Best advice ever for Twenty Somethings...

Don't fall asleep at the wheels

The essence of discovery is not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

I honestly hope that none of you ever say. "Well, gosh, I'm twenty-four now, I have a degree, and now it's time to grow up and be sensible." That's the worst advice you could ever give yourself. LIFE HAS TO DISCOVERED ALL THE TIME. You can never say, "I have done everything I can up to the sage of twenty five, and now I have to settle down and be a responsible, boring adult in a responsible, boring world." You don't have to do that. ~ Ric Birch, executive producer of the Sydney and Barcelona Olympic Games ceremonies

If it's not working for you - the company is bad or the people are bad - get out of there. Move. Everyday is a day wasted day after that. Life's just too short. ~ Pat O'Donnell, CEO of Aspen Skiing Company.

Your life is now. Your life is not going to start when you graduate college. Your life is not going to start when you get married. Your life is now. You have to enjoy your life today...otherwise you're going to be miserable. ~ Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise college counseling

It's amazing how precious life is. Time is so precious. If you're doing a job you don't like because someone else wants you to do it, get out. Don't waste the spark of life. ~ Peter Seligmann, chairman of the board and CEO of Conservation International

The only advice I could give is - "Poof, you're fifty." So what have you done? Did you have fun? Did you have adventures? Did you do stuff that you really loved? Did you live a brave life? Were you not afraid? Because mostly I think it's fear of "am I going to make a mistake?" that holds person back from living their lives. Well, you know what, make a mistake. ~ Geoffrey Frost, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Motorola.

Ten to fifteen years from now, if you look back on your life and ask, "I wonder if I should have done that differently?" I don't think you want to be in a position to say,"Yeah, I should have done that differently." Because you can't get that time back. ~ David Jacobs, CEO and founder of Spyder Active Sports

Exit the Freeway

I see so many students who are directed. They're in high school and they already want to get into advertising, but there's no life there. No embracing of the world, or the people around them. I mean, how do you know if you want to be an art director if you never looked at other things? If you've never gotten out of your comfort zone and tried anything else? ~ Laurie Coots, Chief Marketing Officer of Chiat\Day advertising agency

If you don't slow down, you're going to get caught halfway through life and realize all the things you missed when you were capable of doing them. ~ Chuck McGrady, President of the Sierra Club

Then, in January 1984, I got a call from a guy who I'd interned with at the Clean Air Coalition. He was in Iowa organizing the presidential campaign for Walter Mondale and asked if I'd come work for him. He said he needed me in two days. I wasn't sure, but I believed then, as I do now, that you should take an opportunity when it's presented to you. You never know where it might lead. So in the next two days I dropped out of school, quit my job, left my boyfriend, and went to Iowa for what I thought would be a month. ~ Deb Callahan, President of the League of Conversation Voters

I applied to Yale and was accepted, but I decided to take a year off in 1968. there was a lot of pressure to go, and people said things like "You're crazy. What are you going?" I spent the year bumming around Europe and participating in the revolution. It was amazing. I ended up never going to college. ~ Geoffrey Frost, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Motorola

Right after my senior year at Brown, while my friends went to Wall Street or Law school, I moved to Nantucket and started a business with my friend. ~ Tom First, cofounder of Nantucket Nectars

I don't know what I wanted to do. I was totally displaced after college. But when I was traveling in Europe, I discovered the romance of the Italian espresso bar in Italy. It was an epiphany for me. ~ Howard Schultz, Chairman of Starbucks Coffee Company

My parents thought I had flipped out when I didn't take the banking job. But at some point you just have to follow your gut and what feels right. ~ Mike Egeck, president of The North Face

There Is No Road Map

You can't map out a very long route for yourself. What you can do is sort of know where you're going. Be half sure, jump in, an hope you can swim the rest of the way. It's like Eco-challenge. The race is five hundred miles and thirty checkpoints. The people who don't finish are full of ego and only focus on their finish placement. They do that even when they're leaving the start line. People who are successful focus on the immediate checkpoint. When they reach checkpoint one, then they worry about checkpoint two, and so on. That's the philosophy you need to keep to. ~ Mark Burnett, Creator and Producer of Eco-challenge, Survivor, and The Apprentice

There is no raod map. No black or white answers. People really like black and white - go to school, boom , boom, boom, and you could be this. No one should tell you, "This leads to that" or "You need to do this," because there are a lot of options out there. ~ Gary Erickson, founder and CEO of Clif Bar.

Its not like when I was your age I had this plan that led me here. Things just go along as a progression of your interests and what you like to do. ~ David Jacobs, CEO and founder of Spyder Active Sports

You can't just script your life. ~ Jerry Colangelo, Chairman and CEO of The Phoenix Suns

In terms of a career path, mine was totally unpredictable. It wasn't anything I ever had in mind at the beginning. It was a series of connected events, but it's only with hindsight that you realize they're connected. ~ Ric Birch, Executive Producer of the Sdyney and Barcelona Olympic Games ceremonies