Resilience in the Face of Gen Z and Millennial Struggles: Not Letting the Moment Be Bigger than You (EPISODE #150)

I never imagined that a simple night out at a comedy show with my wife would spark such an insightful conversation for our milestone 150th episode. It's a celebration of persistence and learning not to let the moment eclipse your courage. This special edition is loaded with heartfelt narratives, laughter, and an honest look into the challenges that Gen Z and Millennials face. I'm here to talk about that one particular evening and how it unexpectedly tied into our core theme: standing tall in the face of life's enormity. You're invited to join the festivity as we share strategies to confront fear and self-doubt, and to stay unshaken when adversity knocks on our doors.

Marking this jubilee of episodes, we're rolling out "What Would You Do?"—a new segment designed to stir your imagination and challenge you to envision seizing the day. The conversation takes a deeper turn as we address the critical balance of ambition against the backdrop of mental and physical well-being, a subject close to my own journey. I open up about the personal toll of overworking and the importance of passion, support, and work-life balance. And because we're all about practicality, I lay out seven strategies to navigate life's intricate pressures, emphasizing the need for empathetic discourse. Buckle up and ready yourself for an episode brimming with encouragement, as we aim to arm you with optimism and a competitive edge to tackle whatever comes your way.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hello friends, welcome to your weekly podcast. Each and every Monday, my name is Dr Jason Wiggins and I am the host for your motivational Gen Z and Millennial Expert podcast. We focus on what matters to Gen Z and Millennials personally and professionally, by providing a motivational twist that will hopefully leave you more motivated at the end of each episode. Ultimately, I am here for you. The listeners are the reason why I find content and share each and every Monday. Thank you very much for your listenership and I am very excited to state that we are now on our 150th episode. We did start this podcast back in 2020. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I did have to pause the podcast for about two and a half years and I restarted it up about four months ago, and it is going strong. We've gained a significant listenership and I look forward to every single Monday being here with you. I consider all my listeners my friends, because each and every one of us go through difficult time. It is great to have somebody that can share similar circumstances. That has probably been there done that. As mentioned before, I am a Gen Xer the forgotten generation but I focus on research for Millennials and Gen Z.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Well, let's go ahead and get personal. I want to talk about this weekend and a little bit about what I did. Some of you may be familiar with this comedian slash podcaster, adam Corolla. He was here performing in San Diego. I was able to get some tickets for his comedy show. It was a rare date night for me and my wife, so we sent our seven-year-old to the babysitter and went and watched this show. Now I must preface it, it's been a while since I've seen a comedian and I think I forgot about how raw they could possibly be when it first came out of the gate, talking about some very controversial subjects I mean pedophile, rape, just to name a couple. I think my wife got pretty turned off fairly quickly and therefore we stayed about an hour or so. But it was late, it was a Sunday night, and so it was like, well, let's go home and get some rest. But what I did learn is that the podcast the comedian is very popular in Adam Corolla. It just wasn't 100% my cup of tea. Maybe it's only because I haven't been to a comedian in a while to appreciate some of the humor. But it was something that was interesting, fun, and it made me kind of think about today's topic, which is don't let the moment be bigger than you. As he was on stage.

Speaker 1: 3:39

I would like to start out by, I guess, recapturing some quote that was given to me by a former boss prior to one of my last days with the company, and he stated to me, as I might have shared on a previous podcast, that we love your optimism, as in the organization, loves my optimism, but a big but, he said, your optimism is your kryptonite and my optimism is something that has been a big profile of my life and that's where my passion for researching Gen Z and Millennials and then having that motivational twist behind it and that's what makes me what I like to do, it helps me navigate through difficult times. I am not one to ever sit down and go whoa, as me. As we continue to focus on this podcast and capture more listenership, it is paramount that I don't let myself doubt get in the way of ensuring that we are successful sharing content. What I'd like to do is talk about what we're going to have on today's podcast. So I apologize for the long-winded opening introduction, but what you're here today is for the main course of what today's podcast will offer and, as I just hinted, don't let the moment be bigger than you. We will dive in to how and why this statement can be so much more.

Speaker 1: 5:34

When you're pursuing your professional and personal goals, life can be very difficult to navigate alone or without a personal message. My personal message is also something that I subscribe to, that I've been a big part of, and that is don't let the moment be bigger than you. Times can get difficult and we all have different ways of coping. Our coping mechanisms can be different. Our coping mechanism can be something meaning when times get tough, I go run two miles, or a negative might be well, I sit down with a six pack of beer. Everybody has their way of coping. Some are more beneficial than others, and that is why you want to find something that can help you, not hinder you, during difficult times.

Speaker 1: 6:37

The old cliche that is mentioned since public speaking is one of the number one fears, if not the number one fear is imagine if everybody in your audience is wearing underwear, undergarments, whatever it may be. You may be in front of the whole audience wearing a nice, pristine, well dry, clean suit, while everybody else in the audience is sitting there with their eyes locked on whatever you're saying, with their undergarments, underwear, etc. And that means you are supposed to be able to present when you are above what your audience may be and of course, you're speaking to your audience, not down to your audience, but that is part of the old cliches. Imagine everybody is wearing undergarments and when you do that, it makes you feel better about the message of providing and keyword and you're not having the fear. Today, like I said, we're talking about don't let the moment be bigger than you and imagine that you live your life with that mantra. It will help you compartmentalize the fear in anything you do. We have three excellent motivational quotes that we're gonna provide you towards the end of today's podcast and then, as we started on our last podcast on episode 149, we started talking about what would you do moment? What would you do? Moment is? It's basically something that will question you and how would you react when that happens.

Speaker 1: 8:34

The discussion today is centered around creating opportunities by envisioning how, as Gen Z and millennials, we can create a path of negating fear, self-doubt, those inner you can't do it moments. We've all had them. I've had them more times than I care to share, but every time I have those moments, I have to sit back, compartmentalize those fears and go. Okay, maybe I don't have the answers, maybe I don't know what I'm going to do, but what I can do is put a bold face on to let all those scary inner thoughts just kind of intermingle within my head but come out sounding confident.

Speaker 1: 9:29

It's also fake it till you make it, and there is no shame in sometimes faking it till you make it. I've done it on several occasions. Imagine if you take a job where you feel like you have most of the tools, but maybe you don't have all the tools that you need to be able to be 100% successful within your job. Therefore, sometimes you have to go. You know what I am going to go full speed ahead. I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to fake it till I make it, and that is why I always like to say don't let the moment be bigger than you, for example. For example, I took a position one time where I felt like, wow, this position is over my head. It is something I'm not ready for. Maybe I'll be ready for it in a year or two or who knows, or maybe it's just not the opportunity for me at any point in time. However, going back to the optimism, the glass half full, I said you know what? I'm going to go for it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. They think I'm the right candidate, so I'm going to go for it, and I tried to fake it till I made it. And I did. I did for the most part until I developed the tools that I needed, and I had to work very hard to ensure that I had those tools, so there was not a point in time where they'd go wait a minute. Maybe he doesn't really know what is going on, and that is why you have to not let the moment be bigger than you.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Today's discussion is going to center around creating opportunities by envisioning how we can continue to negate fear, self-doubt and help us navigate the daily struggles of our life, and I'm going to talk about some key mental health points that are now no longer forbidden. Why do I say that? Because baby boomers and prior generations, along with my generation, generation X, mental health was considered taboo. Taboo in the way of stating wait a minute, you can't talk about how you feel, you can't talk about your weakness. It's like vulnerability. Well, if anything I've learned during my time researching Gen Z and millennials and previous experiences it is okay to be vulnerable, it is okay to open up, share your experiences, help others, and so we're going to talk about five specific aspects of how we can help minimize the impact of mental health, and one of them is talk about daily pressures and meeting those agendas.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Well, talk about the daily pressures. There's so many. You can wake up in the morning and know that you have all of these personal things you have to do, professional things you have to do, and if you're not very good about compartmentalizing or being able to be adaptable or organized, it could be very difficult for somebody to be able to understand how to prioritize. And how can I get everything done today without disappointing my boss, disappointing my parents, disappointing my spouse, disappointing my kids, because we have so much on our plate? This is no longer the 1960s, 1970s, early 1980s, where there was no pagers, there was no telephone 24 hours. What did you have? You had a pay phone, you had a home phone. How many of you within this listenership actually have a home phone or even a pager? I would almost say zero percent. Maybe, unless there's a doctor within the group, they might have a pager, but most of everybody in today's society is connected 24 seven to their phone, their computer. You can get access to anybody.

Speaker 1: 14:28

If somebody doesn't get back to you within a very short period of time, you tend to think that they are ignoring your phone call. And that's where mental health has really positioned us, because we have to be connected. There's so many expectations and pressures on a daily basis. I mean, what do you expect somebody to do when imagine this if you're a celebrity or every moment of your life is being filmed by paparazzi, you can't have a personal life. Think 30, 40 years ago, somebody may have been just trying to follow you. Now everything's being recorded, everything you do.

Speaker 1: 15:15

If you do something wrong, you say something wrong, you share something on social media that is incorrect. It can not only follow you that day, but it can follow you the rest of your life. Therefore, I was sharing this. Actually this morning to my son, as I was taken to the school, I said remember this that you will. Anything you do can be re-recorded, meaning anything you do could be on social media. You have to be very careful within your actions because if you don't, they can continue to follow you for a very long time.

Speaker 1: 15:58

And I shared this because we had prefaced a conversation about bullying and how people will do things to you to make themselves feel better. Maybe their life is not great, maybe their parental guidance is not great and they're not happy. Their whole goal is to make your life miserable so they feel better. And then my son asked well, why would they do that? And I said I don't know. But that goes back to our mental health and making sure that we're helping people, not hindering people. So number one was talk about daily pressures and meeting our daily agendas. Number two is leadership demands.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Now, I'm going to guess that the majority of the audience is Gen Z and Millennials, and many of you are aspiring to be leaders, not only professionally but personally, maybe in something that you're very passionate about. But leading can be so much more difficult because of the expectations that everybody puts on you, and that mental health can take a huge dive because of perceptions, because of pressures be from your boss, from your organization, from your family. If you're a leader in the family, in your profession, it can be overwhelming, and that overwhelm can really make an impact and drive your cholesterol over the hill. For example, I was recently in a job where the leader I was the leader for this whole location and it was a very big responsibility and the pressure was so much because they wanted you 24 or seven. They wanted you. They almost wanted you as a life. They wanted to suck the life out of you and I felt like that's what we were doing to the employees as well, because there was so much pressure about financial obligations.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Hitting your goals and, trust me, I am all for hitting your goals. I believe that what don't kill you makes you stronger to a certain degree, but when an organization wants to tap on your soul, and if you're willing to give your soul, you could end up taking so much pressure on yourself that it can cause you health problems. And I was starting to have some health problems and that's when I realized the organization. If they want you to work 70 plus hours a week, it's probably not a good fit. Therefore, spend your time finding a great organization or finding a passion that you love and really put your heart and soul into it. And that's what I found with the podcast, your motivational Gen Z and Millennial Expert, as I try to book speaking opportunities in the future and motivate others, motivate organizations to understand, attract and retain Gen Z and Millenials. These are what passion is about.

Speaker 1: 19:21

So we have leadership demands. Now the third one is something I've always adhered to and I love it because mental health can be impactful on this Inspect what you expect. What does that mean? If you inspect you want others to be great, then you got to expect that they can be great by providing them the tools, providing them the resources. So inspect what you expect. If you want people to be great, you need to be great yourself and then you can help others be great. But it comes from your inner self. It's about projecting what you desire to achieve by doing the right things and having others do those same things. Inspect what you expect.

Speaker 1: 20:15

We talked about leadership demands, but let's talk about family and home demands. You have kids, you have a spouse, you have extended family. They all have at pressures. We love our family, we love the connection and we wouldn't trade it for the world. But when you compound that with professional Stresses, leadership stresses, then family and homes demands, that can take a Dividing toll, which later we're going to talk about how you can basically help those Instances by creating a different type of environment, and that's what we're going to talk about in the second part of this podcast and then the last but not least, is the mental health demands. We know life is tough. We know each and every one of us has a difficult day and we worry, we have anxieties. These are all natural parts that are no longer hidden. They're no longer an old conundrum that we can't share with others. It is now front page and center.

Speaker 1: 21:27

What is one of the most important aspects of finding a new job for Gen Z and Millennials One is mental health. How is the job going to impact my overall Well-being and how I see life, from work-life balance to some of the important aspects of the job? So, with all those above demands and life running at a hundred miles an hour in every which way, how can we improve and clear the mind? How can we adjust our bodies to project from our inner self Demons, to being able to capture the momentum, the excitement of what we want to achieve, what we want to accomplish, with all these pressures being pushed down upon our shoulders? There's a couple separate ways. I'd like to talk about this, but I found seven ways that will help us Continue to meet those challenges on a day-to-day basis. Number one is encourage Open conversations and create a safe and non-judgemental space for yourself and others to express their feelings and concerns.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Yes, if you're a baby boomer or a Gen X, you're possibly rolling your eyes because I can tell you, growing up, nobody ever talked about mental health. It was about come on, roll up your sleeves, get tough, work harder. There's no crying in baseball, things like that. That's what we grew up with. Why? Because it was something that wasn't a forefront. It wasn't because none of us struggled with mental health. We just didn't even know what we were struggling with. We weren't able to put our finger on it. So imagine if we could have helped others. We could have probably saved a lot of lives, and that's why they have suicide life prevention lines, because they can be very impactful and we can talk about it. So that's number one.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Number two is I alluded to it earlier the glass half full versus the glass half empty, as my old boss talked about. Optimism can be my kryptonite, but it's what Makes me who I am. Well, some of you may be glass half empty, and that's okay, but this is an opportunity to go. Okay. How can I change this? What can I do differently to project how I Look at my inner self? Can I start looking at things glass half full and going, hey, maybe this ain't so bad versus Maybe this ain't so half good. Oh, yes, it is weighed different ways of looking at it. I Think my most important number three it's okay Not to be okay. Real simple, I think this says it all it's okay not to be okay. We all have our moments where we just need to go lay down, meditate, relax, put some soothing Kenny G on and enjoy the music.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Number four promote self-care by encouraging activities such as exercise, journaling, mindfulness or engaging in hobbies to help your anxiety and depression symptoms. I'm not a psychologist, but I can tell you that these measures will help you. Finding productive hobbies, finding ways to relax, exercising Exercising for the last four months has helped me tremendously Not only feel better about myself, but increase my endurance, my overall health conditions, along with eating right and taking care of myself. Number five go on a walk. Walking can produce endorphins which ultimately help produce your forward motion. You're probably saying isn't that the same as promoting exercise? Not necessarily, because your whole point is to unwind and have a nice peaceful walk. That may not be something of a fast walk, it could just be something to help clear the mind. Number six find a place to talk about it and engage with who you can to ensure that you're getting it off your mind. You're feeling better about the situation. It's important to do that. And then number seven this is nothing to be ashamed of and I promote this because it's 100% true. As I mentioned earlier, we're all running 100 miles an hour and life is tough If none of these things help and you're still feeling down. You're still feeling really you feel a lot of anxiety. That's okay. Talk to some mental health professional or find other alternative medicine type of therapies. It's okay and, as I mentioned, it's important to take care of yourself.

Speaker 1: 27:12

What we're going to talk about next is what would you do segment? What would you do? Segment is a new segment we started on our last podcast. It will be part of each and every show.

Speaker 1: 27:26

If you were asked by your boss about a last minute speech again, if you were tasked by your boss with a last minute speech that needed to be delivered by you in the next two days to your colleagues, how would you react? One last time if you were tasked by your boss with a last minute speech that needed to be delivered in the next two days to your colleagues, how would you react? The first thing that comes to mind is the fight or flight method. Are you going to run towards that burning building to save somebody, or are you going to turn around and run the other way and maybe call 911 as you run? Well, I can tell you that. Remember we talked about don't let the moment be bigger than you, and for me that resonates with I've got to figure out a way to get it done.

Speaker 1: 28:36

It may not be the best speech I could provide with two days notice. It may not be the succinct, exact message I want to portray, but as long as I did my best and I delivered it and I provided some sort of substance and overall introduction, body of the speech and a good conclusion and that's the very best that I could do then I'm going to do it. Why? Because that is the overall makeup. We're all half different makeups and if you answered, I'm going to run the heck away. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just something that you may want to reconsider as you move forward. Maybe I want to be that person that is glass half full and will run towards that building and deliver that speech and do the very best job I can, but if that's not you, that's okay. It may be you next year. It's maybe something that you're continuing to work on. That's really what's so important is continuing to work hard. All right, the part of the segment that I like the most.

Speaker 1: 29:53

In every episode, I want to make sure we're motivated. I want to make sure that you're getting what you want out of this podcast, and then, after the motivation segment, we're going to talk about the three quotes and then we're going to wrap up and ultimately, as a Gen Z millennial, you have been through so much adversity We've talked about this, so sometimes it seems like the norm. However, each one of us has control of our own destiny through our sense of desired accomplishments, the available tools that we have in the tool chest, and the persistence and the competitive fire and the continuing to want to be better, to be bigger and better than we ever imagined, because we don't want to let the moment be bigger than us. We want to ensure that everybody out the audience is wearing undergarments and we're able to portray what we want with a high sense of accomplishment within that speech, within that big project whatever it may be, but it depends how bad you want was in front of you. Take a leap of faith. Fake it till you make it. Don't let the moment be bigger than you. Sometimes we have to take the step even when we're not ready, and that is OK.

Speaker 1: 31:25

The three motivational that I'd like to share the quotes is by Kobe Bryant there is power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own. Again, there is power in understanding the journey of others to help you create your own. The second one I'd like to share is catch on fire, if you must. Sometimes everything needs to be burned to the ground so we may grow. Catch on fire, if you must. Sometimes everything needs to burn to the ground so we may grow. And that is by AJ Lawson. And the third impactful message is growth is never by mere chance. It is the result of forces working together. And that is by James Cashpenny. That right there is kind of will sum up the podcast as a whole. It's growth is not my chance. It's the result of everything that's working around us All the internal aspects that we have, previous experiences that we have, all the people that we have met that are part of our overall growth, the learning that we've had, the schooling that we've had, the parenting that we've had All of that makeup is part of making us who we are today.

Speaker 1: 33:06

So let's discuss what we just wrapped up with today. Well, we first talked about the five ways of how mental health can be impacted. Remember, mental health is no longer forbidden. Those five mental healths I talk about is part of our daily lives. Then we talked about seven ways of being able to find that will help us overcome the mental health issues on a daily basis. They may not be something that will help every single day or for longevity, but they may help us at that moment.

Speaker 1: 33:54

And then we talked about what would you do moment if you were tasked by your boss or they last minute speech that needed to be delivered in the next two days to your colleagues? How would you react? And I would love for you to share with me. You can email me at Jason at GenZandmillennialExpertcom. I would love to hear what your thoughts are. And last, we talked about the three quotes, one by Kobe Bryant, one by AJ Lawson and one by James Cash Penney, which was growth is never by chance. It is the result of forces working together. I would like to thank you on our 150th episode. My friends, I cannot wait to connect with you on our next podcast, which will be Monday, january 15. As always, have a fantastic and productive week. My name is Dr Jason Wiggins and I am your motivational, genz and Millennial Expert. I look forward to seeing you next Monday and, as always, take care and we'll talk to you later. Bye, bye.