My best advice for Gen Z and Millennials is to get good at prioritizing and optimizing for the best possible life and the best possible experiences. My first piece of advice for Gen Z and Millennials is you do you boo, lol.

No, but seriously this is very personal to me, and I know it is very personal to you as well because everyone has advice and everyone thinks they know what is best for you, but only you know what is best for you and this is the beginning of optimizing and prioritizing for your best life. When I offer life advice, I am very cautious and careful to understand that we are all different and we all come from unique backgrounds and situations, so not all advice is one size fits all, more like one size fits some or most. I will turn 43 towards the end of the year 2024 and I am at the beginning of the Millennial generation, so I do have a little bit of life experience and I have seen and lived through some really good, some really bad, and some really ugly stuff.

I will definitely get into some work and career and financial advice for Gen Z and Millennials here in just a few but I really want to cover some basics like just doing you and being happy with it. When I was younger and even still a bit now, I still find myself doing things based off of how I think others are going to view me or feel about me. Now don’t get me wrong I am absolutely doing me, and I live my life based on how I think I can live my best life and get the most out of the time that I have here on this earth. To me there is nothing more important than having balance in your life and not tipping the scale to far one way or the other.

This leads me to the next bit of advice which is prioritizing. Prioritizing isn’t exactly a sexy topic, but it is a very basic and fundamental life skill that helps to optimize every area of your life including work and school and really just anything. Prioritizing is a decision making and critical thinking skill that some people don’t utilize in an effective manner and their lives suffer greatly due to the underlying consequences of not prioritizing.

What does this look like? I’ll give an example from when I was younger, and I prioritized social experiences like going to the club and going to house parties which caused me to lose a lot of valuable time and brain cells. The other things I did in this arena was I would sometimes take off of work so I wouldn’t miss out on events that seemed important at the time and maybe they were, but it comes down to priorities and mine were very short sighted to say the least. I wish I had been more focused on the future and what these decisions were doing to my future.

Looking back, I now realize that of all the people that I used to party with and relied so heavily on for my social status and well-being, of all those people, I hang out with none of them. I used to spend hundreds of dollars every weekend basically trying to keep the party going and trying to impress my friends who were mostly broke and jobless, but it turns out it was all for naught. If I had invested even a portion of that money into anything other than alcohol and drugs, I’d be writing this from a beautiful beach in the Bahamas rather than sitting on my couch in my living room in Oklahoma City. I know it sounds like I have regrets, but really I just have some really expensive really valuable life lessons which I cherish greatly because now I can pass those on and hopefully save you a few years in your journey to your best most optimal life.

op·ti·mi·za·tion

noun

1. the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource:”companies interested in the optimization of the business” · “the developers know many optimizations can be made”

Now that we have a basic understanding of the term optimization let’s apply it to daily life. The best way I can break this down for you is yes this is one of the worst economic times since 2008, but that is truly a blessing to those who know how to optimize and prioritize. Yes, it sucks having to work 40 plus hours a week just to survive, not even thrive not even feel comfortable, but just survive. If you have read my other posts then you know that I work 40 plus a week at my main job and then I work Saturdays for my friend who has an appliance resale business, so I am effectively working 50 plus hours a week.

So how am I optimizing in this situation? First, I am contributing 7% of my gross income to my 401k and I just bumped that up to15% which will take effect on July 1st since I can only make these types of changes once a quarter. How is this optimizing you might ask? Contributing to your 401k effectively reduces your taxable income and we all know taxes are one of the biggest killers of your income because the more you make the more, they take (the government.) The other great thing about optimizing by investing in your 401k is that your employer is usually going to match what you invest in some way, so they are literally paying you to invest your money.

I have heard arguments against it like you have to pay taxes on the money when you retire and withdraw it or there are huge penalties if you withdraw the money before you are old enough to retire and while those are valid points, they are not good ones. Look at it like this, inflation is going to continue to rise no matter what you do, so you might as well have some money in an investment account that is growing tax free until you withdraw it because it is earning you money while it is in there in multiple ways. The first way it is earning you money is, like I said your employer generally matches your contribution even if it is minimal, and second that money is earning a percentage of interest depending on which investments you choose, plus you will usually get dividends a few times a year. If you choose not to invest anything, you get no tax break on your gross income and you have no chance of beating inflation because you aren’t taking advantage of the interest earned and compounding effect that accrues over the life of your investment.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that we need to have things such as a brand-new car or a new iPad or a new phone every time a new model comes out, but it’s all consumerism and it’s all going to keep you broke. A very crucial lesson for Gen Z and Millennials alike is that if you don’t want to work or if you don’t want to work as hard all your life then you need to be content with less. What’s the old saying, “less is more?” It is so true especially in today’s economy that if you want to have more then you need to spend less. Don’t get caught up in the trap that you need to have more stuff to feel better about yourself, you are enough, and you don’t need things to prove it.

I’ve been homeless so I know that the only thing worse than working hard and barely having enough to survive is not working, not doing anything and essentially having nothing to survive, but your wits and the generosity and wastefulness of others. When I was homeless, I ate food that came out of trash cans literally, and I assure you there is nothing more degrading or demoralizing than that. It was covered wrapped food in a bag that people threw away, but it was garbage food quite literally. Luckily and unluckily, I was on drugs most of the time while I was homeless, so I didn’t really care that much because I was mostly oblivious to what others thought and it didn’t matter because I was just trying to survive, but I promise you, you don’t want to go there. Be thankful for what you have, for those of you who live in the United States of America like me you are blessed and if you don’t think so, I would challenge you to go anywhere else in the world and find a better living situation.

Gen Z and Millennials this is going to be my final piece of advice for this post, and it is this, get used to working and start reading books or find free tutorials on YouTube to increase your knowledge, skills, and value. We live in a much different time than when I was in my 20’s and first going to college and working a full-time job. Now there is this expectation it seems like that we can all just get rich and not have to work a real job to survive because we can just start a YouTube, channel or become an influencer on TikTok or Instagram and while that is all fine and good, not everyone is going to get the same results.

Achieving success like that of Mr. Beast and Logan Paul or Kylie Jenner are the exception to the rule. These levels of success are achievable, but it only comes with a lot of sacrifice and dedication, and I would liken it to the level of college athletes that actually go Pro on signing day, the odds just aren’t in the favor of the majority here. The harsh reality is there is no magic pill that’s going to solve all of your problems and it is going to cost money no matter where you live in the U.S. or outside of it. It’s time to start living your best life and being thankful for what you have and where you are because it could be a lot worse.

You have choices and if you prioritize and optimize for the best outcomes you can take control of your destiny and steer it towards better outcomes, but you have to be disciplined and dedicated to equipping yourself with the knowledge, tools, and experience. I believe that Gen Z and Millennials have a bright future and will lead humanity into a new Great awakening where we are less concerned with things and more concerned with values and knowledge and understanding. Wisdom and knowledge only come to those who are seeking it, so if you have read this far then I know that you are a seeker of wisdom and knowledge, and truth and life is going to be amazing for you!

As always thank you for stopping by, now get out there and plant some seeds in yours and other people’s minds that there is hope and more of it will be abundant, because if you plant good seeds, you will reap a good reward.

-Founder Magbunga.com