Gail Sheehy’s 10 Dares to Take in Your 20s Part II
Gail Sheehy’s new book Daring: My Passages is a memoir of life experiences from a woman who knows how to embrace life – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Gail very generously agreed to allow me to feature her Huffington Post blog about 10 Dares to Take in Your 20’s – here is Part II. Thank you, Gail for sharing your insights on my blog! Gail’s dares for people in their 20’s can ring true for all of us no matter what our age.
by Gail Sheehy Part II :
6) Dare to Attach Yourself to a Mentor and Kill Yourself to Show Your Stuff
I would never have made it to prominence in my profession if I hadn’t attached myself to a mentor in my twenties. As a graduate student, I appealed to renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead by letting her know I wrote for New York magazine. She literally let me ride with her to Columbia and made me her journalistic outlet, sending me to chase down stories about major cultural shifts. In turn, she gave me an insight that would became my m.o: “Whenever you hear about a national tragedy or a racial clash or a controversial inauguration, drop everything to get there, look down into the abyss, and you will see the culture turned inside out.”
Attaching yourself to a mentor is even more important for young people today. As my friend, the economist and acclaimed author Sylvia Hewlett has documented, “the route to success” for Millennials in the workplace is to identify a senior executive who will be your sponsor. Demonstrate that you will make her or him look good, and your sponsor will invest in your future and help you quick-climb through the ranks.
7) Dare to Postpone Marriage Until You Can Support Yourself Independently
“Every other generation before them said ‘I’m waiting for Mr. Right.’ Milllenials say ‘I’m waiting until it’s right for me.’” — Celinda Lake, National President of Lake Research.
Being independent and self-actualized before marriage is crucially important to your career growth and personal happiness. Daring to delay marriage has elevated the socioeconomic status of women, especially college-educated women. They use their twenties to gain advanced education and build the competence and confidence that makes prospective employers salivate. By waiting to marry until they’re 30-plus, research shows that women will make more money—about $18,152 more per year—and are also likely to be happier in family life and take more pleasure in their work.
The intrinsic benefit of delayed marriage may be even more important. Waiting allows women to reach for other life goals, like promoting diversity by joining Teach for America, or training to be a champion athlete, or following a passion for making music, or writing a novel, or launching a social movement. The longer you wait to attach yourself to a life partner, the less likely your marriage is to come apart.
8) Dare to Pursue a Career in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math
Women who work in STEM fields often face discrimination from their male peers, but perseverance can pay off big. As Lisa Lambert, a senior Vice President at Intel Capital, recently told me, daring to pursue a career in technology has allowed her to provide for her family in ways she couldn’t have imagined. She isn’t the only one. From mathematicians to dental hygienists to software engineers, women in STEM jobs earn significantly more—a whopping 33 percent more—than the average full-time working woman makes.
9) Don’t Dare Let a More Senior Person Intimidate You or Steal Your Ideas
You are so enthused about your new theory of non-relativity, you spill it to your a tenured professor and he wants to own it. How to say no? That was one of my biggest dares.
When I interviewed a senior psychiatrist at University of Southern California about his study of adult development, he literally backed me into a corner and proposed that I collaborate with him on MY book. But I was the writer, and I was developing a new concept about the stages of adult development and the times of transition between each stage, which would become my book Passages. He threatened: “No one will take you seriously, you’re just a journalist.” He knew exactly where to needle my self-doubt. But I declined his offer. “You can write your own book,” I said, “and I’ll write mine.” It paid off.
Passages remained on the New York Times bestseller list for three years. His book never made the list.
10) Dare to Change Your Career When You Turn 30
So many of us grow up being warned not to quit. During your 30’s, it is predictable to feel more or less restricted by the choices you made in your 20s—even though those choices might have been perfectly appropriate at the time. Karen Fan, for example, chose to drive ahead as a supercharged seeker of success during her 20’s, happily rising through the ranks of the banking world. But having a child completely transformed her priorities. In her early 30’s, faced with the choice of succeeding as a high-powered executive and failing as an absent mother, she dared to quit her job and raise the money to start a business of her own. Now able to spend quality time with her daughter, Karen knows she’s made the right choice for a different stage of life.
