#216 Why “That Job Hasn’t Been Invented Yet” Can Keep Kids Stuck Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins  00:48

Don’t worry. The job you’ll end up doing probably hasn’t even been invented yet. That’s another of these phrases that adults say to be reassuring. It’s meant to reduce pressure. It comes from a good place. It’s meant to acknowledge how fast our world is changing and it is. But for many young people, this advice does not create the relief that we intend. Instead, it signals permission for them to stop moving forward. In this episode of College and Career Clarity, our third episode of our series based on bad career advice, I want to discuss why this phrase often backfires, along with the others that we’ve already explored, and how do we frame it to build forward momentum and the young people that we love, that we’re supporting, that we’re working with. So just as a quick look back. We started this episode series with this series with episode 214 and that piece of advice was you can be anything if you’ve said that or wonder what you should say instead, go back to Episode 214 Next up was episode 215 follow your passion. Sounds like great advice. Again, there are better things that we can say that will help our young people gain traction. And remember, I’m not unearthing these as a place of judgment, because really, the advice, especially the advice we’re giving this week, on the job you might end up doing might not even have been admitted yet it’s not necessarily wrong. I mean, we have to acknowledge that the world is quickly changing, and AI technology is reshaping work and our future. So as we unearth this one, it’s a little bit different than the previous two, because in this one, something can be technically true, but yet the phrase could still be really unhelpful. See, when young people hear, your job hasn’t been invented yet. What they’re often hearing, you know, they’re listening, but what are they really hearing? Two different things, right? So what they often hear internally, and they might not even be telling you, is then nothing I do right now at this juncture, and remember, at College and Career Clarity, we’re talking about 15 to 25 year olds. Nothing I do in this realm of time at school to prepare anything really matters that much. Then, if it’s not even been invented yet, why choose anything? Why not just opt out? Why not just wait? Waiting feels safer. And the funny thing is, when kids wait, and I hear this all the time from the parents I’m interacting with, that’s when parents get really frustrated with them. I hear from parents all the time. You know what? They’re disinterested, they’re unmotivated, they’re lazy, I’m frustrated, and you’ve got all this tension at home. See, they’re acting out of uncertainty, because this makes them feel paralyzed, as if they can’t even find their direction. Now let’s talk about us. Let’s talk about us as adults. You know we love I love this age group as everybody knows. And if you have a kid or are working with this age group, you probably love them too. And you say it because you think that this phrase is going to sound comforting to them, but what you’re actually reflecting is a lifetime of experience and perspective that reflects the reality of your lived truth. Right? You’ve probably lived through job shifts, job changes. We have to acknowledge that the world and the world of work, but the world period is changing at a faster pace than ever. You know, somebody says, Oh, you know, in 1995 feels like yesterday to me, right? But it wasn’t. My kids weren’t even born. Yet, and so we’re we’re speaking out of our own live truth and knowing that it’s still okay you might have forgotten that along the way, you’ve adapted, you’ve learned new skills. So when we say this line, we’re forgetting to also express that learning continues, and we’re also forgetting that these young people that we’re talking to, they don’t have the experience of lived proof in their life yet, yet being the key word, and you already have it. So let’s go a little bit deeper into what they actually hear. So that’s why we’re saying these well meaning phrases, this particular one, but what are they actually hearing? So planning is pointless. Any choice I make now is temporary. It’s not going to last, and what they really want is reassurance and certainty. So if that’s the case, and this is only going to be a temporary choice, and then I’ll have to put all the effort in again, why not wait? Effort? Can wait if you’re wondering, if this is your kid, if you’re wondering, like, what are they internalizing that I might be aware of, here are some symptoms that this might be happening in your own family, disengagement, procrastination, when we don’t know how to do something or it feels overwhelming, those are the things that we just keep kicking down the curb time and time again. Maybe they actually look like they’re doing something. They’re over researching. They’re watching videos. They’re on their device. However, when you really look at it, you go, but there’s no follow up action. There’s no traction from the action that they’re taking. Or maybe they’re in complete shutdown. I know my listeners probably get tired of hearing me say this, but these kids are moving into fight, flight or freeze. I’m saying it again. Are you tired of me saying it? But I think that we need to hear it over and over again to normalize the fact that this is real. It’s self protective, and it’s not necessarily bad. It’s normal, but it’s a symptom. So when you’re telling them that that job’s not even been invented yet, they move into flight, flight or freeze. And this advice, it removes the urgency without replacing it with agency, and that’s the problem. So let’s unearth several pieces of this that can help shift things for more positive conversations that will give your kiddo agency to take action to gain traction on these future planning things that we’re talking about. So first of all, one of the hidden problems is that this is undermining skill building for our kids. Yes, jobs may change. Jobs will change. That has always happened, but we need to remind them that the skills they gain today will compound. They will continue to go with them. So even if the name of the job the job title disappears. We talk a lot about job titles when we look at, you know, the Department of Labor’s Bureau, BLS, right? The Occupational Outlook Handbook is all based on job titles, and there are new job titles being added every year, right? So even though job titles are going to shift. They’re going to change. New ones are going to emerge. The capability to do the job remains. It stays. What still matters, and they need to be reminded of this is they are learning how to learn as they’re building skills and preparing for a job. They are building competence that will follow through to that job, even if that job has not been invented yet. They are developing transferable skills. The job may change, but skill development doesn’t another thing that is happening behind the scenes that that we need to shift in our conversation when we say that job hasn’t been invented yet, is leaving out the idea that there are these through lines. Some of you have probably heard me talk about this before. There are these through lines in who we are, how we’re wired, how we want to work. Your young people need to hear about through lines that they exist, what they are, and to start to unearth in their own lives what the through lines of their life look like. So even when the job changes, the through. Lines carry through. So what do I mean by that? I mean talking about what energizes me or what drains me, what you enjoy doing, the tasks that you enjoy doing, how you like to work, what you tend to avoid, what kind of problems you enjoy solving and those of which you have zero interest in, what environment you thrive in, the type of team that you want to work with, the setting at a desk out in the wild, whatever that might be,

Lisa Marker Robbins  10:39

what impact you want to have that matters to you with the things that you value. See, some of our values are lifelong and some are temporary. We talked in a previous episode about follow your passion. Episode 215 if you want to go back and listen to that, let me give you kind of a personal example for me and in the work that I do when I was in high school, when I was in college, when I was early on in my career, I’ve always been energized by working with people. And as everybody, all my listeners, knows I have a soft spot for this age group, right? So I have always enjoyed working with people this age group and building relationships for impact. Now I no longer stand in front of a traditional classroom of teenagers like I did in the early 90s, but the part of my wiring that really mattered that was satisfying when I was a classroom teacher. Hasn’t changed. That is one of these through lines. I mean, I could also go back and say, when I was a young girl in the single digits, I enjoyed playing school. I enjoyed teaching others. So what’s changed is the setting and my role. I mean, I could not have had a podcast in the 90s, right? I couldn’t have had an online course in the 90s, right? But the things that matter about who I am and how I work are just getting applied to a new role in a new setting. We need to remind our young people that roles change, but your wiring, your hardwired personality, that the personality DNA, is far more stable than most people know see. I know this because we consistently see it in the data from the personality assessment we use inside our launch Career Clarity. Course, they research, they test, they validate, constantly, our tool, and we know that personality is stable, so we have to have a quick reality check. We’ve given you two reframes. Let me give you a third. Change is not new. Change is constant. As adults, we know this to be true because we’ve lived change. But I mean, we could go back to the 1700s the 1800s the 1900s and if we really thought of things like riding a horse to driving a car, if we looked at the Industrial Revolution, I mean, that’s going way back. People adapted generation after generation after generation. Every generation has faced disruption. Are we facing disruption? Yes, we cannot deny that. But every generation, if we really are honest, has faced disruption. So technology shifts, tools evolve, roles get redefined. Just reassure them that change isn’t new. Learning how to adapt is going to serve them well. It’ll be constant, and it should be lifelong. So instead of saying to them, your job hasn’t been invented yet, which gives them permission to opt out of gaining traction, try conversation starters with your young people that are either in your family or that you’re working with, like the skills you build now, what are some of the skills you’re building now? Well, guess what? Those are going to travel with you. The phase that we’re in now is about building capability, not about locking in a job title or a career title forever. And by the way, and I talked about this in a previous episode, last episode 215 there aren’t job soul mates. We’re not choosing forever. We’re just choosing your first step into the world of work or the next step. And let’s manage our expectation that things will evolve and you are adaptable to those changes. We could also tell them that. When you choose from the menu of options of jobs that are available right now, what is true right now? Because we’ve got to begin to make choices rooted in the truth of now, when it is based on self deep self awareness, those choices are informed choices that will absolutely be able to carry you into the next chapter. Reassure them that we don’t need the crystal ball to be able to look into and know what the future holds. Nobody’s ever been able to do that. Your momentum forward is going to come from action, not prediction. Momentum comes from action, not prediction. Put away the thought of the crystal ball. You know, lifelong learning, this, this idea of career advising. You know, when I’m working with someone in our launch Career Clarity program, career that’s career advising is taking place at a point in time, but career development is actually lifelong. It is not a one time decision. It is an ongoing process. There will be learning during high school after high school, if you’re in college, during college, after college, early career, mid career, learning continues, and often that learning actually is through credentials, not not you’re going to have to go back to college and get another degree. That’s silly. That’s not what we’re asking them to do. You know, just last month, in February, we during our monthly Q and A for those families in our launch Career Clarity course, I demonstrated through the new credential value index that the Burning Glass Institute has How to know data driven How to know the impact earning a new credential can make. Not all credentials are created equal, equal, equally. So I’m going to link to this tool in the show notes if you want to use it. I demonstrated to our families how to use it just last month. But what it shows is, if you’re in your 30s, your 40s or 50s, you might be earning learning new skills, earning new credentials that will set you up for success. It’s lifelong learning that will make an unpredictable future manageable. Okay, my friends, so we’ve got different phrases that we use. We’ve got things that can shift the conversation with our young people. Go back and catch them just that reminder. We don’t need the crystal ball. We need direction, and if the advice that you’ve been relying on to help navigate this as a family, in your efforts to launch your young person out into independence, into a happy and thriving life, has been missing something, and what you’re hearing now feels reassuring, and maybe what you need to help move things forward, I Want to reassure you there is a clearer, calmer framework. And I walk you through this in the career identification compass. It’s a video that I have is a way to help you replace the vague advice with reassurance and structure. So you can opt into that. Go. Watch it. Flourish, coaching, co com, forward slash video, remember, we don’t need to be able to predict the future. Let’s prepare for it, and let’s start giving better advice. Okay, okay, next week we’re gonna unearth our fourth piece of bad advice that is well intentioned, and I understand why it said, but it’s not helping move our kids forward as we wrap up this series, unless you guys reach out to me in my DMs and say, well, here’s another one, Lisa, let’s talk about that. I’m more than willing to extend these, these series if I hear from you guys. Okay, let’s we’re it’s all about doing this together. This is figure outable. I’ll see you next week for episode four of this series