You might think it was connected to new waves of terrorism and mass killings endlessly portrayed in the media but I believe that place is very minor role in this issue. The real challenge, I believe, is the amazing virtual World these young adults have created for themselves, Usually in their bedrooms.

The amount of"FaceTime" or real-time interactions that these young people have have dwindled two an embarrassing absence in their lives. I don't believe they're even aware of this until they're confronted by the seemingly impossible thought of going"Out there" into the real world.

To become a life coach for young adults with social anxiety we must find ways to help them feel safe taking one step at a time out into the world and then back again.

Let me give you an example of eliminating social anxiety:
Skeeter was someone with very low self-esteem who kept taking dead-end jobs afraid to hope for anything good. It would be a study in itself to explain how would determined he was clinically depressed and needed meds and that he needed to go to some close acquaintances who desperately needed the skills he had to help grow their business. Suffice to say it was done but his absolute fear I'm simply going to get his favorite drug(Columbian coffee) at the local groovy coffee den required some unusual work on our part.

For those who have been doing the training with me, you know that we have a daily routine. On Skeeter's daily routine was going out for 5 minutes down the street and coming back. After about several months where it never happened, I decided we would go on the walk together. Of course I am on Skype with him about 2000 miles away, so our little journey into the streets of Boulder, Colorado would be me on my screen and him having me on his headphones.

It worked! Oddly enough he would be dressed and ready to go out in subsequent sessions for our "walk". Then one time he needed to get his prescription filled and so having me in his ear helped him get past not feeling that everybody was watching/judging him. Another success. (I could never get him to drive to his favorite coffee places on his own).

Fat forward to six months later and we are going out each session to a new coffee boutique. (He is a coffee aficionado). At the last one, I said (into his ear) ask the Barista how the job is going. Is he enjoying it?

This started a whole chat and the barista threw in the espresso shot.

So we are hanging in the coffee shop while Skeeter is drinking his coffee. I am talking and he is texting me so it doesn't look to creepy to outsiders.

Ken: So, you really learned how asking people about themselves pays off and lets you feel less inspected.

Skeeter: You are so lucky that that happened on the first time.

Ken: The free espresso?

Skeeter: Mm-hmm (all being texted by him)

Ken: True but I knew it would happen eventually.

Skeeter is now getting coffee at the shops every day. (I think I created a ultra-caffeinated monster 🙂

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As a Mentor for young adults, I spend over 1000 hours a year, one to one on Skype (so virtually face-to-face as it were) with people in their teens and twenties who have been robbed of the opportunities to share their deepest fears, their deepest pains and even the small stuff that can snowball into an emotional Armageddon. The first thing me and the people I train as Mentors offer these young adults is a forum to be heard judgment-free.

This is not something that can just be given lip-service, it is in the actions that we open the door for dialogue.

These teens and young adults have replaced questioning life, emotions, struggles and personal daemons with Facebook, Snapchat, Pokemon Go and other visual Fast-food consumptions.

To quote one of my clients: “If I have ever been good at anything it is distracting myself”. The same client shared this: “Optimism has been pressed out of me like the last bit of toothpaste from the tube”. One last quote from this Millennial is one that should cause you pause: “We were brought up to not believe advertisements but to ignore them. You (the older generation) have to prove whatever you say (to us). Just because you say something doesn’t mean I will believe it.”

There is the Millennial conundrum: Avoiding emotions, bereft of hope and expecting us to prove any platitude we thrust at them… That is where we begin Mentoring young adults: AKA Millennials.

But before we begin, let me quote a much older cynic of the machinations of Mankind.

“I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived.”… Cervantes

He continues: “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! And maddest of all - to see life as it is and not as it should be!”

1. Being too practical = madness
2. Surrendering dreams = madness!
3. Seeking out treasure amongst the trash.
4. Seeing life as it should be.

Wow! Maybe Cervantes was a Millennial!

Here is the other important thing to know in mentoring young adults:

There is no magic bullet to avoid suicidal thoughts. Almost everyone has them. I have had them as well. There have been times in my life when I had them on a daily basis and other times where they were on an hourly basis. These days it is a bi-yearly thing.

People who know me might be shocked by my admission here. I am a true optimist and believe greatly in mankind’s ability to rise to its greatest and yet… most of us have our dark moments.

Not all suicidal thoughts are about killing oneself. Sometimes they are wishing to have never been born in the first place. The can end up being the same though.

For those wishing to Mentor young adults or troubled teens… here is the tool you will need to help them connect, communicate and care.

The Cone of Silence.

I was a huge “Get Smart” fan. One of their regular bits was when Chief had an important piece of information to share with Max. Max would ask for the cone of silence. It was supposed to stop anyone else from listening in but apparently, everyone outside could hear really well but the speaker and the listener never heard each other.

We live in that cone of silence: Everyone outside seems to know what is going in in our circle and the ability for Millennials to talk about their emotions; struggles and personal daemons fall on deaf ears.

BTW, telling them that:
1) you also had those feelings, or
2) “it’s nothing”, or
3) “it will all get better over time”, or
4) “how could you feel that way when we give you everything you want” or even
5) “OMG! Let’s call every Doctor, therapist, on the planet and have our little poopsie seen tonight!!!”

is still… the cone of silence.

The New Cone of Silence (COS) – Judgment-free Listening – No Sucker-Punches

 This is not going to be easy for either side. For the Millennials… they are expecting judgment… over-reactions… or minimization. For the parents/Mentors… we really want to judge… over-react… or (out of fear and wanting to help) minimize.

Here it is:

Cone of silence rules (kind of Los Vegas rules) What is talked about in COS stays in COS.

Millennial: Mom/Dad, I want to use the cone of silence.
Parent: OK. Let’s begin.
Millennial: Explains their feelings. Their fears. Their frustrations.
Parent: Listen. Try not to show any visible expressions except support and unconditional love. Say back what you heard in your own words and ask if that is what you heard.
Millennial: Agrees that it is what they said or clarifies.
Parent: Empathize with how they feel –
Parent: Ask how the Millennial wants to proceed. – follow their lead as long as it is not going to endanger them or others.

Cone of Silence = Connection and Communication
Let them choose how you should proceed with the information judgment-free = Caring.

NB: Never bring up what is said in the Cone of Silence unless they do first and still check that it’s ok.

This is life as it should be. A place where we listen, judgment-free and allow people to grow and rise above their challenges.

Please share this with anyone struggling with being overwhelmed in the world.

May the Creator bless you and keep you (in its embrace).
May its countenance shine upon you (be face to face with it).
and may it find you charming (when the judgment might not be so good).

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“What is it with this generation (says the teacher), they never do their work and if they have problems they never tell me until it’s too late to do anything about it! Why are Millennials such procrastinators!”

“Have you seen Skeeter’s room!?! I have to tell him every day to clean up that pig-sty (apologies to our porcine friends, they really do get a bad rap)! I just refuse to clean up in there again. The level of my Millennial’s procrastination is only equal to the amount of video games he plays… and that is a whole Pokemon Go full!”

“I can’t get one single Millennial to do an honest day’s work! They come in, sit around on their phone and then 20 minutes before the end of the day, they jump on their computer, do their work and leave. These Millennials avoid, stall and procrastinate like no other generation this company has ever worked with!”

So here you are; A Mentor for Millennials. You have gained their trust. They are starting to do a daily routine of something creative, something reflective and something physical.

In Skeeter’s case; painting, breathing (deep breathing) and visualizations along with daily short walks. It is clear to you that the process of having them find micro-successes to build incremental self-worth is taking hold. Yet, they don’t clean up their rooms, they don’t take care of homework and (if they have a job) they never seem invested in their work.

Are they actually the self-entitled generation or is something else going on here?

What makes Millennials different?

Welcome to the first generation born in the land of the internet. Their home is the internet. (Let’s call this land: WebFredonia).

Gen x’ers and boomers are landed immigrants to this new world (exception Captain Spaulding). This changes how they see things. Take a two-year-old with an iPad. Their facility in manipulating and interacting with it is innate.

How they interact with the digital world affects how they perceive the “real world”. (Good luck getting them to interact in the real world without the proper interface.)

When you talk to a Millennial through Skype (which is how I life-coach teens and young adults throughout the world) and you mention any topic; say… Donald Trump (will this article now have a November shelf-life?) as the word “rump” leaves your lips, they have opened 12 different tabs on all sorts of aspects of the Trumpster; bankruptcies, misogyny, bullying, suing authors, bromance with Putin, (fill in the last six on your own). They have at their fingertips a wide swath of information.

Millennials know everything about everything on a surface level. The problem with too much information is that there is no depth.

Too much information and too many choices leads to an inability to begin anything. When you are in the internet world you see vistas of possibilities and those vistas, without a deeper understanding stop Millennials from trying anything because “what about all those other possibilities? How can I choose?!?”

Then there’s kid dancing around in his Star Wars pajamas. Who hasn’t seen that and that was one of the first world-wide humiliations on the land of internet.

The two things that stop Millennials in their tracks are based on WebFredonia; not knowing where to start (too many choices) and the fear of public humiliation (Star Wars Pajamas).

Let’s look at the three Boomer complaints from inside a Millennials head:

Teacher: Problem; Never do work, never reach out for help.

Inside the Millennials brain: Yes! I have so many great ideas for this project. Like 20! I’m going to attach all the articles ever made and then I’ll write it in the style of War and Peace. My teacher will love it. (One hour before the deadline). Hmmmm. Maybe if I don’t go to class today and tell her I was sick, I can get an extension. (Seeing as they haven’t started anything.

(Thoughts on actually talking to the teacher). Seriously? Nuh-uh. I have learned it is better to avoid talking to the non-WebFredonians and then all you have is just a nasty mark to deal with and hey, it can be ignored just like spam email. Yes. Bad marks are simply spam email. Erase it and they go away. Nothing exists in WebFredonia once you delete it.

Parent: Problem: Never cleans his room. Never comes to dinner when I call but keeps playing video games (or Facebooking).

Inside the Millennials brain: Clean my room? Sure! If I promise to do it and I really mean it, that’s all that matters, right? It’s all about really meaning it. Like that text I sent that girl. It was soooo true. But now… the text is gone and it’s in the past. Leave my game?!? Betray my WebFredonian compatriots? How dare you?!? You deserve the dreaded… “coming”. I don’t have to mean it after all, you don’t appreciate interrupting our WebFredonian exercises in video-gaming democracy.

Employer: Problem: They never work hard enough. Never listen and always think they know better.

Inside the Millennials brain: What a waste of time. I could get 10 times as much done if you just let me do it when and where I want. Your business is old. Your thinking is old and your coffee tastes like the stuff Gramma made when she confused sugar for baking soda. If you would listen to me, we could get actual Millennials to buy this crap

Now you know what they’re thinking and why.

Next step… how to transform procrastinating Millennials into empowered, action based, thought leaders (who do laundry).

To be continued…  in our next blog! Stay tuned!

Are you interested in becoming a Professional Mentor for Young Adults? Check out our next opening for 1st Degree Mentorship at Ken Rabow's Mentors Professional Workshop by clicking here

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If your focus is on helping young adults or troubled teens, make sure the mentoring program you choose is focused expressly on that. That requires a system that covers the big picture from: Anxiety; Low Self-esteem" Lack of organization, etc., to the simplest daily challenges like sleep-wake routines, homework planning and communication skills.

World Wide Youth Mentoring is a mentoring program that not only helps unblock troubled young adults but helps them find their "hero's journey" and keep them on the path towards success.

Finding the right mentoring program:

Make sure that the focus of any program you choose is about helping young adults succeed first and foremost. That there is long term training available and that you will be supported once you being mentoring young adults to have the opportunity to grow in a community of like-minded individuals.

Our mentors program "Mentors Professional Workshop" is a complete program that helps the Mentor In Training (MIT) go through the same process we want our clients to: a slow steady self-discovery and a new mindset focused on achievable goals vs. "fixing what is broken".

By bringing a person towards their success mentality and letting them discover what works, what doesn't and how to make changes free of judgement, we allow these mentees the opportunity to deal with anything life can throw at them.

Learn more about it right here! Have a question? Check our our FAQ's or ask for a free 15 minute consultation with Ken when you are ready for the next step.

Read our "Mentor's Credo" for an idea of our mission.

Good Luck!

Are you interested in becoming a Professional Mentor for Young Adults? Check out our next opening for 1st Degree Mentorship at Ken Rabow's Mentors Professional Workshop by clicking here

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Millennials these days can look into their window onto the universe AKA  their computer screen and see people excelling, being"Liked","Friended" whatever else is buttoned for things but they never could do.

If the assembly line led to a certain alienation in the average person because they no longer saw the process of creation from start to finish then the world of Internet has made the barrier to success staggering.

This is just one of the reasons why young people who compare themselves to what they consume as media feel dwarfed.

Thanks Mom!
Another challenge is the over promoting that parents began to do in The 70s and 80s to build up their kids self-esteem. It has actually led to the opposite effect we're met with the crushing reality that they weren't the next Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jackson or Donald Trump (thank God).

Our job as life coach / Mentor for troubled teens and young adults is to help them choose simple goals, acknowledge the challenges to those goals(Themselves) and choose the first indicators of success. This is as opposed to "what will they do 10 years from now that will be super famous".

By having reasonable small goals and having us as mentors helping them learn, non-judgmentally about what worked and what didn't work and how we can modify, millennials begin to slowly as surely learn to believe in themselves.

This works every time, Without fail. This is also something taught to my mentors-in-training in the first degree of our training.

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I will give you the answer to the parent/Mentor issue at the end of this article but let's start first with helping your Millennial:

The Three Challenges

1. Just-in-Timers. for lots of students, it was easy in High School to wait to the last minute, binge study and pull off some nifty grades. The harsh reality is that this doesn't work in University/College and the student does not have the resources or experience to try another way.

2. The Deliciousness of Indulgence. Being away from home and having no external controls, mixed with a massive amount of booze, weed and fellow video-gamers with unlimited internet access is a recipe for badness. The uninformed will say "just say no"... good luck with that.

3. The Scourge of Social Anxiety. This is at epidemic proportions in North America. This anxiety can make it practically impossible to reach out for help in school. Making it difficult to get back on track when they fall behind, it can push them to make self-destructive choices when the inevitability of their situation is shoved in their face by mid-terms.
//www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/millennials-stress_b_2718986.html

The Three Solutions

1. Just-in-timers meet the Daily Routine. By starting with the simplest tasks inserted in one's day-to-day life, the Millennial learns to use a scheduler (why does this generation prefer to keep notes on loose slips of paper?!?) to take control of their daily lives. It may seem like a small step but simply being able to do one five minute task a day instills in them what they didn't get by obligation or just-in-timing High School

2. Indulgence meet Observation: Remember what I said about "just say no"? Well double that on this one. We are not talking about people doing serious stuff in a way that is self-endangering. Those people need immediate action but for those indulging just enough to keep them from doing anything in life; here is the solution; observe it. Yes. Notice when you are doing your indulgence. Think about why you are doing it. Is it to self-medicate (i.e. deal with your anxiety)? Is it to alleviate boredom? Is it for social sharing? Is it 'just 'cuz? This may seems nuts but all of those are valid. The trick is to figure out which one, when, offer better things to do that you would enjoy more for some and leave the others (at the beginning). This is the start of conscious use and helps make different choices in the future.

3. Calming Social Anxiety. This can seem so formidable. It requires a Mentor who conveys non-judgmental trust. It requires the Mentee/Millennial looking at their challenge with kindness instead of harsh self-judgment and then to implement the following over six months; deep breathing (versus shallow breathing); visualization/meditation; learning positive self-talk; patience and relaxation.

Why Mentoring Millennials May Not Work (at first)

OK. It will work. (Deep breaths please). The three solutions I mention above work for 90% of the Millenials I encounter, just please don't try this at home folks at least until you finish this article: Let's start with a story:

The Long Spoons.

So... true story. I wanted to understand Heaven and Hell. So first, I travelled to Hell (Insert Donald Trump joke here...)
There were rows of tables piled high with platters of the most delicious food. Each platter was more aromatic and more beautiful to behold than the last. Every person held a full spoon but both arms were splinted with wooden slats making it impossible to bend their elbows to bring the food to their mouths. The people were emaciated, suffering and bereft of hope.

So I went to Heaven (Insert Wayne Dyer tribute here...)
Everything was the same. Same tables, same platters of food, same splints on the arms making it impossible to bend elbows but the people were satiated, happy and fulfilled. The big difference: In Heaven as a person picked up their spoon and dug into the nourishment availed to them, they stretched across the table and fed the person across from them. That person thanked them and then leaned across the table to feed their neighbor.

What's This Got to Do with Me?!?

Chances are there is nothing wrong with your mentoring skills (if you have been working on them) but imagine the mentor is the person with the spoon, the wisdom is the food and the person starving is your child. You cannot mentor your own child, the whole concept of tribe was designed to have you mentor your neighbor's child and them mentor yours'.

This is why people come to Professional Mentors/Life Coaches like myself and the Mentors I train. This is why you should become a mentor but get a distant relative or friend from another city to study mentoring with you. Then, you mentor their child and they should mentor yours'.

Let's start a movement and use the long spoons the way the were meant to be used. I believe the Millennials have the potential to be the greatest generation since the 1940's but they need new mentoring paradigms.

Find someone you trust and believe in to train you and your mentoring partner and begin a tiny revolution! It shall grow.

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He even made the Fonz look cooler. Then there was Mork and Mindy. His Johnny Carson appearances, including being one of the last two guests to be on Carson's show.
Robin's love of Jonathan Winters helped a whole new generation learn about a brilliant, improvisational comedian who had a great influence on Robin. From The World According to Garp, The Fisher King, Good Morning Vietnam to Aladdin, Robin grew and brought us along with him with kindness, humility and a never-ending well of creativity.

Then one of my troubled teen's parents said to me: "You know, Robin seemed a lot like your clients" and it hit me. He did seem a lot like my clients. Creative people. Sensitive people. People struggling with life. Some with Aspergers. Some with Bipolar or other mental health issues but they had one advantage that Robin did not (I really wasn't going to say me, please)... they had not learned how to succeed in life. They were stuck and nothing before our work had worked. The work which did help them was being mentored to use their talents to rise above their challenges. To have a mentor that could discuss their private fears free of the "real world", friends and family.

Of course, this made me happy and hopeful for my clients but very, very sad for my lost family friend. Robin. Through his successes, his genius, his drive to push himself into new territories, Robing played the old magician's trick of misdirection. We were looking at the wrong hand while the other was suffering.

There are three things I will take away from this.

1) Those who can should decide right now to mentor our troubled Millenials. Millenials with addictions, those with anxiety, those with mental illness and those with learning challenges.

2) We must be ever-vigilant to also mentor the Millenials who seem to be successful but underneath the surface are also suffering. Those with the same issues and more who are good at misdirection

3) In a world filled with divisions, hatred, war, gatherings of people wishing to cut off the head of democracy, we must counter that with love for all people, find those Millenials who might fall under the thrall of hatred and calls to war and help these Millenials to find how to be great from their powers of kindness, grace and charity.

Here is what I promise to do. I intend to train 1000 mentors by the year 2020, to help young people, focusing on Millenials in inner cities and underdeveloped nations to offer the three things I have just mentioned. This I so vow.

If you know someone who would be great at becoming a professional Mentor for teens and young adults please email us at mentor@RealLifeCoaching.ca

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What if you could future-proof your child?
Get him or her ready for a time when everything we know will have changed. Where practically all the jobs we now know of will be gone and will be replaced with jobs in fields we cannot even conceive of in today's world. And what if I told you that this scenario may come to pass in the next 10 years?

Ever heard of nanotechnology?
How about molecular manufacturing, singularity in the 21st century or tipping points in the biosphere? They are real ideas right now. Some will become what they promise to become and others will fade away. You can be sure that something from left field will change the course of everything we know again... and again with regularity and greater frequency.

How do we inspire our children in such an ever changing, unknown world?

To read more click here

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10 Tips to Foster Creativity in Your Children

Encourage your kids to sign up and embrace something that they love. Whether it's drumming, hip-hop or clown school -- give them opportunities to go out, sign up, and then make sure to give them the time and space to choose to do the work required at home.

To read more click here

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To find that future we must first look at what makes this generation different.

First we must ask ourselves: “Is it really different?”
Didn’t every generation talk about how much better they were to their elders then the present generation (it’s funny how much better we are as kids in retrospect) and is it not a common complaint?

Yes! It is the eternal complaint about each generation.
Having said that, there are reasons why this generation is truly different than most of the others that preceded them. I say most because the entitlement generation has some common links with the generations that fought in the two “great wars”, as well as a few very big differences.

Those two great generations saw their entire world change in the span of a few short years.
All the things they knew for certain, all the truths they took as being the way of the world were changed forever and you really couldn’t keep ‘em down on the farm after that.

Like those two generations, today’s generation of teens and young adults experience world shaking changes on a regular basis in everything they know:
how they consume their music, from physical cd’s to proprietary mp3’s on their computer to the cloud; How they communicate; from home phones, to cell phones, to emails, to texting, to face-booking; how the world works – constant advances in computational computing guarantee that many “indispensable” jobs of middle and upper middle management will soon be gone alongside the disappearing industrial jobs.

Children today are bombarded by people gaining instant world-wide fame for the bizarre to the infamous. How can they ever compete in making their mark?
The reality television’s ravenous appetite for championing people who crave their 24 episodes of world fame at any cost is smothering the dreams of the average child. Perfection attacks them from every media.

When every voice is modified and every picture photo-shopped to create perfection how can children compete? What should they aspire to?
Perfectionism is causing many kids to not bother trying. When every desire is catered to by every means, what benefit is there to “striking out on your own”?
Better to act entitled than to try for small personal successes. And there you have it.

So what is the future?
The future lies not in the vertical thought processes, nor the linear assembly lines, it lies in the lateral thinkers in the age of ideas.
The future belongs to this generation and it is through ideas based on their personal goals and beliefs, nourished by a daily routine of personal development that this will become the greatest generation ever.

I believe in this generation because I see it in my clients.
Young people who come to me stuck. Unable to succeed, who, with a few simple steps towards self-actualization, take to it like a duck to water and soar.

Now we must look at the raw deal parents in this generation have been given and how to give them back their rightful place as the shapers of this great generation:

Stay tuned for part III.

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