You don't have to outsmart the room to stand out

Enthusiasm is as rare as it is disarming.

To most people I meet in media and finance, I am the “young guy” in the room.

This has its benefits. I learn a lot, like how a sophomore in high school can glean wisdom from being friends with a senior.

Increasingly over the last two years, however, I’ve found myself back in college classes speaking to students who are a few years behind me. Just this morning, my good friend Kevin invited me to speak to his undergraduate journalism class at Baruch College.

I prepare for these classes with tactical guidance for things like how to get a job, how to write effectively, and how to leverage LinkedIn.

Yet very often, like this morning, the discussion drifts toward two separate, more abstract ideas:

• Enthusiasm

• Initiative

These to me are more valuable than technical skills or credentials, but students are often skeptical when they hear me describe them as the most needle-moving items to prioritize.

Indeed, many students tilt their heads when I share that I got my first newspaper job by writing a travel blog no one read. The same blog helped me earn a scholarship to graduate school and, later, a role at Business Insider.

Students usually ask if I planned it that way, like it was all some grand strategy.

(It wasn’t.)

The idea of doing something without knowing whether it will “work” seems foreign to many young people I meet. This is odd to me, given that each generation does seem to get more clever, more capable and more tech savvy.

Broadly, young people today seem starved for encouragement. You don’t have to say much to instill belief in someone who’s surrounded by opportunity but unsure how to act on it.

So, when I point them toward the basics — initiative and enthusiasm — they land like revelations.

I’ve always thought the formula was self-evident. Do the work you’re interested in for free, so you can get good enough at it to convince someone to pay you.

Most professionals are skeptical by default, and the benefit of the doubt is hard-won.

Enthusiasm, luckily, is as rare as it is disarming. Sincere excitement shatters even the most icy perceptions because it short-circuits pattern recognition.

It signals not only interest, but energy and optimism.

Together those generate initiative, which provides its own form of self-respect. It’s proof that you’re serious and want to stand out. Personal projects like a blog show a willingness to act without permission.

The lesson here isn’t intellectual, which is why I find it so encouraging: You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room if you’re the most excited to be there.

Have a great afternoon,

Phil Rosen
Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief of Opening Bell Daily

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For more of my recent essays on work and careers:

• You don’t need a company to build a company anymore

• Writing a startup into existence

• Kinetic careers

• The work that keeps you up at night