The world around us has changed. Today's youth are caught in the midst of a changing world, weighed down by the expectations of the previous generation that just don't fit into the world we're living in today. The idea of a life long career in the same position is pretty much dead. Most people will have many jobs over the course of their working life. Millennials want more than a job. We want to be fulfilled. We want to make an impact. Most of all, we want to be HAPPY. With rates of depression and other mental illness higher than ever, this generation is acutely aware of our feelings. I have always been the lost child, never fitting in to the expectations placed on me by parents and teachers. I walked my own path. I was mentally ill, and later a drug addict, and I just couldn't bend myself enough to fit into the ready made mold presented to me by society. So I had to break it wide open and build my own. My story is a cautionary tale about unhappiness. When you feel broken, you self medicate. When you feel fulfilled by life, you are healthy and free to live the life we are intended to live. I teach young people to dig deep and recognize WHO they really are and WHAT they really want. We choose our careers backwards. We pick the career and hope it makes us feel the way we want to. Instead, we need to decide how we want to feel and then choose the career that will facilitate that. I am an unconventional person and I have walked an unconventional path. I encourage young people to use the tools that education provides to build the life they truly desire. I encourage them to excel in academics because it paves a wide highway of open doors. It is much easier to build a life you love when you aren't busy building barriers for yourself the way I did. I want to show students that this idea of "adulting" is not so bad. The freedom of living a life you love is actually pretty great, and it's also contagious. I'd love to share my success with your student so they can catch a little bit of what I've got. I can build a presentation for any time period you have available, priced accordingly.