Christine Hassler is a Gen Y and millennial expert. She believe millennials have the highest expectations and are often hit hardest when they face reality and realize it’s not as easy as it looks. She talks to Jason about how to manage your expectations better, why she loves millennials, and a little bit about her latest book entitled Expectation Hangover.

 

Key Takeaways:
3:15 – Christine talks a little bit about her book, Expectation Hangover, and who it is meant for.
6:10 – Christine says millennials are hard working employees. They learn quickly and think outside the box.
10:15 – You need to have a break up in order to grow. A break up leads to a break down, which actually then leads to a break through.
13:00 – Take a brief pause in your life to accept the on-rush of feelings you might have, once you’ve done that, then you can work on releasing them.
16:00 – Christine believes millennials will find a better solution for our current broken school system.
19:10 – Don’t base your happiness and self-worth on the result of your goal. If you fail, it will take you longer to bring yourself back up. Have goals, but distance yourself emotionally from them.
20:50 – Christine wants you to optimistic, but she also doesn’t want you to let yourself down for putting too much emotion in that optimism.

 

 

Tweetables:
I found when I coach people, a break up leads to a break down leads to a break through.

The time I spend between expectation hangovers gets longer and the time I spend suffering gets a lot shorter.

Millennials are incredibly innovative, they have a can-do attitude, and they think outside the box.

 

 
Mentioned In This Episode:
http://jasonhartmanfoundation.org/
http://youngwealth.com/

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Transcript

Jason Hartman

It’s my pleasure to welcome Christine Hassler to the show. Her latest book is entitled Expectation Hangover. She is also the author of 20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It. So we’re gonna kind of dive in to this topic of the largest demographic cohort in American, if not world history, which is Generation Y, but she also talks more broadly and writes more broadly about a variety of topics. We’re going to focus, I think, on Generation Y. Christie, welcome, how are you today?

Christine Hassler:
I’m great. This is going to be a fun conversation.

Jason:
It certainly will, it always is. You’re coming to us today from Chicago, Illinois, I believe, right?

Christine:
I am. I don’t live here anymore. I went to college here and it’s a beautiful fall day and I’m enjoying in seeing a change in seasons.

Jason:
Yeah, I know you live in California now where I’m from and that’s one of the things I really don’t like California. You don’t get the nice change in seasons, which is kind of cool.

Christine:
Not so much.

Jason:
Well, so tell us a little bit about your latest book Expectation Hangover.

Christine:
Sure. Well, to write this book I had to have a lot of expectation hangovers. *Laughter*.

Jason:
*Laughter*.

Christine:
So, lettme define what a expectation hangover is. You’ve probably never heard of it because I made up the word.

Jason:
It’s a good title.

Christine:
Thank you and it’s rather intuitive. You can kind of guess what it means, but it’s when one of three or four things happen, either you don’t reach your plan, desire, result, expectations, things don’t turn out like you planned despite your meticulous planning and effort-ing and blood, sweat, and tears or things turned out like you plan; you get the outcome or the result, you achieve the goal, but you don’t have the feeling you thought you would.

It’s not as fulfilling as you thought or you’re not living up to your personal or professional expectations or life throws you an unexpected curve ball that’s unexpected and desirable. So, a variety of things happen similar to hangover symptoms but more serve, head is aching for all the thinking and trying to figure it out and if your uncertainty, spinning in confusion, there’s a sense of regret, we lack motivation, and we just want any quick fix to make ourselves feel better.

Jason:
Now, when you talk about expectation hangover, you’re not applying that to just millennials and Gen Y, right? Does this apply to everybody or are they suffering the biggest expectation hangover, maybe? *Laughter*. I’m not sure.

Christine:
Well, I think that..I’ll answer both question. First of all, any one who has ever been disappointed has had an expectation hangover, so the book is really for anyone who has been disappointed and is welling to do the work leverage it rather than be a victim of it. I think millennials or Gen Y are definitely feeling more of one because I think they were raised with the most grandiose expectations.

I think previous generations were sort of raised with the expectation that life can be hard and life is a struggle and kind of that more like glass half empty attitude, but that doesn’t opt someone out of disappointed. I mean, if you expectation disappointed, it’s probably going to happen too. I think millennials were raised with the you can be anything you want and you’re special and go to college and get a degree and you’re going to have the job of your dreams and they’re just facing so much disappointed because the life they were told they were going to have is in direct conflict with the life that they’re discovering.

Jason:
They’ve definitely been the most catered to generation in all of history. It is, if you will, for many a rude awakening. They seem to be dealing with it reasonably well. You know, I’m pretty impressed with Generation Y in a lot of ways. A lot of people like to say bad things about them. Over entitled, spoiled, etc, but gosh, they’re really bright, they’re independent thinkers, I love that they do not trust government and the establishment. I don’t think they should. I think with the technology, it’s just a amazing revolution that we’re going through. I mean, we are on the verge of so many amazing things. I think in the next 10 years they’re going to blow our minds and actually our expectations might be exceed in many ways.

Christine:
Yeah, it’s amazing kind of technology and it’s also a bit consciousness shift. I think people are waking up and discovering there’s so much more to life than the traditional checklist and people are doing the internal personal developmental work in addition to all the external goals and I speak a lot to corporations on millennials and bridging generational gaps. I kind of have my personal developmental spiritual side and then I have the corporate productivity side. I love being able to speak on both topics.

I always defend on Gen Y and millennials. I’m like look, of course there’s group of people that are certain young people who are going to be entitled or whatever, but you can’t let a few people, you know, throw off the reputation of an entire generation and I have found that if you really understand Gen Y and millennials and know how to manage them, they’re the best employees ever. They’re amazing learners, they’re incredibly innovative, they have a can-do attitude, they’re always available on their technology, and they think outside the box completely because they were not raised in a box.

I also think this generation, you know, older generation say, “Oh well, you have to pay your dues, you want instant gratification.” But, look at the world, the environment, the economy, the health care system this generation is inheriting. They’re going to have a lot to deal with, so I definitely think they’re going to be paying their dues, just in a different way.

Jason:
Yeah, don’t forget the student loan debt, which is absurd.

Christine:
Yes.

Jason:
Okay, so very interesting there. So, it’s interesting that you have this sort of two sides, if you will, that you really address. You address the spiritual side and you talked about this new consciousness, can you elaborate on that a little bit more?

Christine:
One of the things about Expectation Hangover in particular is it offers a tremendous transformation opportunity. See, we all sort of kind of are robots based on our story and our life. We all have certain ingrained belief systems, we all have things that happen to us that sort of create issues that we carry around. For change to occur and to really live in to our full potential, we have to upgrade ourselves emotional, mentally, behaviorally, and spiritually.

We can’t just sort of kind of have the same routine that we were raised with and keep doing the same thing over and over. We’re here to grow, we’re here to learn, and we’re here to really evolve our consciousness and it’s through struggle, it’s through difficulty that we have the biggest opportunity to do that. Any time we take on a challenging task, any time something happens in our life, we either can relate to it as why is this happening or this is so hard or we can look at that and go, “What am I learning?”

You know, what am I learning from this? How am I being given an opportunity to grow and dig deeper and maybe heal something emotionally or change my belief system or learn a more efficient, productive behavior. So, I don’t think..I don’t tell people there’s something wrong with them and they need to be constantly improving themselves, but I do think, just like our the phones, we have a consistent opportunity to upgrade ourselves and expand our mind and think differently and not think so much in terms of black and white, good, bad, right, wrong; judgmental, but to really have more of an open expansive mindset and understand that we’re co-creators.

Jason:
Very interesting. I love the co-creator philosophy. It’s very true. We’re not here to just let life happen to us. We are a co-creator and it’s our job to create the life we want and create the world we want, no question. It’s interesting, you know, you talk about the subtitle of your book, overcoming disappointment in work, love, and life. So, tell us about those areas. I know you just alluded to it, of course, but a little more, especially the love angle, I’m kind of wondering why you put that in.

Christine:
I think that’s, I mean, let’s face it like, we’re multi–dimensional beings. We have a work life, we have a love life, everyone wants all of it. I don’t know anyone who’s like, “Oh, I just want a job.” We all want love. I think one of the most painful things we go through is often in the relationship department, love department. I don’t just mean romantic. We love our friends, we love our family, and it’s often in the heartache that we really learn the most about ourselves.

What I found is that, you know, disappointment, it doesn’t matter what area of your life it happens in, it’s really hard. We’re not really given the tools to deal with it. I know for me, I’ve had disappointments in my career and in my love life, especially my romantic relationships, those were kind of the most awakening times for me. I found when I coach people, a break up leads to a break down leads to a break through.

Jason:
Yeah. Well, the old saying, “It’s better to have loved and loss than never to have loved at all.” So those are really good growth experiences, but it’s very hard to see them that way at the time, isn’t it?

Christine:
Oh totally, absolutely. You know, I remember I was going through a divorce and people were like, “Oh, there’s a reason for this and time heals.” It’s like, I don’t know the reason and I don’t really want to wait that long. So, you know, that was one of the things that inspired the book. It’s like, okay, I understand there is a given time where we’re going through the disappointment, but what can we do to move through it a little faster and a little more intention? So, we really are, like I said, leveraging it.

Jason:
Okay, what can we do? Tell us about some tips there.

Christine:
So, the first thing, the book is divided in three parts and the first part is about why we have expectations and why expectation hangovers happen; to teach us some major lessons that we’re all here to learn. Like, we don’t have complete control, our comfort zone is a trap, universe is not here to punish us, and it ain’t out there. We need fulfillment, joy, all those things we’re looking for aren’t found in external things, it’s really a inside job. So, disappointment reorientates us to move inside out rather outside in.

The treatment plan, which is the second part of the book, which is incredibly holistic because in my life and working with people, if you don’t work on the emotional, mental, behavioral, and spiritual level, you don’t fully have the breakthrough. So, the first thing is to accept your feelings about it. You know, we don’t like feelings, we’re not taught how to process feelings, we want to work through them or drink through them or eat through them or distract ourselves and not really feel and so that’s the first part. Just allow yourself to have your feelings about it.

In the book I teach you how to do that in a way where you release from and then recycle your feelings and you learn how to move into compassion for yourself instead of judgment, so our feelings don’t consume us and we don’t identity that with them, but we still honor them so we’re not carrying around all these unprocessed feelings that lead to illness, lead to depression, lead to stress, that lead to feeling like you’re constantly need to be moving or doing something so that’s a big part of it, especially for high achievers and people that are doing, they tend to suppress their feelings the most. So, if you relate to that, then definitely check this out. *Laughter*.

Jason:
No question about that. Very good points. So, this applies to anything in life, any kind of expectation hangover.

Christine:
Yes.

Jason:
It’s certainly not just about relationships. We have feelings about someone who took advantage of us in a business deal, you know, or didn’t keep a promise. I mean, gosh, it’s like if I had a nickel for every broken promise *Laughter*.

Christine:
I know, I know.

Jason:
Just crazy.

Christine:
You know there’s lots of stories about entrepreneurs and their first failure, being betrayed, illness, relationships, you know, the book is stories, it’s exercises, it’s guided processes, it’s definitely a work book. So, it’s not like sit down on a beach and drink a Pina Colada and read this. It’s definitely for people are like, “Alright, I’m ready to have some serious ah-has.”

Jason:
How can we release feelings? You talked about processing them and releasing them, you know, honoring them and not repeating them over and over. I think that’s what most of us do, we get into this trap where we’re upset about this thing over and over again.

Christine:
The biggest key and this is why people recycle feelings and not release them, is not to judge or analyze your feelings. See, what happens is, you’re having a feeling and you’re having a commentary at the same time. “Why am I feeling this way?”, “I don’t like this way.”, “I hate feeling so bad.”, “This is stupid.”, “I can’t believe I’m crying.”, “I’m weak.” Na, na, na, and that’s what perpetuates the feeling. So what we have to learn to do is feel our feelings with compassion, which is just like part of us are having the feeling and then another part of us is like, “It’s okay, just let it out.”

And in the book I teach tools, there’s one tool I teach called release writing where, you know, if you’re not good with just kind of emoting, you just start journaling, but it’s not journaling that you reflect on. It’s like free-form writing just a stream of consciousness, just go and let your emotions come up, and kind of turns into scribble because you’re writing so fast, then when you’re done you rip it up and you burn it, so it’s like purging. So, all of those things are really, really helpful ways to start to release your feelings.

Jason:
So, what do you think is in store for the Generation Y and their future? I mean, they’re, we talked in the beginning and just briefly mentioned how they’re saddled with this massive student loan debt and I think really, you know, this is even a conspiracy to create a whole generation of debt slaves, because as we’ve talked about on many prior episodes, the only type of loan debt that is not discharge-able in bankruptcy is student loan debt. So, literally there is no way out. I mean, these debts must be re-paid.

You know, I think that’s going to slow down the progress. Oddly nowadays, it really is questionable how necessary college is anymore. We’re in a world now where credentials don’t even really matter that much. Seeing old movies, reading old books through the years, it like used to be a big deal. If you called a restaurant and it was hard to get it and you said, “Oh this is Dr. Hartman.” You know, you’d get a great table.

Right now it’s like, “Who cares?” Which is kind of unfair in a way because people have worked a lot and paid a lot and scarafiiced a lot for these credentials and mostly I’m talking about college, but there are other credentials too. Now, it’s more a matter of, “What have you done lately?” You know, what is your track record?

Christine:
Yeah, I think so and I think, again, like, the millennials generation, all these student loans, they have..it’s a big burden. I definitely encourage people to hold it as a loan and not debt, because the more you say debt and debt and debt, the easier I’m just going to undermine everything we say. And, we don’t know, you know, there could be an amazing millennials right now, even one listening right now, who reforms this whole system. We have no idea what’s going to happen and how it’s going to be handled. Yeah, is college necessary? I don’t know that it is. I think every person has to decide that. Not everybody is a natural entrepreneur.

Jason:
I think college is a good deal at a reasonable price. If the government didn’t insure student loans, then there would be less money flowing into these universities and the price would drop. You know, the free market would control the price, but what’s happened, you know, the government has just inflated this bubble and these prices are insane for these colleges. Look, when my mom went to Berkeley in the 60’s, she worked her way through school. You could do that back then. Now that’s just unheard of, you can’t do that any more.

Christine:
Right, right.

Jason:
So that’s part of the problem.

Christine:
Yeah, yeah it is. You know, I just..for anyone out there who’s dealing with student loan right now, just know, one foot in front of the other right now and just know that it is an investment in you anyway that you can hold and just do your best to meet with some kind of financial expert or planning to manage it and get a program in place on how you’re going to pay it and, you know, I think it’s like, I do think it’s an issue that the millennials generation is going to change.

In order for things to change, they have to be bad. That applies to life. For most of us, things have to get bad before we really change. *Laughter*. I think we’re at the point where it’s like, “Oh, this is awful. This doesn’t work.” Something is definitely broken is with the system and this generation, I think, will fix it.

Jason:
I think that’s very possible. I mean, it’s really truly amazing the kind of innovations that are coming out of Generation Y.

Christine:
Totally.

Jason:
Just whole new ways of thinking that just didn’t occur to prior generations.

Christine:
Right, exactly.

Jason:
So that’s very, very exciting. Well, what other tips can you give to people in general and then anything specifically for Gen Y?

Christine:
Sure, well the last part of the book are like my quick fixes that work. So, we talked about a couple of strategies that don’t work. You know, the over drinking, over eating, distracting yourself, over working, all those kinds of thing. So, one of my favorites is don’t go to a Chinese restaurant when you are craving nachos.

Jason:
*Laughter*.

Christine:
*Laughter*. And what I mean by that is, manage your expectations of others. I think so often we really expect someone to give us something or be a certain way that’s just in your personality. They’re just not capable of and we just keep..because we love them or because they’re in our life or whatever, we just keep going back and getting disappointed after disappointed after disappointed, so really when you’re craving nachos ask yourself, “Okay, where can I go to get nachos?” I mean, I know that even if I bring the ingredients to a Chinese restaurant, they’re not going to be able to make them up. So, be mindful of managing your expectations.

The second thing I say is that, the way to reduce disappoint, reduce expectation hangovers, because here’s the thing, I’m not promising we’ll never be disappointed again; even as the author of this book I still have expectation hangovers. However, the time I spend between expectation hangovers gets longer and longer and the time I spend suffering when I have one gets shorter and short.

So, how I pursue my goals and how I coach people to pursue them is with high involvement and high intention, but low attachment. What I mean by that is, you take the steps, you have the intention, you have the vision, you do what you can, but you don’t make your happiness, your worthiness, your okay-ness, your safety, your security dependent on the result, so less is riding on it emotionally and mentally.

Jason:
Vey, very good point. That’s great. You know, it’s like, you know, what is the difference between attachment and expectation, I guess? If there is a difference.

Christine:
Not much. There’s really not much.

Jason:
Yeah, but what I am getting at here, Christine, is the idea of, look, there’s an old saying, “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.” Right. We want to be optimistic, we want to expect big things in our life, kind of sounds like you’re saying, “Well, don’t expect much.” Which, I know you’re not saying that. I just, it harped back to a debate I was having with a friend in highschool when literally I could not believe this, we were actually debating whether optimism was a good thing or not. He was saying, “Well, you know, if you’re optimistic, then you’re just going to be disappointed.” I kind of couldn’t believe that. *Laughter*. You have to have something to look forward to and to have a goal and create that future. Where’s the balance between this, I guess I’m saying or the distinction.

Christine:
See, to me, it’s more about how we want to feel. We expect these big things and we get really attached to the form and the way we want them to come. I think that’s awesome to be optimistic about our qualities and our values. Optimistic about, “Wow, look at all the amazing people and things I have in my life. I’m so excited about how I’m going to learn more about myself and feel more fulfilled and more confident.” That’s what really we have dominion over and be optimistic about who we are and what we’re going to create.

It’s more about self-acceptance and really accepting our life and gratitude for it and excitement for the future and optimistic about how we’re going to be pleasantly surprised as well, but not attaching everything on the grandiose vision. Like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to sell my company for 10 million dollars by the time I’m 30.” Awesome vision, awesome goal, just don’t invest yourself emotionally in it so that if it does or doesn’t happen, your worthiness and your okay-ness is not dependent on it. Again, intention, visions, all that stuff is good. I’m definitely not saying be negative and expect the worst. I’m saying don’t expect anything as best you can.

Jason:
Right, yeah. Good. Excellent point. Well, give out your website and tell people where they can find the books.

Christine:
Sure, if you go to ExpectationHangover.com and get the book through, then you get all my free gifts. You get a couple of interviews, you get a 10-part video series, or you can just find the book on Amazon and then if you go to my site ChristineHassler.com that’s where you’ll find my blog and my other books and retreats you can come on me and all that kind of stuff.

Jason:
Good stuff. Well, Christine Hassler, thank you so much for joining us today.

Christine:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.