Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    What Next?: The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World
    What Next?: The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World
    What Next?: The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World
    Ebook140 pages2 hours

    What Next?: The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World

    By Michael Price

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Millennials (Generation Y) were born into a world with a unique set of circumstances: Rapid technological advancement, the rise of The Internet, a new modern yet old school work place, a broken education system, and tremendous economic disadvantages. What Next? The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World takes Millennial's through high school, college, Corporate America and beyond, and gives the reader insight to take on the world with ease and confidence with step-by-step skills and life lessons developed and used by author Michael Price.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJul 8, 2013
    ISBN9780989294720
    What Next?: The Millennial's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World
    Author

    Michael Price

    Dr. Michael Price holds a BA in History from West Liberty State College (WV), a MA in American History from West Virginia University, a Master of Divinity from Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, and an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration from the George Washington University. During nearly a quarter century of parish ministry, Price has served churches in Louisiana, Virginia, and North Carolina. Currently, he is the Senior Minister at the First Christian Church in Washington, NC.

    Read more from Michael Price

    Related to What Next?

    Related ebooks

    Personal Growth For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for What Next?

    3/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      What Next? - Michael Price

      me.

      Chapter 1: Welcome to the Real World

      Are You Ready?

      My fellow Millennials, are you prepared for the real world? Do you have what it takes to not only survive, but thrive? Do you know exactly what you want to do with your life? Do you know what college you want to attend? Do you even want to go to college? Why do you want to go to college? Is college worth the tremendous debt incurred? Did you go to college, drop out or graduate and are still confused about your career? Are you prepared for 10 - 12 hour work days? Do you know how to manage finances? Do you understand how credit works? Are you mentally and emotionally prepared to accept and excel in the challenges the real world will bring? If you answered no or are unsure of your answer to the preceding questions, then you need some assistance. If you answered yes, then you are either full of it and haven’t yet experienced the Real World or you are among a rare few Millennials who actually get it. I’m going to make a huge assumption that a majority of the Millennials reading this book who answered the preceding questions honestly, either answered no or unsure to the questions above.

      Hello. My name is Michael Price. Nine years ago I graduated from high school and had no idea what to do next. I was super ambitious but wasn’t sure how to best capitalize on my ambition. I didn’t know if college was the route to go, entrepreneurship, or joining the workforce straight out of high school and climbing my way to the top. I chose to do all of the above. After high school at the age of 18 I went to college and realized that the college system in its current form wasn’t equipped to properly educate me for the career I wanted to pursue. After my freshmen year of college I dropped out, taught myself web design, search engine marketing, and social media marketing. At 21, I landed my first real job at a digital marketing agency in Dallas, TX earning $48,000/year as a social media manager. While working at this agency, I had the opportunity to lead strategy, initiation, and execution of social media campaigns for small tech start ups, brick and mortar businesses and a few big businesses. From 23 to 27 I worked as a freelance and in-house social media marketing consultant, consulting some of the biggest businesses in their industries. In these four years as a consultant, I reached an income of over $60,000/year, which is more than double the average income earned by most Americans in my age bracket. Based on my level and years of experience, I’m projected to earn over six-figures/year before I reach the age of 30. I’ve achieved all of this without a college degree and did I mention I’m debt free? At the time of writing this book, I was 27 years old. Am I telling you all of this to brag? Absolutely not! Even though the success I’ve achieved at my age (despite not having a college degree) is more than twice that of others in my age group, I don’t hold this level of success as something that defines me. In fact, I often criticize myself for not being more financially successful at my age than I am.

      The reason I felt compelled to give my performance report is to illustrate that I know what it takes to do the following:

      Pursue your passion

      Accomplish your goals

      Maximize your potential

      Manage your finances

      And to sum it all up… Survive and thrive in the Real World! I wrote this book to share my experiences and expertise’ in handling the unique and tremendous set of challenges that my generation faces in the Real World. It’s very important that Millennials understand the historic and generational differences that will determine the success or failure of their lives based on the world we live in today. The rules for achieving success in our parents’ generation no longer apply, just as the rules for achieving success in our grandparents’ generation didn’t apply to our parents.

      The world today moves and changes much faster than ever before. Consumer buying trends change over the course of a year as opposed to a decade, and new technology makes previous technology obsolete in a matter of months as opposed to years. The Internet was the game changer that changed life as we know it and no other segment of the population is more affected by this than Millennials. The Internet is a super highway of Information. As I mentioned above, I’m a college dropout who self taught myself skills that I learned on the Internet that have allowed me to earn a living that’s double that of my peers. That’s the world we live in today. In yesterdays’ generation, you didn’t find nearly as many millionaires, billionaires, and entrepreneurs as you do today and why? Because the world is truly global now. The walls have come crumbling down thanks to the World Wide Web and this game change is the defining difference in the Millennial Generation as compared to generations prior. So who are Millennials?

      Millennials are young adults born between the late 1970s and early 2000s, allowing for an age range between 12 - 35 years old present day (2013).

      Since 1993, there have been a lot of people who have talked about us, written articles about us, and made predictions about us, but none of these writers and journalists have been us.

      By writing this book I am changing that, by providing insight about Millennials from a Millennials’ perspective. As a Millennial who has survived and thrived, I have a unique perspective to provide that Gen X analysts, writers, and journalists do not have as outsiders. In this book, I have taken my life lessons from the ages of 15 - 27 and have provided them to my generation as a guide of things to do and not to do. My hope and intent is that I can somehow assist others who are lost in the world without guidance to maximize their potential and achieve success. Although monetarily I have achieved success at a young age by most people’s standards, I believe that success is not dictated by how much money you earn, but by the level of your happiness. I believe it is better to be a starving artist than to be an over-fed corporate clown.

      This book is entitled What Next? because it follows a sequence of events that allows Millennials to figure out what’s next, beginning in high school, post high school, college, and on into the Real World. No matter what part of this path in life you are currently on, you can read this book and make some modifications or adjustments to your life that will allow you to survive and thrive.

      This is the book I always hoped would be written but never was. I’ve read dozens of books throughout the years following high school hoping to find bits and pieces of the information contained within this book. I learned the lessons in this book the hard way, through trial and error while attending the School of Hard Knocks. A.K.A. The Real World. I’ve taken these lessons and I give them back to you. The people. My generation.

      History Lesson

      Who knows only his generation remains always a child

      - George Norlin

      What a great quote to start this chapter with. I believe this quote to be tremendously powerful and relevant, especially for the Millennial Generation (Generation Y) which has commonly been referred to as the Me Generation. This adjective has been used to describe the often times selfish and disregarded attitudes of Millennials. As a Millennial, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, we are definitely selfish and we can quite frequently be known to disregard others.

      I felt it critical to include and start this book off with a history lesson, because you can’t know where you’re going, unless you know where you came from. I believe that if Millennials have a better grasp of the historical differences that separate us from previous generations, we will be able to better understand the Real World and better understand ourselves.

      Demographics

      Millennials are taking over, or should I say, we’ve already taken over. We’re the largest generation of young people since the 1960s and we’re 80 million strong making us 1/3 of the total U.S. population. We love spending our money on fancy gadgets and gizmos and we love spending our parents’ money on gadgets and gizmos even more! A majority of our parents are baby boomers, born between the years of 1946 - 1964. Much like us, our parents were very money motivated. Our grandparents built the foundation of the middle class and our parents solidified it.

      Ambition and desire to have more things, has been the cultural progression that has increased from one generation to the next. In our grandparents’ generation, products were built with quality and were meant to last for years or even decades. Don’t believe me? Go into your grandmothers’ kitchen and I guarantee that you will find an original Kitchen Aid Mixer that still works like it did 35 years ago. Go in the back of her closet and pull out her old sewing machine; I bet it still works as well. Now fast forward to our parents’ generation. Once the middle class became solidified by our parents’ generation, product manufacturers quickly realized that with the sharp increase in rising household incomes, there was no need to make durable, long-lasting, well-built products anymore. This change in product quality spawned (in my opinion) the mass consumerism of American culture today, and no generation is more susceptible

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1