Do you have a Millennial in your life that you'd love to better understand? Whether it is a personal acquaintance, a coworker, your company's employees or maybe even your own child, this podcast sheds light on bridging such gaps. Alison Sher, author of The Millennial's Guide to Changing the World, is an expert on the subject of millennials and the challenges they face. Today, in the second part of our two-part series, Alison shares the in depth research and life experiences that led her to write her fantastic book. She describes what it is like to be a millennial in the world where older generations think they are floundering and only living up to a small fraction of their full potential.
Claire: 00:00 Welcome to the Be A Smart Woman Podcast. Everyone has their own story to tell, and you never know what impact your story might have on someone else's life. This is the foundation of the Be A Smart Woman movement. Our movement seeks to empower women through the sharing of their journeys with other women. Sometimes we don't even realize the lessons that our stories hold until we share them with others. I am Claire Faithful, founder of Be A Smart Woman, and it is my hope and derm that this podcast will illuminate personal lessons to you, the way listening to other women's stories has inspired me for years. We are so glad you are here. Let's enjoy this journey together.
Claire: 01:02 Welcome to episode two, with the absolutely lovely Allison Sher. Allison is the renowned author of the Millennial's Guide to Changing the World, and number one expert on this subject. In this episode we will be discussing in more depth the power of the millennial woman, and how they can change the world. About the youngest elected congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the difference she is making as an empowered, smart woman, and how it is time for all women to stand up for themselves and make a difference.
Claire: 01:42 Welcome, Allison, to the show again. Oh my God, we are so lucky to have you back. The first podcast we did, we talked about Allison's book and her message in the world, but we thought we'd come back and have another call, and talk about the empowerment of millennials in the workplace, and also how we're handling what's going on in government, and that side of things that sometimes we don't really want to talk about or even deal with. We just want to bury our heads, as we just discussed, in the sand. So I just was wondering, how do you feel about what's strengthening on with our society, as in the sense of with government, and how millennials are handling it? And what can a millennial, or basically anyone, really, do to change? What can we do to help society, and make that change?
Allison: 02:41 Thank you Claire. It's great to be back, yes, first of all, I just want to say that. And great question. This is complex, and I will start off by saying that if every single millennial voted, our entire Congress would look completely different.
Claire: 03:00 Wow.
Allison: 03:01 Completely. We will be 33% of the voting block by 2020, so politicians, when we understand that politicians are just people trying to keep their jobs, and that a lot of times they're going to toe a party line based on, what are the needs and the interests of the people who are voting for them, that is usually how they will create their campaign platform. Because they want to get voted in. Now because millennials don't vote, our interests are not really taken into consideration. So if millennials voted, our interests, which are much more, I would say, like democratic socialism, I would say is something like that we would really ... We would really like to be like the Nordic countries: everyone have access to healthcare, everyone have access to as much education as they need without going into debt over it, to be able to provide services to society. A larger safety net, more say over how our tax dollars are spent, all of these things. No more war, drain the military-industrial complex.
Allison: 04:16 America is an incredibly wealthy country. We have more GDP than ... It's Japan and America, and America still is outperforming Japan by so much, we're such a wealthy country, and we're dealing with so many people who can't make a living and make ends meet, and it's absolutely horrible. The only thing that can change it is government, is the legislative branch, and so we really need to understand what's going on. I'm super excited that there's a millennial in Congress right now.
Claire: 04:49 Oh yeah, tell us about ... I mentioned it earlier when we were talking, before we started the podcast. Tell me about her, tell us a little bit about her.
Allison: 04:59 Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and she is on a democratic socialist platform. She's completely grassroots funded, so that's a other thing, is she didn't get any of her campaign money through corporate donations. Which is another thing we're seeing, is that the corporations are running the legislative branch because all of the representatives, their marketing budget to get into office was paid for by these corporations, so they have to represent their interests. So she found a way to really bypass all of this corruption, and really be a congresswoman who is representing us and our needs, and we're dealing with this really interesting Donald Trump presidency that has shown us a lot of very disturbing things about how our society is run, about patriarchy, about fraud, about sexual misconduct, about unfettered capitalism, about this whole good old boys club. When you're at a Congress table and every single person making a decision for women's reproductive rights is a man, that's a problem. An old white man. That's a problem.
Claire: 06:24 It's true.
Allison: 06:24 You look at the Canadian parliament and the person who decides about youth issues is a youth person, the person who decides about a diversity initiative is an African American, a person who decides about women's reproductive rights is a woman.
Claire: 06:40 It's a woman, yes!
Allison: 06:41 People who actually understand the perspective. It can't be these out of touch old men who war just running from this very strange way of looking at the world that is myopic, ultimately. It only applies to them, and they are the minority, and we are the majority, but we, until our needs are represented in Congress, our rights are going to be continually stripped away from us, and the standard of living of the average person is not going to be taken into consideration. And if the millennials just voted or ran for office as they feel called ... This congresswoman that I'm talking about, she's a bartender before she was put into office, and what we saw during midterms was a much higher voter turnout. We now have two native American women in Congress.
Claire: 07:40 Yes, that's so wonderful.
Allison: 07:42 It's going to start diversifying, and these people who are embodying integrity, who do care about the people, who do believe that there is a different way to run this country, the wealthiest country in the world, that we don't have to have poverty, we don't have to have a bunch of sick people. We can be leading the world in alternative energy initiatives. All of these things, America can be this, and we can be this quickly once we start having politicians that represent us.
Allison: 08:21 And I think millennials, like we were saying in the previous podcast, that we want to be hippies, or we feel so alienated and disenfranchised by the system. Then there's also a youthful rebellion that's part of it too, where you're like down with the system! But we ultimately need systems, and this is the one we've got, and there's an element to it where we have some agency inside of it. And if we just abandon it because A, we think it's too complex to understand, B, we feel like we don't have any power in it, because that's what we've been made to believe, and C, we've given up hope maybe, given up hope that nothing is going to change, and things are changing, we're starting to see these people who are millennials, women, millennial women, a Hispanic millennial woman, who is standing up. And when you listen to her she makes complete sense. She makes complete sense.
Claire: 09:28 So that's a woman that's really showing us that you can be a smart woman, and you can make a change, and you don't have to be stuck in a box. And you can be ... How old is she?
Allison: 09:39 27.
Claire: 09:40 27. That to me is like, oh my God, I am so excited. Because I think that basically says to all of us out there, it's like we can make a difference. We can make a change. Yeah, I love it.
Allison: 09:57 She deals with a lot of adversity though. You have to deal with the identity politics that are involved with this, and all of her views being discredited because she is a young smart woman. She faces it, she's tackling it, she's like Teflon. She just lets them all bounce back, she just shoots them back, return to sender.
Claire: 10:20 I like that one, "Return to sender. I'm not taking it." I love that. It's like we actually ... I think that you guys, as millennials, are so powerful, and I think when you can capture the power you hold, especially with women, I said a millennial woman, whoa, it's like if you can capture how powerful you are, the world is going to change, for the better. I really do believe that. I find it very interesting that, your perspective on how things, the old paradigm in government, and then how little by little things are changing. So it would be kind of cool to feel like there would be more young people standing out and running for office. I don't know what age, do you know the age that you have to be to run?
Allison: 11:11 I'm not sure. I'm not sure, so I don't want to say, but I know that she's the youngest one that has ever been elected.
Claire: 11:17 Wow.
Allison: 11:18 Yeah. I think all people really need to see is an example of someone who's doing it, for that hope to get sparked. Because when all you see is people telling you it's impossible, it's never going to happen, this is just the way things are, the miracle is the paradigm shift, the miracle is the shift in perception, the impossible to "I'm possible." All of these things. And when we let go of these limiting beliefs and stop being brainwashed by these ... They're incredibly psychologically manipulative. Incredibly psychologically manipulative, what we're seeing with some of these men who are running this country. And we're like, we're not going to play your games, but we're going ...
Claire: 12:11 You have to go and change the game.
Allison: 12:13 You have to go change the game.
Claire: 12:15 And I will say from a personal standpoint that I do feel that there's way too many old people in power at this point. And it's like really, can you not just retire? Like move on, you did a great job, we appreciate everything you did, but we are in a new time now. I think sometimes the tendency is, when you're in your 60s and 70s or 80s you want to still have the show running the way it was always run, and it's time for change. It really is time for huge change.
Claire: 12:47 So again, going back to the book and the work you're doing, I'm hoping you're going to really inspire lots of your millennial partners in crime to sort of stand up. Maybe you could stand up, and get into government. That would be awesome!
Allison: 13:04 Thank you Claire. Probably not for me this round.
Claire: 13:08 No, but I feel like there's lots of people out there that really could do that, and we need that. So any of you millennials out there listening, just consider that maybe you could run for government, and you could make a difference. And you don't have to be stuck in the wold way. Because you mentioned something about healthcare for all, and I came from England where we had healthcare for everyone, and it was never ... We didn't have fear about, "I'm going to get sick, what happens if I get this, or what happens if I get that?" There was none of that. You got sick, you went to the doctor, they took care of you. You needed to go to the hospital, you went to the hospital. You didn't have to worry that you would lose your home, and the bills that you were going to have to pay. You can also choose to have private health insurance. They do have that there, so some people want to be more pampered and have private rooms and all of that stuff. But I think that is a very important thing for maybe millennials to start standing up for. I don't know how you feel about that.
Allison: 14:14 I think it makes absolutely sense. If everyone's sick and no one can get healthcare then all the sicknesses are going to spread. It makes sense, it's an issue for rich people too. Who likes that, going outside and seeing sick people who can't get help. Another thing is, if you get sick and you have to drain your entire life savings on healthcare costs, that's ridiculous.
Claire: 14:45 That's what I feel like. I see people I know who, maybe their wife had cancer, and then they used all their money because they didn't have the right healthcare insurance to cover all their expenses, so then they've lost everything. And I actually know people that are living ... They're in their 70s, and where they should've had a much better quality of life, they're not because they've had to put all their money into paying healthcare bills. So I think that would be a really great thing for millennials to start standing for. Because clearly our generations, it's investigate worked out here in this country.
Allison: 15:24 Yeah, and unfortunately the only way to do it is to get political, and I don't think anyone really likes conflict.
Claire: 15:31 You think that millennials are not really into confrontation?
Allison: 15:34 I don't know many people who are, unless they're bullies, but at a certain point we have to kind of choose our battles, and stand up for ourselves, and demand what's ours. It's interesting, people think millennials have entitlement issues, like we think we deserve things that we haven't earned or something. Sometimes I think we have entitlement issues that we aren't actually going out there and, "No, we are entitled to healthcare. We are entitled to a living wage. We are entitled to all of these things. We are entitled to respect. We are entitled to have a seat at the table." All of these things. So yeah, it's very interesting. And unfortunately we don't learn about these things in school.
Allison: 16:25 There was a funny meme going around, and it was like "The American education system," and there was this guy yelling in your face, and he's like, "E equals MC squared!" Then there's a high schooler, and he says, "I need to know how to file my taxes." Then the guy yells back in his face, "Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492!" He's like, "I need to know how to schedule a doctor's appointment." And they're like, "Mitochondria I is the powerhouse of the cell!" We learn all of these things that don't really help us to engage with the system, and if we just changed the education system to teach us that ... That's why I wrote this book, I'm like, I hope this is just a ... This is what you need to know that they didn't teach you, so that you can have agency.
Claire: 17:16 That is one of the things that I've seen, like with my daughter. I taught her these things. I call it the baby steps of learning how to manage money. I would say to her, "Honey you have to learn how to do a tax return now. You have to pay taxes." But I think in school they don't teach any of this stuff. Maybe they have like a two-hour special ed class where they do something about that, but that's it. And I go, how can you go out in society and then become a responsible human being if you're being told mathematical equations are way more important than learning how to write a check? Or manage a bank account, or manage money, be responsible for that. I'm feeling like you guys have maybe got a bit of a raw deal. Because I don't think you have been taught this stuff.
Allison: 18:11 Thank you Claire, I love when I get people to be like, "Millennials got it rough."
Claire: 18:12 I know, I'm feeling it.
Allison: 18:12 I'm like, yes!
Claire: 18:12 I am actually feeling the plight of your people right now.
Allison: 18:20 My people!
Claire: 18:21 Your people, I'm feeling it. I'm like God, there's always another side to the judgment as well. The finger pointing, I go, you know when you point a finger, you're really pointing three fingers back at you. So maybe all these things that are spoke about about what millennials are is not really true. Maybe we did a bad job as baby boomers in teaching our little millennials how to function in the world. Because we mollycoddled them, we wanted to protect them. I know I did that, so I can speak from experience. And it's hard. Because when I was growing up, we were just kind of thrown out there. No one cared, you fell down, it was like don't worry, you'll be fine. You know how you take your bike down the road, you cycle to your friends, you don't come home till late, it was like no one cared. There was no cellphones, there was no way people could reach you. I remember when I traveled to India for like four months, and I didn't have a way ... I think I sent my parents a postcard once, just to say I was alive. Like once. And, "When can you pick me up at the airport? I'll be arriving home at this time." That was it.
Claire: 19:38 So we had this different ... We had to kind of work it out. We were kind of thrown out there. But I think that as millennials, the baby boomers have kind of mollycoddled, and then wonder why, "Why are they not doing all of these things that we did?" Because no one gave a crap about what we were doing. They really didn't. They were like, "You'll be fine, off you go." And we were fine, and we did work it out. But then I think we were like, we didn't like that, so we have our little babies and then we love them and, "I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to do all this wonderful stuff, and you just get good grades, and I want you to be an A student," and all that good stuff. So that's what you learned.
Allison: 20:18 And being an A student doesn't mean you're even going to be able to do well inside of a company.
Claire: 20:23 No, it teaches you nothing.
Allison: 20:23 Because it's completely different etiquette, it's completely different way of functioning. And in some ways we are having to figure it out. It's very interesting, I talk about this in the parenting chapter, there was like these helicopter parents, and they're like, "I'll do everything for you to make sure that you do it right." But then what that teaches a child is that they can't do it themselves. They can't do it themselves.
Claire: 20:50 Yes. There's another thing that I think is going to change with the millennials, is that you're probably going to develop a new style of parenting.
Allison: 21:01 Oh yeah.
Claire: 21:02 Because I'm clearly seeing that maybe the old school type of parenting from the baby boomers, and maybe my generation, it didn't work. And it really kind of disenabled you to be empowered human beings out there. I feel that, I've seen that with a lot of my friends and their kids. They're in their 20s and they're still living at home, or they're still kind of looking for mommy to help them here, or do this. And I'm going, by that time I was so long gone and doing my thing. And I think we sort of protected our kids. So then they go in the workplace and then they're like, "Oh my God, this is really hard work."
Allison: 21:46 Everyone's mean, they're not coddling.
Claire: 21:51 They're not nice, they don't give a crap.
Allison: 21:52 "They don't give a crap about me!"
Claire: 21:53 I think I always used to tell Laura, I was like "When you get out in the work horde you'll see, they will not give a crap about you." And it's true.
Allison: 22:01 And that's sad too!
Claire: 22:01 Isn't it awful, that I even said that?
Allison: 22:01 That's sad too, that's sad that no one gives a crap about you. Well it's all so interesting, and I know my parents are like this, that I'm their little baby, and every time I have some weird idea about how to change the world that doesn't work, and I fall on my butt, I'm like, "I need $1,000! I tried to change the world and it didn't teamwork!"
Allison: 22:31 But it goes into also around roles, is what we were talking about earlier, is being able to surrender your role as parent. Being able to surrender your role as the chief of this organization, doing things your way, and passing on power. Passing on resources. Being okay with ... Humans, our whole life is just a problem to solve. That's what makes us different than other animals. I think our whole life is just this existential problem to solve, and so a lot of it revolves around identity, and ego, and not holding onto identity and self concept, and having a positive self concept, but knowing that you are not your job, you are not your role as a mother, or as a child. All of these things, and to just evolve. Like evolve with the world around you in a way that allows the whole to thrive and function.
Claire: 23:36 I like what you just said about, it's about letting go, and it's about not having attachment. Like attachment to being the mother. I always thought, we have to let go of, I'm not my car. Have you ever seen that thing, I call it the Hamburg syndrome, like "Have you seen my designer Hamburg." Or, what level of tier are you in life based on what you are attaching to yourself, and I call it name and form. Which is, it says absolutely nothing about who we really are as a soul. So I love what you just said, about not having that attachment.
Allison: 24:15 And I think millennials aren't really like that as consumers either, the way other generations were kind of just taught that, you go to work, and no one cares about you, and you have to make do.
Claire: 24:27 I know right, no one cares about you, for sure.
Allison: 24:29 But you can buy these handbags when you get home.
Claire: 24:36 Right. It's true! Then you can show you have some status, because you have that handbag. And I'm not going to name handbags, because I could, it would be funny, but ...
Allison: 24:46 No, I love handbags.
Claire: 24:47 Anyone that knows me knows what I'm talking about. We're having a laugh to ourselves. I think that's a great analogy anyway, for me, the cars and the handbag, the status symbols. I think that's a very baby boomer thing. But from what I'm seeing of millennials, you're right, they don't seem to care about that so much. It's not as important.
Allison: 25:09 And it's certainly not going to compel us ... It's not going to be the reason why we work somewhere where we're not treated well, just to be able to buy the handbag. And I think what we're seeing is, because millennials, we're not driven by money the way other generations were, we're much more like we want to buy experiences, we care about that, we care about being happy now, because we're trying to solve the problem of unhappiness. Why are we unhappy? How can we be happy? How can we have purpose? And what we're seeing is that, because of that, we're not having kids. We're not getting married.
Claire: 25:58 Right. There's another change there.
Allison: 26:01 and I think this whole concept of even marriage, outside of a capitalist framework, outside of ... I feel like people settle down to have families, they get married because they want to have a family. I think millennials are really questioning, do I want this? What does it mean? Was my family even genuine? Were my parents married for love, or was it because of a social norm that they thought that they had to subscribe to?
Claire: 26:30 That's the other thing, millennials have grown up with a lot of broken families. Because the baby boomers, Sorry, guys, were not great at staying in those committed relationships.
Allison: 26:42 And millennials certainly are not either. We're trying polyamory, we're trying all these different ways, and it's an existential crisis what's going on between men and women, and how can we get along. And I think we're really finding that as soon as you get into a partnership, because it's not just like ... Women have more rights, we have a voice now, and we're going to say, "Hey dude, I'm not just going to cook you dinner and do whatever you say. I have needs, I have feelings." The men are in crisis because they're like, "Feelings? I've been socialized to not have these things, and the women are wanting nurturance, and the women are wanting to be equals."
Allison: 27:24 So I find when you get into a romantic container, you're often confronted with gender issues, and there's even just biologically and psychologically a lot of differences between men and women that we don't even understand, that causes a lot of misunderstandings. Then you're dealing with your childhood stuff, all that stuff starts to pop up. And we're kind of like, "Do I want to look at this?" Because I think marriage is becoming, the spiritual reason for getting married is to get to the bottom of all of that stuff, to make peace between man and woman, to heal that, to be loved the way that you always wished you were growing up, now that you have a choice of who's closest to you, your family, your chosen family, your intimate partnerships. And we're figuring it out, we don't know, it's a different type of sink or swim, where we're just like ...
Claire: 28:20 I think when I was growing up it was pretty well much expected that I'm going to get to a certain age, get married, have two kids, and go on vacations, and have a little house. That was what I was expected to do. I did not do that. I did break all the rules. I think I could be a millennial in advance, like 20 years ahead of the curve, because I think I did a lot of that stuff, like I didn't get married, I had a baby, then I got married, then I got divorced, then I had to learn all of those things. In retrospect now I thought, wow, if I had a different understanding, except from, you have to get married and you have to do this, which is probably why I rebelled, I may have done things a little differently I think. But I feel like we haven't been very good teachers to our children. So I agree with you, I think you're kind of out there trying to work out, do I really want to have that? Look at what my parents just did? That wasn't so great.
Allison: 29:27 It's scary.
Claire: 29:29 And sometimes they do stay together but they don't really like each other, so I think that's even worse. So I feel for you, again, I've said this before, but I feel for your people. I really do.
Allison: 29:39 Thank you.
Claire: 29:40 Anyway, thank you so much. It's time to wrap it up for today, and that was a fabulous podcast. I look forward to interviewing you again and having you back on our show another time. Thank you so much Allison Sher, you are amazing, wonderful. We love you.
Allison: 29:56 Thank you Claire. Bye-bye.
Claire: 30:00 Thank you so much, Allison Sher, for being on the Be A Smart Woman show again today, and inspiring women everywhere to believe in themselves and recognize the power they hold within. The difference we can all make, one woman at a time, to change our world. You can find out more about Allison by checking out her website, www ... You can also follow Allison on Facebook or Instagram. You can purchase Allison Sher's book Millennial's Guide to changing the world on Amazon.
Claire: 30:45 That wraps up our Be A Smart Woman Podcast for today. I hope that you discovered something about yourself during today's podcast, as I truly believe we can learn something from everyone we meet. If you like what you heard today, I invite you to subscribe and leave a review. We'd love to have you in our Be A Smart Woman family. You can also follow and like us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you've got questions, or think you have a story to share, you can find our contact information at BeASmartWoman.com. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.