When asked for advice, Julian Fellowes, the creator behind TV shows Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age recently said: “You have to have faith in yourself.” When he meets young people he says to them, “Stay away from those who don’t believe in you. Later on, when your career has fallen into place, you can pick them up again. But in the beginning, there is a limit to how much negativity you can withstand.”
We like that advice and how true it is. Negativity can be toxic, both to the person emanating it as well as to the person receiving it. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of negativity both in our community and in the world at the moment. Two years of COVID restrictions will do that and certainly a possible war in the Ukraine does not help.
However, we need to fight the negativity. How easy is it to say, “thank you?” Humans are not naturally negative in nature. You must work at it. When someone smiles at us, or we say “thank you” chemicals are released in our brains that make us happy.
Another aspect of Julian Fellowes we like is that he is giving advice to young people. Those graduating from school or embarking on their first careers now have a more difficult time than their parents did. The challenges and distractions are far greater than they were 25 years ago and can lead to a lack of confidence. That is where we as a community come in.
While Greenwich is a community that is socially and economically diverse, no one can argue that it is not a well-educated community. One of the most educated and well-read individuals we know never finished high school, and instead joined the Marine Corps. His education comes from a thirsty mind that craves learning, and what he does with it is to offer advice to young people that come to see him.
This is where we as a community can do better – offering young people good and positive advice.
We are an amazing community when it comes to supporting non-profits financially. With COVID on the wane, Spring is shaping up to be very busy with all the fundraising events on the calendar. We love it, and hope everyone is successful. But we know Greenwich can do more than just write a check. There are many in Greenwich who can help mentor young people and offer advice. We know of one former CEO of a publicly traded company who used to volunteer at CCI, helping kids with their homework while he was still a CEO. Greenwich needs more examples like this.
Without a doubt, the past two years have been unpredictable and unprecedented. We are not really going to know the lasting effects of COVID-19 for years. However, we do know that the workforce landscape has already changed dramatically.
During COVID, a young woman who used to intern for the paper came to us because her job at a major public relations firm in New York City evaporated when the city shut down. She and several friends were all in the same situation. We encouraged her to start her own virtual agency. Having run our own communications firm prior to starting the paper, we were able to give her advice on mistakes we made so that she could avoid them. Today she has a thriving and growing agency. This is the type of mentoring or offering advice we can all do.
Mentoring or giving advice does not cost anything, except perhaps a little time, but it means so much to those receiving it. Not only do they feel good and begin their endeavors with a firmer foundation, but like a smile and a “thank you” it makes you feel good as well. Best of all, it helps put the COVID years behind us, makes a connection between generations, and launches the next generation into the workforce more successfully.
