Jonathan Catherman - Guiding the Next Great Generation: Rethinking How Teens Become Confident and Capable Adults

In 1997 Apple launched their Think Different ad campaign. In a sixty-second narrated video featuring some of the twentieth centurys most iconic influencers, Apple challenged people to believe they, too, are crazy enough to change the world for the better. In a series of short clips, now famous mavens including Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, and Amelia Earhart briefly appear in celebration of their disruption to our then-traditional ways of thinking. Over historic black-and-white images, the narrator pays tribute to their brilliance with the oft-quoted Heres to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently... The famous manifesto goes on to celebrate how the very same people who were once described as crazy came to be recognized as true genius for their credit in changing the human race. The short piece ends with the statement Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Ive found the entirety of these words inspiring enough to commit them to both memory and heart. Just as Apple sought to impress upon consumers that their brand had examined and clarified who they were and what they stood for as a company, my goal in writing this book is to challenge us to think different about the significance of who we are and how we will change the world. Specifically, will our influence in guiding todays young people help them discover their very best, empower them to do and be even better than us, and in turn, ensure they become the Next Great Generation?

Call me crazy if you like (Ill take it as a compliment), but I believe todays emerging generation of tweens, teens, and twentysomethings possesses more potential to do good in this world than any generation before them. Dont believe me? Read on and Ill do my best to convince you. Agree with me? Read on and well do our best to convince our sons and daughters, students, and mentees that they can exceed the successes of parents, grandparents, and all the famous crazy people history now calls geniuses. But for them to become the kind of change agents who press the world ahead, we too must be crazy enough to think different about what they will need to succeed. Todays new normal is truly unprecedented and requires us to revamp our old ways of thinking about the importance of stewardship, the development of strengths, and the significance of purpose.

Though I remain eighteen at heart, the years of my youth are falling further and further behind. As a dyslexic, Ive spent my lifetime seeing things a little differently and not always fitting in. Turns out Im in good company with other creative thinkers who have been richly blessed both personally and professionally because we think different. Todays youth are preparing to launch into the independence stage of their lives. As they grow and go into what we may never know, I am confident they too will discover that their greatest contributions will come when they look at the world from new and different perspectives. Im choosing to invest in a few basic recalibrations to how weve done things for years, in the belief that thinking and acting a little different will benefit the next generation as they set out to accomplish their hopes and dreams, goals, and plans of changing the world for the better. Care to join me?