Speaker 1: What if the generation gap is secretly an advantage? I'm Dave Crenshaw and it's time to Pick Dave's Brain. This week's question comes from Riley in Harvard, Massachusetts. He asks, I'm a 16-year-old entrepreneur. I watched your course, Building Your Professional Network, on LinkedIn Learning and was curious if you had tips for someone who's younger than most other business professionals. I find it difficult to connect with people because of the age difference. Thanks for the question, Riley. I always love to get questions from some young leaders who are looking to improve and it shows you're excited about making a success of your career. I found myself in this situation many times, maybe not quite as young as you, but when I was fresh and starting in college. I can tell you that the answer lies in the word help, but in two directions. First, the help you give to others. And second, the help they give to you. First, look for ways to serve others. I talk about this in the Building Your Professional Network course. Give first. So look for things that people are working on. What could you do to serve them? And perhaps it's not a matter of knowledge or your expertise. Instead, just the fact that you are eager and willing to help them, they can have things for you. Look for opportunities to do a short-term internship and ask them, Hey, I see that you're working on social media, for instance. I'm really familiar with that. I could help you for a few weeks and give you some advice or even just give you man hours to help you be more successful with that. The second option is help, but the other direction. Can you help me? Now, I've said in the past that you shouldn't reach out and try to get free help. But as a student, as someone who's young, you're in a unique position. If someone's well-established in their career and they're asking for free advice, that's just not very attractive to anyone. But if you're young and you're aspiring, it's flattering to people to want to help you. I participate in a program like that called Take a Student to Lunch from my alma mater, BYU. Occasionally, students reach out to me. I take them to lunch and we discuss their career and I give them some advice. I've built a lot of positive relationships from that, and it's rewarding for me to help someone who's young in your career. Take advantage of the unique situation that you're in to reach out to others to learn how to become what they're doing right now, how to grow in your career to reach the point that they're at. One last piece of advice. In all of these situations, when you interact with someone, be sure to express gratitude. It's a small thing to go back to them and say thank you, and even to create an appointment for yourself six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, and reach back to them and say thank you so much for taking the time to work with me. Not only will that strengthen the relationship, but it will create a positive pattern in your life of expressing gratitude to others. Thank you for the question, Riley. And if you have a question you'd like me to answer, all you have to do is go to DaveCrenshaw.com forward slash ask, and I'm ready and waiting to answer your question.