What burns you?
- Make Mama Proud: Do you have any lessons for folks that getting out of school and either thinking about what to do or trying to do it?
- Ben Losman:
- When recruiting new Youth Venturers, we ask young people two major questions
- (1) What burns you about society? and
- (2) Do you have the courage to stand up and do something about it?
- Start with the first question. Identify your passions and interests (it helps to do this with someone who knows you well); create a broad list of topics and issues that you can read and say to yourself, “I’d be excited to dedicate myself to at least one of these things.” Then start exploring the work that’s being done to address those issues. Using your issues as anchor points, cast a wide net – ask friends, family, professors, etc. for leads, ideas, and connections. Search for organizations and companies doing interesting work (idealist.org is my go-to starting point). Don’t filter the results by geography; you might find amazing work in a place to which you’d never move – use this as a stepping stone to discover new ideas and connections.
