I quite like the audio version this week why not check it out. Contains two swear words.

Or listen on Spotify

 

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Gen Z Has No Time For Your Adulting

 

I’m not a fan of saying a whole generation has the same bad habits. It’s stupid generalization using the same basic thinking as racism.

That mindset turns you into an old get-off-my-lawn crank, a bad mental place for business people to be.

But I have to admit enjoying the Gen-Z TikTok kids’ brutal reviews of millennials over the last month. It’s a useful reminder of some basic life rules around the relentless grind of time. Also it’s pretty funny.

They see you doing your What’s Your Hogwarts House? Buzzfeed quiz and to them it’s identical to Nan’s love of Midsomer Murders.

 

i’m awake at 3 am and i just want everyone to know what gen z says about millennials on tiktok….. pic.twitter.com/zduy5QmBCG

— al (@local__celeb) June 14, 2020

 

Best of all, Gen Z have no time for old people (26-39) who say adulting.

They are right. An adult would not say that word.

Take This Quick Test

 

Get your phone out, ageing millennial.

Video yourself saying some other words the Zoomers have had it with.

Doggo

Pupper

Bae

On fleek

Smol bean floof

Play it back.

Quit stalling, do it.

Is this what an adult would say? Look at the face in that video. You’re not seventeen. You’re a thirty one year old with a responsible job. People are looking to you as a role model.

 

 

Time Is Coming For You

 

Life lesson: the youth tide goes out real fast. Words and ideas that define your edginess are cool until one day they aren’t and now you look like Dad at the disco.

One minute saying ‘lit’ is great because it annoys old people who don’t understand.

Nek minnit Suddenly people a decade younger than you are laughing at your ‘lit’ chat, a hilarious badge of your oldness.

They have no respect for the 2008 memes and DVD box sets your culture is built upon.

Time takes us all down, and that’s fine. It’s the natural order of things. You can either face it with dignity, and become the best older-person you can be.

Or be a tragic ageing figure who won’t let go of their good-time years.

 

You Will Turn Into That Older Person Fast

 

Right now is the time to be looking around at Future You. They’re all around, once you admit it to yourself. People who have coped with long-game life with different degrees of success.

Which are the ones you want to turn into?

Which would you sooner die than become? For me it was the creative director with the grey ponytail and Mambo shirt. A shining beacon of what was in store unless I got the fuck out of advertising.

I owe everything I have today to that guy. (For the full story read about Negative Mentoring).

Take notes on what grown-up characteristics you admire, and get to work on them yourself.

Adult skills are in short supply, and if you can bring them, you’re valuable everywhere. There are all kinds of rewarding compensation for getting greyer and lumpier.

 

10 Adult Skills

 

So many adult skills to consider. There’s a whole book in it but here’s a random sample.

1. Get back to people when you said.
2. Learn to apologise. An adult apology is ‘I’m sorry for what I did, it was wrong’. Not ‘I’m sorry if you were offended’.
3. Own the bad news. If you make a harsh decision, admit it was yours. If you have to let staff go, do it yourself in person instead of getting HR to do it.
4. Party hard sometimes, but if you can’t start work on time the next day, your party license is revoked.
5. Bill Bernbach, one of the greatest ad people ever, carried a reminder card in his pocket. It said: They might be right. That’s how adults deal with clients, staff, friends, family.
6. Buy fewer, better things that will last. Stop filling the world with your cast-off garbage.
7. Stay out of your kids’ social platforms, you’re creeping them out.
8. Exercise is essential but your program is your own business, adults don’t post it.
9. Don’t get worked up about younger generations having it easier than you. That’s how progress works. If you were a Dickensian chimney sweep, would you whinge if your kid got a cleaner, safer job?
10. Evolve your dress sense. Don’t be one of those people forever locked into their early 20s look. Are you the French Bulldog?

 

Men over 35 in skinny jeans…. pic.twitter.com/TOZMzy0rQj

— LoveAndSmoking (@BodytalkClub) July 15, 2020

 

 Adult Isn’t An Age Thing

 

As an ex-copywriter I was proud to accidentally create a company catchphrase last year.

I was on Lambros Photios’ podcast, he’s the CEO of Station Five, a digital consulting firm. He asked my thoughts on LinkedIn titles like Secure Code Warrior and Procurement Ninja.

Here’s the answer. There’s a swear in there.

 

 

That phrase has become a go-to saying at Station Five in all sorts of situations, and I’m pleased with that.

Being an adult isn’t an age or a generation thing. A forty two year old man who calls himself a Supply Chain Commando – he exists – is an eleven year old gamer in a grownup’s body.

Then there’s this guy I found recently.

 

 

By contrast, Greta Thunberg was an adult at fifteen. She has no time for adulting. Adults deal with reality when everyone else is finding reasons to ignore it.

What are you going to be?

 

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If you liked this, you might enjoy Marketing To Your Staff: What Would George Clooney Do?

Or perhaps I Am Not Yr Fam: How Not To Talk To Millennials.

If you’re new here, I do a story like this each Tuesday. Drop your email here and get it in your inbox.