Sean is someone who quit his office job, working in finance in Portland, Oregon, and took a huge leap. He moved to Asia and started a new life abroad, experimenting with working as a digital nomad.

Sean submitted a remote work proposal to his firm in Portland, and when they wouldn’t negotiate with him, he did it his way anyway. He was going to experience life abroad, one way or another.

He ended up being selected for the first Tropical MBA internship, working remotely with Dan Andrews of the Lifestyle Business Podcast and a team in Manila, Philippines, and his business partner in San Diego, California. Sean also helps manage affiliates for Chris Guillebeau—who just recently launched the hugely successful Empire Building Kit—and has many personal projects of his own on the way.

Sean soaked at Songkran festival in Bangkok (photo by Gary Arndt of Everything-Everywhere.com)

Sean’s blog Location 180 is where you can see this entire life transformation unfold over the last year and a half.

Sean took a huge risk, and made a big life change. I was lucky to get to know him pretty well and spend a lot of time with him here in Bangkok, Thailand for the last six months.

A few weeks ago, it was time for him to return home for a while, so I took the opportunity to sit down and catch up with him on video to ask him some questions about his travel experience, get his advice for other folks who want to make the jump into working remotely and living abroad, and share how he’s successfully built a location independent career and designed his ideal lifestyle.

• 0:45 – What catalyzed the change Sean wanted in his life
• 1:40 – About the Tropical MBA & bootstrapping a product development company from the Philippines
• 3:45 – Sean’s travel itch before redesigning his life
• 4:35 – Advice for taking the jump from corporate life into self-employment
• 6:55 – How to stay productive & accountable when you work at home
• 8:30 – Changing your mindset for a location independent lifestyle
• 9:25 – What Sean does to earn a location independent income
• 11:55 – Sean’s upcoming course to help you Overcome the Fear of Uncertainty
• 16:25 – About Location 180 & seeing Sean’s personal growth as he turned his life around 180 degrees
• 18:05 – Sean’s favorite travel experiences in Southeast Asia: Ubud, Bali, Koh Tao, Thailand and Puerto Galera, Philippines
• 20:00 – Expat life in Bangkok & meeting entrepreneurial people from around the world
• 23:05 – What’s next for Sean Ogle?

UPDATE: Sean’s product Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty is NOW available, and it is indeed an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to start their own freedom business or work location independent. Fear of the unknown is the only barrier between you and the life you want to have, so I’m certain nearly anyone can get something out of this. If you want to take action to break each of your fears into much smaller, actionable items, to facilitate change and actually take control of your life, I highly recommend Sean’s program. (P.S. Click here to learn more about my own experience with petrifying fear.)

Learn more about Sean’s ultimate guide Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty by clicking here→

You can connect with Sean on Twitter, and also be sure to subscribe to his mailing list at Location 180 to get a great free audio interview all about how to craft a remote work agreement.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How Sean Ogle Quit His Job and Became a Location Independent Rockstar

Duff earned his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Lawrence University, and has earned a great deal of experience with several conscious businesses and non-profits in the Boulder, Colorado, area. He has also served over 60 Life Coaching clients worldwide in tackling personal challenges and achieving goals. Duff also writes a fantastic personal blog at http://duff.zaadz.com, which I highly recommend, and he recently wrote a useful GTD resource that took off in the blog world. In this exclusive interview, Duff shares some of his encouraging thoughts on business, philosophy, and empowerment.

So tell us about the new startup, Falling Fruit TV. What separates you guys from the pack, and what is your mission?

Falling Fruit is a podcast network that is creating free audio and video shows on topics of personal and global transformation. We have shows ranging from how to change the world through business, to how to change your health through alternative medicine, as well as a popular show for serious meditators called Buddhist Geeks, and a new show exploring what it means to be a man, with many more to come. Our shows are currently audio-only, but we have some video podcasts in the works too, which are going to be HOT!

Our mission statement is “Through providing leading-edge media content, Falling Fruit connects, informs, and empowers world citizens who want to become effective agents of change.” Pretty lofty I know, but us Millennials tend to be pretty optimistic.

And for those not hip to podcasting yet, a podcast is an audio or video show broadcast over the web that you can subscribe to, usually through iTunes, usually for free, and then iTunes automatically downloads the newest episodes to your computer and/or iPod or other media player. We love new technology at Falling Fruit, and aim to use it for “technospiritual” ends, in other words asking the question “how can this cool new tech thing I’m drooling over actually be used to do good in the world?”

You co-host the Conscious Business show at Falling Fruit. What are some of the current trends in conscious business–and which organizations are on the cutting edge that we should keep an eye on?

Conscious Business is a name we’ve put on a number of emerging trends in the business world, especially trends for businesses that are addressing environmental and social justice issues, as well as businesses that are encouraging their employees to self-actualize.

One interesting thing to keep an eye on is the blurring of the line between for-profit and non-profit. The “triple bottom line” concept (people, profit, planet) is one example, where for-profit companies are actually creating metrics and pushing for new legal structures to hold themselves accountable to more than just quarterly profits. Another is “for-benefit,” the best example I know of being my friend Mathew’s business, eConsciousMarket.com, which is a “philanthropic eco-marketplace,” selling only socially and environmentally responsible goods, and 50% of profits go to the non-profit of your choice.

Another wild thing I’ve been noticing is how much innovation is occurring on the environmentally responsible end of things. We recently interviewed Joshua Onysko, founder of Pangea Organics, on our show. Pangea is almost not a business but an example of a business–they are innovating for the point of inspiring other businesses, to show them what is socially and environmentally possible while making a very significant profit.

My friend Christiana wrote up a great summary of other similar trends that’s worth reading.

Personally, I’m keeping an eye on Whole Foods. John Mackey has created an incredibly forward-thinking organization that has dramatically changed the grocery and health food industries.

You mentioned another show at Falling Fruit called Buddhist Geeks, and I know you practice Vipassana meditation. Please tell us more about Bhuddism and business. Do you think that it’s possible to reconcile a Buddhist philosophy with a mentality of career success and wealth-building?

I do practice Vipassana, and the teacher in my tradition, S.N. Goenka, was a businessman before becoming a Vipassana teacher. He too wrestled with the greed and corruption in the business world, and anyone who takes Buddhist teachings seriously will have to come to their own integration.

Personally, I don’t see any inherent contradiction between career success and insight into the fundamental nature of life, if you understand the purpose of business, which I believe is to serve human needs. Now keeping that in mind, we all have a need for food, and if you habitually overeat, then you are not truly meeting your needs for nourishment and health. A certain amount of wealth will feed your own needs — happiness studies in the US have shown that after about $36,000 in income, a person is no more happy if they make more money. However, it’s hard to fund a new venture without a stockpile of extra cash! Falling Fruit was started in large part because two of our friends had access to trust funds, which helped kick off the project. The purpose of large amounts of accumulated wealth is not to overstuff yourself with luxury, but to feed new things — new businesses, new projects, and yes, to feed people too, via philanthropy and the creation of new jobs!

Plus the definition of career success seems to be changing. A lot of young people are being raised by parents who have accumulated all they ever wanted and yet are obviously unfulfilled. We don’t want to go through their suffering, so we are looking to have our cake and eat it too, to make a good living AND to live out our passions AND have 2 months off a year to meditate and do personal development AND to serve the world in the highest ways we can possibly imagine. Nothing else feels like “success” anymore.

How can Generation Y best set about making positive changes in their lives and in the world through their careers?

There are so many ways! Now more than ever. Let me give you a little of my personal history first.

I was a Philosophy major, and almost a Psychology and Environmental Studies triple-major. When I graduated college in 2001, I was a member of something like 5 activist groups (several of which I started), and figured that all business is run by greedy, environment-killing capitalist pigs. So naturally I couldn’t find any work, and ended up in telephone tech support, which I hated with a passion. Luckily I did like people and solving problems though, so I was able to survive long enough doing this and web design work to figure out what I was good at and how I could make money while making a difference.

Along the way I found that business is not evil by definition, and that many people in business actually want to serve the fulfillment of human needs. Also many new exciting trends were emerging that were creating opportunities for people like me who want to make a difference but not starve working for a non-profit startup (which I did for a while), and who want to change the way business operates to make it more environmentally and socially responsible.

Here are my the top 3 things Millennial kids can do to change the world through work:

1. Know yourself. Engage in a study of your strengths and weaknesses. Take strengths assessment tests like Martin Seligman’s signature strengths assessment, or the Discover Your Strengths book, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Enneagram, etc. Learn exactly what it is that you are good at, passionate about and love, and do these things.

Account for your weaknesses by partnering with people who are good at those things, then figure out how to avoid ever doing those things on the job. There are already far too many people doing someone else’s job! Design your career path consciously, and then follow opportunities.

2. Follow your bliss. Keep doing what you love. The world needs people who are ALIVE, who are living at their full potential. Don’t settle for a crappy job, position, or project! Start a business, or two, or three. Every day ask yourself, “What do I want? What do I want to do today? What do I want to create today? What huge problem could I solve with my creativity and ingenuity? What great group could I organize?”

Don’t fall for the line of BS that you “have to” do X, Y, and Z. There’s almost nothing that you have to do nowadays. All the rules have been broken. Ask “what if?” questions often. “What if we could create houses that didn’t consume energy but actually produced energy back onto the grid?” “What if I could get paid to read personal development books?” (What my friend Brian Johnson is asking.) Great things happen from great questions like these.

3. Study marketing. Great ideas that nobody hears about don’t impact the world. Your idea must be good and cool to succeed. Plus you need to market yourself — be willing to brag about your passions and your goals, and your accomplishments if you have any.

The median age at Falling Fruit is 25. Until recently our president was one of the youngest guys in our company. Don’t believe the crap that “you are too young to start a business” or to do whatever it is you want to do. Dream big, and find a way! The world needs what you have to offer.

Tell us more about your life coaching practice. What methods do you use to help your clients achieve personal growth?

Coaching is wonderful work, really. It’s the kind of work where after a session you pinch yourself and say “I just got paid for that??” I help people become more alive and live their full potential — it’s my favorite conversation! And I’ve been lucky enough to work with 60+ clients all over the world so far.

I’ve been obsessed with personal growth work for as long as I can remember. So I use whatever intuitively seems appropriate for my clients. But more specifically, I help people get productive and organized using David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology (see my GTD checklist here). I also use a bunch of stuff I learned from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Tony Robbins, personality typing models like the Enneagram, as well as just general goal-setting and belief management tools and techniques. For a summary of tons of little techniques, I recommend The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, or checking out my friend Brian Johnson’s website ThinkArete.com, where he has 500+ “big ideas” — summaries of books and teachers — available for reading and listening! Lately I’ve been reading some wackier but very interesting stuff from Robert Anton Wilson like Prometheus Rising, which blew my mind when I read it last week.

What I find most amazing about the work is how our maps of reality keep us from experiencing joy and aliveness, and keep us from achieving what we want, and how incredibly flexible these maps truly are.

What does GTD mean for you? How do you use it in your business and personal life?

GTD has been a lifesaver for me. I’m an idea guy. You know those ideas that could change your life and the world if you applied them? Well I get like 5 an hour — faaaaar too many to ever actually apply!

GTD keeps me real. “What’s the next action?” and the “someday-maybe” list have been wonderful at getting me to take my ideas and put them into action, or to shelf them for another day. And I keep my email inbox to 0 or close to it every day now, which keeps me sane, and sometimes even peaceful at work. I can’t fathom having more than 20 emails in my inbox now. I came back from a meditation retreat recently and had 257, and I cleared them out in a couple hours right away.

Our business has been infused with GTD. We’ve created an incredible number of processes around the production of our shows, covering every detail, and always focusing on greater efficiency. Our website has only been up for a couple months, but we’re already a month or two ahead on most our shows! I can’t take credit for the efficiency though, we’ve got a great team of people much more productive than I am. I use GTD to keep up!

But it’s not just the system of GTD, it’s the discipline. At the GTD Roadmap seminar I attended, David Allen talked about how it takes about 2 years to fully implement the system. I think it’s maybe more like 5 years, but maybe I’m a slow learner. But I figure I’m going to be doing things for the rest of my life, I may as well do them productively!

And at the end of the day, “productivity” is about what you are producing in the world — what goals and dreams you are making real…and how! GTD can help make your dreams real and help you enjoy the process too.

And I’m interested in this concept you have about our “maps of reality” and how they can prevent us from achieving individual and collective happiness. I too have a lot of passion for helping people overcome fears and reach for their dreams. Please tell us more about your thoughts on experiencing joy and aliveness, as you say above, and reaching other BIG goals.

Well, according to Buddhism, achievement of your goals is temporary, because everything is subject to the law of impermanence. So the challenge with achieving happiness and other big goals is that if you were to ever achieve them, life would keep on changing and then you’d be unhappy again!

But Buddhism is not a pessimistic philosophy. The recommendation is to practice equanimity with subtle subjective experience with the aim of achieving total equanimity and emptiness (Nirvana), which of course also changes, but life is different at that point. I’m aiming for that in my practice, but it will of course take time. A Buddhist teacher and author I respect suggests that full enlightenment can definitely be done with regular meditation retreats and daily practice though!

In the meantime, temporary happiness can also come from flow, a state of total engagement with what you are doing, where the challenge meets your ability. Anyone can do this by discovering their passions and then going for them wholeheartedly. Simply ask yourself “What do I really, really want?” and then “What’s the next physical action I can take to get a little closer?” I’m big on visualizing and goal-setting, and creating mindmaps and written plans to achieving my goals. I set yearly personal goals, and set goals and intentions for other areas of my life whenever I feel dissatisfied or like I’m “settling” for less than the best. It requires continuous revisiting! But your life will be full of passion, you will sleep satisfied that you gave your best, and when you die you will know you lived and loved fully.

Alright, and the big question: what are 5 things that students and young professionals can do to prepare for a conscious life and career?

I don’t know if these things will help you attain worldly success, but they will certainly lead to a more conscious, fun, and interesting life and career!

1. Engage in personal growth. Deeply examine yourself and your experience, whether through psychoanalysis, Vipassana meditation, the Enneagram, ecstatic dance, philosophy, interpreting your dreams, psychedelic drugs, or whatever. Really know that someday you will die, and choose to live fully now. Figure out why it is you are here, your purpose for living, then go about living that purpose in everything you do, every single day. Study success, and how to make your goals and dreams real. Hang out with people you want to become more like. Cut out bad habits like watching TV and endlessly surfing the web. Develop good habits like meditating and exercising daily.

If you aren’t growing, chances are you are dying (slowly and invisibly).

2. Question everything. You’ve got to learn to create. In order to do so, you’ve got to learn to question. The world is a place full of opportunity and abundance, but in order to access it, you must be free of limiting beliefs and ideas about the world. Get curious about everything! Go out and explore! Ask “why must these two things be at odds?” Try to integrate everything and see what happens. Do something weird and outrageous daily.

3. Assume wild success. Henry Ford said “Whether you think you can do a thing, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Ask “what if…?” questions daily. Assume that you can have it all, that you can get paid to do what you’d happily pay to do, that there are multiple solutions to this impossible problem, that of course it’s possible and profitable to make a product that brings the entire developing world out of poverty. Whatever you want most for the world or yourself, assume that it could be even more successful than you imagine and then go about making it real! The world needs people to think this way if we are to overcome the complex and “impossible” problems of today.

4. Get things done. It’s ok if your head’s in the clouds as long as your feet are still on the ground. This is called growth! Learn and practice GTD. Every day take 5 actions towards your most important goal. Keep your email inbox at 0. Get your typing speed up. Learn the disciplines of the digital age while you are young!

5. Serve people. In business and in life, you will be more successful and feel wonderful if you are serving the needs of others in all that you do. Make a habit of “networking” by asking yourself whom you could contact today and create extra value for. Reach out to people you don’t know and offer them something that could help them reach their goals!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Interview with Duff McDuffee of Falling Fruit TV

You describe yourself as a Corporate Sustainability Strategist and a Social Enterprise Creation and Ideation consultant, which sounds very interesting! So, in layman’s terms, what do you do?

Well, as this field barely existed when I started my career 12 years ago and is still in the process of formation — I’ve done a lot of things to get to where I am today. Currently, I operate as an independent consultant providing business and non-profit development services (marketing/communications, fundraising/sales, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and strategy) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ventures and social enterprises. I really enjoy laying the groundwork, connecting people, integrating ideas and data, and publicizing to get these ventures launched and/or scaled. And I most enjoy it when I can draw upon my experience in information technology/technology innovation, the environment, and small business and entrepreneurial development.

What does “business sustainability” mean to you?

Figuring out how to avoid the risks and take advantage of the opportunities presented to a business while still balancing economic, environmental (and human health!), and social considerations. All too often businesses focus on taking advantage of economic opportunities and only pursuing a risk management approach in terms of environmental and social considerations. This is probably not the best long-term strategy (but then how many businesses think long-term?). On the flip side, I think there is real value to be created when businesses start to think creatively about how to turn environmental and social challenges into a business opportunity.

When I say “social enterprise” in this context, I mean that the enterprise is “mission driven” — the founders have a passion for addressing a societal or environmental problem with a particular approach, service, or product. And then they just form the most appropriate vehicle around that solution (non-profit, for-profit, etc.) to accomplish the mission. Money is still important, but secondary to the mission. Especially in the case of the non-profit structure, they are often just seeking enough money to keep themselves self-financed.

Your most recent position was consulting for Envirofit International. Walk us through what a typical project like this looks like.

Envirofit is a growing clean tech non-profit in need of “expansion stage” funding. I developed a fundraising strategy and kickstarted it building relationships with government agencies, international development organizations and banks, social venture capital firms and foundations, as well as pursuing additional opportunities such as competitions, strategic partnerships, and low-cost publicity. Developing a fundraising strategy is a lot like developing a sales and marketing plan — you identify your prospects and determine your approach with each group. It’s just that non-profit fundraising is probably a lot more regimented than private sector sales and marketing; there are certain prescribed formats for letters and proposals.

You’ve worked in non-profit, government, and private business. Describe what that experience has been like, and how you got to be where you are now.

I never realized how unusual that was until I lived outside of Washington, D.C. as a professional. I formed my career in Washington, where it’s very commonplace for people to be “multi-sectoral.” It’s my sense that, at least within the space of CSR and social enterprise, the lines between these groups are increasingly becoming blurred. It was already clear to me 12 years ago when I started my career that there is no “us against them,” and the wave of the future was multi-stakeholder partnerships. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of such partnerships, they are often not as successful as they can be without mutual understanding. I think that my background enables me to provide this unique perspective.

What got you interested in sustainable development and sustainable growth?

I think it was a combination of things: many summers trips to Alaska during my high school years — was there the summer before and the summer after Exxon Valdez; saw the dried up Midwest from a plane during the summer drought of 1988. My father also worked for a large energy company, so growing up I was very aware of where my power came from — I was taught to conserve energy at a young age. Many people in my family, too, have been Peace Corps volunteers, so at a young age I was exposed to their stories about life in developing countries. I latched onto environmental issues and became a vegetarian somewhere around the age of 15…and it all evolved from there.

Do you feel like you make a positive impact with your career?

I think just about every career can be seen to have a positive impact, and some of us are more driven by impact than other motivators. I am definitely strongly driven by impact, and I do think that my career makes a positive impact at least in the short term. I cannot predict the impacts that I’ll have in the long-term. The impact that I value has changed over the years. I think it’s easy to get caught up in pursuing impact that is of national or international significance. However, all too often, such impacts lack a human connection. You may begin to wonder who did you really help. Because of this, I now gravitate toward opportunities where I can have a large impact on a small group of people or on one enterprise. Not that one way is better than the other, but you have to know what really gives you satisfaction.

When the job gets tough, what keeps you going?

I don’t know if I even think about work being “tough.” If there’s a problem that needs to be solved, it’s all I can think about to get to the bottom of it and move on. Work needs to be viewed in perspective: Think how lucky we are to even be given the opportunity of having work that also brings us great personal satisfaction. My parents and grandparents certainly did not have this. So, what on Earth do I have to complain about?

What do you recommend to students who want to get into your line of work?

I’m not quite sure if I know what “my line of work” is! I personally think it’s important to be a multi-sectoral professional and to be able to think “integratively” and creatively about business opportunities — to be able to flip an environmental challenge into a business opportunity by tapping into the resources of government agency X. But I’m not sure if a multi-sectoral career path is possible for all people, and I’m not sure if creativity is teachable.

International experience is always valuable even if you don’t intend to work internationally because it will test and change your ways of thinking about the world if you allow it to. An MBA degree helps to open doors, and these days is in demand by government, non-profit, and the private sector alike.

There are also many ways to have an impact — you don’t have to be a CSR or social enterprise professional. You can be a marketing manager who works for a green products company. You can make a bundle of money on Wall Street and then start your own foundation. There are many paths, and it’s not my place to value one over the other.

Karen, again, thank you so much for your willingness to share your incredible professional experience in corporate social responsibility and sustainability with us. For consulting inquiries, you can contact Karen at karen@jihiconsulting.com.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Interview with Karen Seeh, Corporate Sustainability Strategist

Julie, in your book I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This, you strive to help readers make satisfying career choices. In your experience, what are the core differences between men and women when it comes to making career decisions?

Women tend to talk to a larger number of people and be more open about discussing what their issues and problems are regarding their careers. They also seek out more opinions while men are more reticent to ask for advice from people. Men typically internalize much more until they are at the end of their rope about how to move forward. They simply aren’t as comfortable with asking for help. At the same time, people are people and my experience in my coaching practice shows that most people never think deeply or strategically about their careers or realize the importance of doing so until they are faced with a reason to do so. Even then, they are reactive and sporadic in their efforts rather then planful or anticipatory. People will plan weddings and vacations or financing their kid’s college education but rarely their careers. The elements are the same…What do you want? What do you need? What are your resources? What’s your ultimate desired outcome?

What are a few of your favorite resources for helping women succeed in business and discover the career that’s best suited for them?

I usually don’t recommend specific resources primarily because everyone finds one unique resource that just resonates for them. For example, my friend Gilda hated her job in corporate America and just decided to move to Europe for a year to learn French, Spanish and Italian in language immersion school. Her inspiration was the book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Keep watching reality TV, visit your local bookstore regularly, ask people who changed careers recently what their inspiration was, check out websites, etc. You never know what will hit you at the right time!

Continue reading at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com: Heroines of Personal Finance and Entreprenuership #4: Julie Jansen. Make sure to visit Julie at JulieJansen.net and get a copy of her most recent book, You Want Me to Work With Who? to learn more.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Interview with Julie Jansen, Career Coach and Motivational Speaker

Already in this series we’ve heard from Pam Slim, who specializes in helping people transition out of corporate life and into self-employment, but you actually encourage young people to stay and excel within the corporate world. Why?

I’m fond of saying that not everyone is cut out for the life of working for oneself. Not only is being an entrepreneur costly, nerve-wracking, and incredibly hard work, but because of the way our economy is structured, it’s simply impossible for everyone to be one. It reminds me of a psychology study my husband told me about recently, which showed that 75 percent of people believed they were above-average looking.

I bet the same thing is true of would-be entrepreneurs. A lot of people believe they have what it takes to run a successful business, but in reality, few probably do. When considering employment, young people should look at an array of options, including those that involve working in the business world.

At the end of the day, most people will end up employed in a more conventional work environment, so it may be wiser to develop the skills and the attitude that allow you to succeed and achieve your professional goals within the context of that setting. Maybe someday you will have the opportunity to “go entrepreneur,” but your happiness and success shouldn’t be contingent on it.

So tell us about your book They Don’t Teach Corporate in College. What makes you an expert on the challenges facing young employees in the workplace?

Well, you see, I graduated from college as a straight-A student hell-bent on skipping up New York City’s corporate ladder. But after six months on the job, I was so stressed out that I was ready to join the large numbers leaving the business world for graduate or law school. Eventually, though, by sticking around and paying attention to the few people around me who weren’t dropping from stress-induced coronaries, I developed many of the skills crucial to staying sane and building a career.

I wrote They Don’t Teach Corporate in College because I thought that if I shared my experiences with other twenty-somethings, maybe I would save them some of the pain I went through. The premise of the book is that the business world is not a natural fit for graduates who leave school expecting results from a logical combination of education and effort. Suddenly, the tenets of success they were taught since kindergarten don’t apply, because getting ahead in the business world has little to do with intelligence or exceeding a set of defined expectations.

If twenty-somethings want to survive in the corporate world, they have to treat their first jobs like first grade and learn the practical lessons that will help them climb the ladder painlessly. They Don’t Teach Corporate in College focuses on tangible tactics that twenty-somethings can put to work immediately to be successful and satisfied working in the business world.

You say that twenty-somethings experience lower morale and higher turnover in the workplace. What can young professionals do to avoid such challenges? And what can organizations do to improve their employees’ experience and productivity at work?

There’s no doubt that the business world can be frustrating at times, so I recommend that twenty-somethings combat poor morale by understanding their hot buttons (i.e. what pisses them off or stresses them out) and plan in advance how to react without getting angry or upset when those buttons are pushed.

They should also try to banish irrational expectations regarding what their organization or boss SHOULD do (i.e. my boss should give me a raise, the company should have a policy against this). Life does not always play out in a logical or fair way and twenty-somethings do themselves a grave disservice when they hold on to a fantasy of what work or people should be like. Finally, young professionals can motivate themselves by focusing on the big picture and acknowledging little but significant career successes along the way.

I tell managers of twenty-somethings that they should aim to understand each individual’s unique capabilities and go out of their way to develop mutually-beneficial relationships. The manager should position himself or herself as someone who is available to help twenty-something employees grow and improve, taking them to lunch to learn more about their career aspirations and the type of work that get them excited.

Twenty-somethings don’t want to be micromanaged, but they do like to receive timely and consistent feedback, and to have assignments customized in a way that helps them meet their individual performance goals. Managers shouldn’t be fooled by twenty-somethings’ assertiveness and independence – there’s a lot these young professionals don’t know and they’re looking to the more experienced managers to help them learn it!

Continue reading at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com: Heroines of Personal Finance and Entreprenuership #3: Alexandra Levit. Also pick up her book They Don’t Teach Corporate in College and check out her blog Water Cooler Wisdom.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Interview with Alexandra Levit, Author of They Don’t Teach Corporate In College

You were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the series “Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young” in 2004. What were your main findings?

Student loans and student credit cards have multiplied very fast and under the radar so that large amounts of debt are now a rite of passage for a majority of young people. Two thirds of college graduates borrow loans to get through college, up from less than half as recently as 1993, and they graduate with an average of $20,000 in loans and almost $3000 in credit card debt. Combine that with a changing job market that offers fewer benefits, and a higher cost of living, especially housing, in many metropolises and you have a lot of middle-class, educated young people falling behind, to say nothing of the fate of McJob Nation; the two out of three kids with no college degree have seriously fallen behind in income and stability.

Since graduating in 2002 you’ve freelanced as a writer and editor for several publications. What are some recommendations you can make for aspiring professional writers?

Think hard about it. I don’t know many “professional writers” as opposed to people who happen to be lucky enough to occasionally get paid to write. Boyce Rensberger, head of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT, told the New York Times on June 10: ”I feel a little queasy encouraging young people into journalism. It’s such a precarious industry right now.”

I think if you want to write for a living you need to be pretty hardcore about your craft and your subject area or field. You can build up knowledge of your field by working a related job (in politics, the law, nonprofits, fashion, etc.) and you can build up your craft by writing, writing, writing, and being in a writers’ group, and taking classes or workshops, and working in media-related fields. I freelanced as a writer’s assistant, fact-checker, and copy editor before I started writing full time. If I were starting out now I would definitely blog too.

Continue reading at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com: Heroines of Personal Finance and Entrepreneurship #2: Anya Kamenetz. Also be sure to read Anya’s new Yahoo! Finance expert column and grab her book Generation Debt if you’re interested!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Interview with Anya Kamenetz, Author of Generation Debt

The panel will include:

• Michelle Goodman: Author of The Anti 9 to 5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube
• Pamela Slim: Owner of Ganas Consulting and Author of the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog & podcast
• Alexandra Levit: Founder of Inspiration@Work career consultancy and Author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College: A Twenty-Something’s Guide to the Business World
• Anya Kamenetz: Author of Generation Debt: How Our Future Was Sold Out for Student Loans, Bad Jobs, NoBenefits, and Tax Cuts for Rich Geezers–And How to Fight Back
• Julie Jansen: Speaker, Coach and Author of I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This and You Want Me To Work With Who?
• Barbara Stanny: Speaker, Coach, and Author of Overcoming Underearning and Secrets of Six-Figure Women

Anyone else you guys would like to see interviewed? Let me know your suggestions.

I’m REALLY excited to get to work with Ramit and to learn from so many accomplished professional women. I’ll be busy for the next few weeks with these interviews, but it should be well worth it. Stay tuned for more…

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Interview Series with A Few Prestigious Female Authors