The Balance Beam: Navigating College, Work, and Generations with Aaron Basko

Join us on the Jesus Fix It podcast as we explore the multifaceted world of higher education, career choices, and work-life balance. Our special guest, Aaron Basko, Vice President of University Outreach at the University of Lynchburg, shares his valuable insights on the significance of a college education in today's evolving job market, and finding the thing that God wired you to do. We discuss the financial and personal benefits of obtaining a degree while acknowledging that college may not be the ideal path for everyone. Aaron sheds light on how higher education equips individuals with critical thinking and adaptability skills, which are crucial for navigating multiple career changes throughout life. We also address the challenge of balancing passion with practicality in a tough economy, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's unique design, desires, and market demand when selecting a career path.

Listen in as we navigate the changing landscape of work-life balance and generational differences in work ethics. From Baby Boomers to Gen Z, we examine how each generation's values and priorities have shaped their approach to work and personal life integration. We discuss the blurred boundaries between work and life for Millennials and Gen Z, the impact of social media on job satisfaction, and the challenge employers face in retaining talent amidst rapid economic shifts. Finally, we reflect on finding clarity and joy in our lives, with a focus on appreciating the blessings we already have and being present in the moment. Join us for an enriching conversation that offers valuable perspectives on education, career, and finding contentment in today's fast-paced world.

Transcript

0:00:03 - Jess

If you're new here, welcome! And if you came back, oh, God bless ya! Thank you for coming back. This is the Jesus Fix It Podcast with Jess. We talk about everything: life, its craziness, it's ups and downs. ‘Cause you know what, Jesus can fix it and He can handle it all. Thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the Jesus Fix it podcast, and I do have a special guest today. Okay, Aaron, I know what you do, so why don't you introduce yourself to everyone? 

0:00:37 - Aaron

Absolutely. Hi everyone. My name is Aaron Basko. I'm vice president of university outreach at the University of Lynchburg, so I help students figure out how to make their dreams come true by coming to college, help them through the application process, make sure they get financial aid, help them connect but really a lot. Help them also develop and pick out the careers that are right for them. Help them to figure out who they are and who they could become. 

0:01:00 - Jess

This is a question I've heard a lot lately Do kids really need college anymore? Now I have a son who is going to Virginia Tech right now and my bank account says you better need that education because the amount of money I'm paying for you to have an education. I say yes, I still think an education is needed and there is value in having an education, although I feel like a college education isn't for everyone. Some people can find great careers and they don't necessarily have to go to college, so how do you feel about that? 

0:01:36 - Aaron

Absolutely. I think college is such an amazing thing because it opens the maximum amount of doors for you, right? So I think the more education you get, the more options you're going to have in life. So if you want maximum options, you make that investment in yourself. You educate yourself so that you're going to have the ability to choose different kinds of things. 

There are more paths than there ever have been, right? College certainly isn't the only path. The statistics, when you look at it, say that it will pay you back, that overall it's going to contribute to not only more financial gain over a lifespan, but also to your health, to your happiness, to your satisfaction with your job. So the statistics are there to say that investment in a college education is really worth it. But again, it's not the only path. It's just the path that I think again gives you the most flexibility, the most options. If you look not only at how much people earn, but also unemployment rates and who stays employed and who maybe has unemployment, all those types of pieces, college is still a great investment, it's just. But, like you said, it's not for everyone. 

0:02:31 - Jess

Right. One of the things I am hearing a lot about and seeing a lot of is yeah, I went to college and, yes, I love that. I invested in myself and in my education. However, I'm not doing anything in my field. I'm not doing anything I went to college for. I mean, I'm a great example of that. Well, I did go to school for journalism, but I worked in the medical field for 15 years and God just brought me back to what I went to school for, but I didn't use my degree for 15 years. 

0:03:03 - Aaron

That happens so much of the time, right? I talk to groups of parents all the time and I say you know, raise your hand if you're doing what you thought you would be doing when you were in college, and so oftentimes it's. You know they don't have anything to do with each other, but I think what it does is college if you get a great program, it teaches you how to think. That's really what I think gives you long-term success in your career. 

Right, careers I think we used to think about it as you got to a certain age, you picked a career and you stuck with that. Well, we now know that that doesn't happen, right? Most people on average, change careers like six or seven times in their lifetime like careers not just jobs, but whole fields and so what's really important is that you understand how to manage that change right, and that starts with learning about who you really are, what you want out of life, what you're built to do, what you're gifted to do. And I think you know oftentimes your college education is more about learning about yourself and how you interact with the world and giving you the tools that you need to long-term manage your career as you go along. 

0:03:59 - Jess

All right. Now, given the climate of the world and how much things cost and you know expenses and things like that, and I know you've written books on careers and things like that. Also, how do you talk to young people in this generation coming up about that actually having a career and not just working a J-O-B because things are expensive and, yeah, I really have a passion to do this, but I have bills to pay. I mean, groceries are like $500 per trip. I mean I'm kind of exaggerating, but kind of not. But some people really would love to be doing their dream job, but they're just like, with this economy, I just have to take what I can get. So what? Like what is their balance? Do you just tell people, look, it's better just to do what you're passionate about and just wait for it to work itself out? Or, like, what is your? Do you see what I'm saying? Absolutely? What is your recommendation or your advice for that? 

0:04:58 - Aaron

So I have worked with hundreds of students and I guide them using a certain formula that I like right, I talk about the three Ds. Right, you need to know what your design is. You need to know what your desire is and you need to know what your demand is, right. So desire for me is this is how God built you. Right, these are the things that you've been given as great gifts that stand out, that are different than other people their abilities. 

You were born with your parents. You probably got in trouble for these kinds of things when you were a kid. Your parents can say, oh, you've always been really good at this, right. So you take that piece, which is what you're really gifted in, and you combine it with an area of desire, which is something that you say oh, this is really exciting and interesting to me, this is something that I can get passionate about and I never get tired of and those kinds of things. 

And then you need to look and say, okay, well, where is their demand for that combination of two things? Right? Where does my ability what I'm born to do and what I would love to do match with what the world actually needs? And I think people oftentimes miss this because they go out of order. Right, they don't figure out like first okay, these are the skills that I actually have. They might chase a passion, even though they don't have specific ability to do that kind of thing, and so it doesn't really get them the result they want. Or they might look at what they're great at, but never figure out okay, who actually needs that and would pay me to do it? 

I always tell people that, like, if you are the best at what you do, the money will follow you. Right? If you have a skill and you were the best at doing that, somebody is going to pay you to do that because the world needs it. It's a matter of really cultivating yourself to make sure that you're utilizing that skill, that you're leaning into that skill and that you figure out okay who actually needs that and how can I plug into a place where I can deliver that skill in a way that's going to give me a life right as well as just a living. So I think it's worth the time to know yourself and to develop that sort of long-term career pattern and really plan for where it is that you want to go. 

0:06:44 - Jess

Okay. So what are your thoughts on work-home balance? Now, I had my son on the show a while back and he told me, like his age group I guess it's Gen Z and some younger millennials they're all about the work-life balance and I so get that. But it's a little different, I think, from our generation. I'm Gen X and you know I believe in a great work ethic. I mean, I'm not saying, you know, work your life away, but I believe in working hard. Yes, some days I might have to work overtime just to get things done. I may work more hours than I want to, but I saw my parents do that, I saw my grandparents do that, but my son and a lot of the younger generation, they're like look, you've got my 40 hours. What else do you want from me? I'm done. So like what do you? It's so true. 

0:07:38 - Aaron

You see this so clearly when you look generationally right. I think if you look at baby boomers who are older than we are right my parents' age when you look at them, they made their work value by. It was hours on the job, so the longer you stayed at night or whatever, the more valuable were to the company. You always put the company first and you did your own stuff whenever you could fit it in around there. I think when you come to our generation right, the Gen Xers, we were like you do whatever it takes to do a great job and to do it well, and then you move on into your things With excellence, yeah, with excellence. 

But you don't spend extra time on the job, you don't hang out at the office afterwards and talk with people, whatever else. You do the job, you do it really well, and then you move on and you have your own personal time and what you see I think now you know in millennials and Gen Z and those kinds of things is the sense that they're so blended. Right now you can take your work home with you, you have your phone on you all the time. There are no clear lines, and so you have these weird things where people like you know they're more concerned about their gym schedule, right Like. 

I see this when I work with young students. They're like, oh, I can't travel because you know I might miss a gym workout. And you're like, wow, that's a new concept for me. That's a new concept for me. For me, work would supersede that in some ways. But I think it's just a new way that people are learning to balance their lives, where they're having to sort of multitask back and forth between work and personal time all the time, and it's just a really fluid line. So I think we have to get used to that. Right. The older generations we have to see that as not that the younger generation is trying shirk their work duties or not put it first, but to just say this is just a new way of thinking about the blend between life and work. 

0:09:08 - Jess

Yeah, because it really had me second guessing, like were we wrong? Or like for me it was like OK, did I not spend enough time with my kids because I was working too much, like it really has you questioning some like which one of us are right? Are they right and we were wrong, or were we right and they need to work more? Do you know what I mean? 

0:09:25 - Aaron

Well, I think what's great is that you can learn from each other right. So I see this all the time. So with my kids, right, they have a different style than I do and I learn from that sometimes. So like I look and I say you know what Maybe I'm a little't naturally do right, and then there'd be other times when maybe I, you know, I'll look at a boomer that I know, who's been a mentor to me, or something like that, and I'll say, okay, in certain circumstances you know I need to, you know, put in the time to build the relationships in my work life, not just get the tasks done, because you know Xers are very much like get it done, do your. The boomers were better at building some of those work relationships that will help you over the long term. So I think the different generations, they all have something to contribute and they can learn something from each other. 

0:10:09 - Jess

From each other. Yeah, why do you think? It seems like these days, employers cannot keep anyone. I hear that everywhere. We can't keep team members, and it's from your big corporations all the way down to fast food places. I mean, you see big, small corporations, it's the same thing. We cannot keep people High turnovers everywhere. Why do you think that is? 

0:10:38 - Aaron

Wow, that's a great question. I mean, it's a big question, right, but I think a lot of it I think is that our economy is in such flux in terms of the way it works, right. 

Like I mean we saw earlier on. You saw changes. You know the first computer changed things, you know the phone, but the pace of change is so rapid that I think it's really difficult for employers to keep up with the way people want to work. You know how much they want to work, their style of things. I mean, we live in a relatively affluent society so we have so many choices compared to most other people in the world. And because we have this plethora of choice, I think that makes it really hard, right? It makes it so. People are always looking for more choices. 

So I think in previous generations you might have a person who you know. They got a good job, they liked the job and they were like okay, good, I'm comfortable here. But now it's sort of like, you know, because of the way we use our screens and things like that, we've always trained ourselves to be looking for the next best thing, and I think there's a spiritual element to that. I think, too, a real challenge where we're not ever satisfied with what we have right, that we need to learn to be satisfied not to say you know, good enough is good enough Not settling, but resting sometimes in what we do and not always being afraid of missing out on the next thing. 

I think there's a real sense within our culture because you're watching other people at the highlights of their lives. When you're looking at their social media, you're like maybe I'm missing out. Maybe there's something better out there that I'm missing. Maybe it's my company's taking advantage of me, maybe I could earn slightly more somewhere else, it's okay to be content. 

In your circumstance it is Enjoy your circumstance right, because I think, if not, you're kind of cheating yourself. But I think that really contributes to not being able to keep people is because they're always looking, which has not been the case necessarily previously. 

0:12:20 - Jess

And now we have this expectation that you should be always looking. One other thing I've noticed and excuse me, I jump around a lot One thing and this is a conversation my son and I had, because he admitted that his teacher one of his professors had to set the whole class straight because they got into this really big debate. A lot of his class was under the assumption okay, when I graduate I'm going to find me a job making $70,000 right out of school. Like that's the perception a lot of them had is like, okay, I've gotten this great education so I'm not going to settle for anything less. Like, hey, I have value. And you know, his professor was like OK, hold on. Yeah, you've got great education, you do have value, but why do you feel like you're entitled to start at the top? 

Like a lot of what we're seeing is not all, but some are graduating college and skipping I don't know if they still call it entry level, but they're thinking there's no such thing as entry level. They're expecting to start right off at the top. Now, with what you do, are you seeing this? Or how do you coach them through this All the time, right, I? 

0:13:29 - Aaron

think you're right. There is a huge sense of entitlement. Again, it's what you see, media-wise, you expect. I think people treat education as if it's a vending machine. Right, you know, you put your quarters in and you get out the number that you push. Right, and that's really not the way that it works. People don't realize that building a career is all about putting the hard work into yourself and investing in yourself. 

Right, and you get out of an education what you're willing to put into an education and how much you're willing to take advantage of the resources that are around you. 

In a lot of ways, that's what, for example, a college environment provides you is. It provides you access to smart people, to connections, to network, to opportunities that you never would have had if you were sitting at home on your couch right, but it relies on you to then take advantage of those resources, and that's actually part of the learning and part of the value that you get out of it is that you learn that things aren't handed to you. Right, you learn the skills to be able to go out and make the most of an opportunity, or how to network with a person in order for this to work to your advantage or to make relationships that are gonna come back to you, right? So a lot of the value of higher education is not actually in the classroom. I mean, yes, that is valuable. Or let me say it this way, it's not about the know that you'll learn content today, and five years from now most of that content will be totally out of date. 

0:14:40 - Jess

Right. 

0:14:40 - Aaron

It's not the content, it's the skills that you learn about how to learn, how to network, how to take advantage of opportunities, how to manage your own abilities. I think that is so important, and so I think it is good for faculty to kind of pull students back and say look, it's not automatic. You know you're going to earn this and even going to college, you still need to earn it. 

0:15:00 - Jess

And it takes time, yeah, yeah. So what is your number one piece of advice that you give to, not just the students you advise, or even your kids? What's the number one advice that you would give to anyone who is wanting to make a career change or who is seeking a career they're passionate about, who maybe hasn't found their niche yet, or just hasn't found their career yet. What is your biggest piece of advice for them? 

0:15:33 - Aaron

I would say you start by knowing yourself right. How did God build you? Right? And there's evidence of this all through your life. Again, I was joking earlier that you look back at what you got in trouble for when you were a kid, right? Or you ask your parents like what have I always done? Really well, so, knowing what your design is right, the way that God put you together and the gifts and the abilities and the skills that he's gifted you with, you want to really start there. If you're using those skills that you're amazing at number one, you're going to do better right. You're going to have more success in your job and you're going to feel better about it because you're using something that you're enjoying. That comes naturally to you that you feel like you've been enabled to do so. 

If that's really the goal, you know, you kind of have to look and figure out what that is first before you start chasing after a particular passion. So I think, taking the time, you know, people start and they start with the demand part of the equation. I just need a job. I need to figure out who will hire me Right, and they really need to start at the front and say who am I, who has God built me to be? When do I feel like God's pleasure in what I'm doing? Right, and where can I find that? And I think that's where you then have a yardstick that you can use for the rest of your life. Right, you pick up a particular job. You have this opportunity that comes up and you say I don't know is that a great opportunity or not? But if you know what it is you're supposed to be doing and what your talents are, then the question becomes will I have more time to be able to use those gifts if I make this decision, or less time? And that makes the decision much easier. 

0:16:55 - Jess

Okay, so one last question for you, and this is totally off topic. I always ask every guest if there was one thing. I know there are tons of things, but one thing, big or small, right now, today, if you could ask Jesus, Jesus, would you please fix it? What would you ask Jesus to fix? 

0:17:14 - Aaron

What a great question. 

0:17:15 - Jess

Big or small, anything, what a great question. 

0:17:18 - Aaron

You know it's so interesting. I just heard a wonderful message about you know, Solomon asking for a discerning heart and I think you know asking Jesus about the ability to really see people and myself more clearly, to be able to really again utilize the gifts that he's given me and to, I think, at the same time, you know we talked about being, you know, content in what you have and not always like, not always striving for the next big thing. I think that sense of you know asking Jesus to walk with me and help me to find that joy in the things that I do every day and say, okay, you know, you've given all of these things to me as a gift. Help me make sure I'm not missing the gift right. I'm not so busy looking over the horizon that I'm not living the gift and enjoying the gift that I have every day. 

0:18:11 - Announcer

Friends to laugh with and be real with. The Peas and Carrots Podcast with Brian and Kayla Sanders. Check out peasandcarrotspodcast.com or search Peas and Carrots wherever you listen.