more.
Gone are the days of graduating from college and working one job for 40 years until you can collect your pension.
Things don't work like that anymore.
In 2016, the modern job world is fast-paced and rapidly changing. Potential employers care more about efficiency and skill than the years of experience under your belt.
Now, more than ever before, we live in a world where the market rewards passion more than anything else. Whether you are "pursuing your passion" or bringing your passion to your pursuits, the modern market pays for this handsomely.
So with that in mind, here are 4 pieces of essential career advice tips for all of your millennials out there.
1. Travel.
While this may seem like a counterintuitive first tip for an article giving career advice, it is not.
Let me explain.
We live in a society where people are expected to have the next 50 years of their life planned out by the time they are 22. I all honesty, most people hardly know what they want to do tomorrow.
Traveling, especially to third world and developing countries will expose you to new cultures, new ways of living, and teach you more about yourself.
Travel expands your personality, and gives you time to find a career path you'll truly enjoy, more so than if you immediately took a job out of college.
In the big scheme of things, no one is going to turn you down for a job because you spent a year backpacking through Thailand and Vietnam, volunteering and building shelters.
But that one year may teach you something about yourself that changes the whole trajectory of your life.
2. Base your job off of your personality, not the paycheck.
If you're an introvert who prefers tinkering with computers, why in the world would you apply for a job as a salesman?
Conversely, if you are a die hard extrovert and love spending time with people and discussing new ideas, why in the world would you try and become a legal analyst?
While our education system encourages the idea that everyone should be standardized and should fit into neat little boxes, this is far from the truth.
People have very different personalities and have a propensity to lean towards different things.
Take a career test to figure out who you are and what you enjoy doing. Base your job off of that.
In the end, no amount of money will make you happy if you are doing a job that is completely incongruent with who you are as a person.
3. Don't be afraid to be broke.
Society has built up this image of success in all of our minds that involves 25 year olds driving Lamborghinis and throwing yacht parties after a huge IPO where they made $25,000,000 from 18 months of work.
While that occasionally happens, this should not be the stick that you measure yourself by.
Your 20s are a time to try new things. To start a business and fail. To take a job you don't know if you can handle and see how you do. To leave home and volunteer in Africa for 2 years.
When you look back on your 20s, you will never regret marching to the beat of a different drummer. You will likely never look back on amazing experiences wishing you had given them up to earn more money.
For most people, their 20's are the time in their life where they have the fewest responsibilities and the most freedom. Take advantage of this, and don't let the fear of losing money hold you back.
4. Try your hand at entrepreneurship.
Now more than ever, millennials are claiming that they want to be entrepreneurs.
They want the fast paced action of working on a startup, growing their dream, and pushing through adversity until they reach success. Who can blame them?
Entrepreneurship is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things a person can do. The gratification you get from growing your business from a small 1-person website into a national powerhouse is one of the greatest feelings in the world.
However, you have to act!
You see, when Bentley University surveyed millennials, they found that 66% want to be entrepreneurs. Since 2013, however, only 4% of businesses have been owned by someone under 30!
If you want to be an entrepreneur, then do it now! Don't wait until "someday," because that day never comes.
The worst that can happen is it fails, you learn something and have a valuable skill set to take with you to your next venture.
At best, you start the business of your dreams and spend the rest of your life working on something you love and never having to worry about money again.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.
Conclusion
Millennials live in an amazing time.
Never before in history has one of the richest people in the world been under 30 years old and self made.
Never before has a college dropout been able to travel the world and build a multi-six figure business while doing it.
Never before has there been so much upside to entrepreneurship with so many downsides, and never before has there been a market that not only allows people to make a living fortune doing something they were passionate about, but actively encourages them to do it.
You live in an amazing time, and it is up to you to make the most of it.
Whether you're a twentysomething or beyond, what career advice do you have?