How to Get Along When Every Generation Thinks Differently

BUY THE BOOK! 'Generations' by Jean Twenge ⁠https://amzn.to/45yTwiQ⁠ https://amzn.to/45yTwiQ For the first time in history we are living in a society with seven different generations. Oprah and a multi-generational audience are joined by Dr. Jean Twenge who is a psychology professor at San Diego State University. She’s also the author of the definitive book on this phenomenon, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America's Future. Dr. Twenge unpacks how each generation shapes our society, families, work force and dating life. From the ‘Gen Z Stare’ to work-life balance to living in a multi-generational home, Oprah and Jean are joined by other authors, content creators and members of all generations who talk about their experiences with each other and how we can continue to better understand each other. 00:00:00 - Oprah on generational divide 00:05:15 - Welcome Jean Twenge, author of “Generations” 00:09:37 - Slow life strategy 00:10:40 - Adulting happening later 00:12:40 - Welcome Amanda Schneider, author of “Work for What’s Next” 00:15:00 - Gen Z and hierarchy 00:18:00 - Job hugging 00:19:40 - Gen Z and work-life balance 00:24:40 - School teacher shares divides 00:27:30 - Older generations and technology 00:29:30 - Gen Z stare 00:34:20 - Marriage and dating 00:35:40 - Gen Z is not dating 00:39:40 - Welcome Melani Sanders, creator of The We Do Not Care Club 00:44:00 - Family life differences 00:50:30 - Can we bridge the gap? Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/⁠ https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ ⁠https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/⁠ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  For the first time in history, we are living in a society with seven different generations who don't seem to see eye to eye, who here has experienced the Gen Z stare.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  It takes us a second to kind of maybe buffer and kind of...

• 0:16Speaker 02

  Like, your brain is doing this. It's the little circle.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Like loading, literally loading.

• 0:20Oprah Winfrey?

  We call it brain fog. On the flip side of Gen Z, I hear that the boomers are partying. They're having sex. They're smoking a lot of pot.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  The boomers had free love in the 1960s, and now they have free love in their 60s.

• 0:37Oprah Winfrey?

  We, as the older generation, aren't prepared for a generation that actually grew up in this technological age of being on their phones. They don't know how to connect.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  They're not out playing with their friends. They're not solving problems on their own, developing that resilience and toughness.

• 0:55Oprah Winfrey?

  I had one of my girls who started working as an architect. She's calling me about work-life balance. And I'm like, what the hell?

• 1:03Speaker 02

  This is by far the biggest generational difference in work attitudes.

• 1:06Oprah Winfrey?

  If one generation has expectations, the other generation doesn't care, how do we ever find middle ground?

• 1:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, everyone. I am delighted to be here with you on the Oprah Podcast for the first time in history. Did you all know this? That we are living in a society with seven different generations, generations who don't seem to see eye to eye or even speak the same language sometimes. And how is that showing up in our workplace, in your school, or within your own family? I wanted to ask the audience, what do you all think are the stereotypes about your own generation or other generations? So, Tanya, you're a millennial, which is ages 30 to 45 now. Y'all are getting older.

• 1:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Y'all are getting older. What do you want to say?

• 2:02Speaker 03

  It frustrates me with Gen Z. I think their communication style is just a completely different style. It kind of lacks respect sometimes, whereas I feel like millennials, we take a bit more care and respect in how we communicate.

• 2:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so you think millennials are more careful in their respect? Okay, thank you. I need a boomer now. Ages, that's ages 62 to 80. That's my group, Brenda.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm an educator. And one thing that I see, or several things that I see that are missing from generations, because I've been doing this for a while, is work ethic, accountability, and toughness. So, the type of toughness that I grew up with or accountability that led to toughness, I don't see it. I have a lot of students who don't meet timelines and...

• 2:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Don't respect timelines.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  They don't respect timelines.

• 3:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  And they have a lot of excuses for why they can't get things done. And they show up whenever they want to, to class. And that's a problem. And so, and the work ethic, they don't always give their best work when I know that they can do better. So, definitely.

• 3:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. I see a lot of Gen Z'ers here. Hello, thank you all. Ages, that's ages 14 to 29. Madeline, your thoughts?

• 3:31Speaker 05

  With Gen Z personally, I think that there was two events that really impacted how we kind of changed our behavior and kind of influenced how we moved forward. And I think a lot of technology advancements and COVID really impacted majority of people of my generation. And we kind of got left in this space where we weren't getting a lot of guidance from other generations, because I don't think the older generations knew how to teach us how to navigate these things, because it was the first time anyone was experiencing it. But I really think it did impact and change my generation, because I think we are associated with a lot of negative stereotypes. But I think we are kind of expected to go through these things without knowing anything, and we're expected to know everything.

• 4:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so there's a lack of leadership, you say. What about what Tanya said earlier? Do you think that there is a problem in the level of respect?

• 4:18Speaker 05

  I think there's a divide in Gen Z. I think there's a lot of people who do lack respect, but I think there's also a big part of my generation who does have that respect. I think that kind of comes down to a lot of external factors. But I do notice that there is a big divide in my generation with how we act and how we speak and how we behave.

• 4:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. And Gen X. I hear Gen X feels like they're the ignored middle children. What do you want to say about that, Kim?

• 4:40Speaker 06

  I'm Gen X, and we're the forgotten generation. There's so much said, and like the media and the culture, our culture, about pitting millennials, pitting millennials against baby boomers. And it's like, we don't exist, and we're right here, front and center. So, what happens is we get looked over for jobs, for healthcare, all sorts of things. But we're right here.

• 5:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And so, what is that age range for Gen Xers? What is that?

• 5:11Speaker 02

  So, it's, Gen Xers is born between 1965 and 1979.

• 5:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. Well, thank you all so much for your comments. To help us unpack all this, I'm joined by psychologist, professor, and bestselling author, Jean Twenge. She's the author of Generations: The Real Difference Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silence, and What They Mean for America's Future. Welcome, Jean. Thank you so much for being here.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 5:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. Can you briefly tell us, what are the general traits of the generations? Not stereotypes. Or maybe they are stereotypes. Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the word generations was traditionally used to mean generations within a family. So grandparents, parents, children. But now we talk about social generations. So, that would be the silent generation, born 1925 to 1945. So, their name is really a misnomer. They really changed a lot of things. Two famous members, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

• 6:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Then the boomers, born 1946 to 1964. So, silence changed the law. Boomers changed hearts and minds in terms of just a lot of outdated social rules going away.

• 6:26Oprah Winfrey?

  There were more boomers for a long time than any other generation, right?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Right. That's where they get their name from, was the huge baby boom after World War II. So, very, very large generation, still a very large generation.

• 6:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Followed by Gen X, a much smaller generation, 1965 to 79. That's where the middle child.

• 6:44Oprah Winfrey?

  That's where they're feeling ignored, yes.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, feeling ignored and skipped over. But, you know, Gen X brings their own strengths, very practical. Really arguably the last generation to have a unified pop culture experience. I'm a Gen Xer. We love our pop culture. My favorite part of the book was talking about the very strange Saturday morning cartoons that we watched that I think were written by a bunch of boomers who were stoned, as far as I could tell. That's my guess.

• 7:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Then we have millennials, so born 1980 to 1994. And they've become known for kind of breaking down institutions. So, marriage, religion, things like that. Having a lot of self-confidence and optimism, although that's curdled a little bit in the last two years. Then, Gen Z. So, born 1995 to, nobody knows yet, but we're kind of getting a consensus around 2009, maybe for the last year. So, Gen Z is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. So, and that's had ripple effects across many areas of their lives, in terms of their experience with social interaction and lots of other things.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  So, after Gen Z, that's another one where we don't really know yet, but there's consensus forming around alphas. So, after Gen Z, we have another younger generation. And to name them, we have a problem, because we ran out of letters. So, what are we going to do? So, we'll go back to the beginning of the alphabet, call them alphas, is what a lot of people have said.

• 8:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah. That's the baby children coming up now, yes.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, exactly. So, that younger group is still in elementary school, middle school, maybe the beginning of high school.

• 8:24Oprah Winfrey?

  And this is what you write, I found so interesting, that the generation we are born into impacts every aspect of our life. Think about that, y'all. It impacts our attitudes, our values, our economic conditions, our opportunities, even our well-being. Some people have challenged this idea. How so?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think pretty much everyone agrees that growing up now, living now, is completely different from what it was like to live 100 years ago.

• 8:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  You know, or 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. There's just so many changes in technology and the way that we led, the way that we relate to each other, and everything else. Where you get the challenge is, is people say, well, why are we putting people into these arbitrary 15 to 20-year groups? Well, because that's really an easier way to study people. Otherwise, how would we have the language? Would we have to say each individual birth year? Are people born in the 70s? And there are some reasons to group people that way. It allows us to just understand more about each other, which is really the point. You know, not to point fingers or stereotype, but to try to understand each other better. That's why I got into doing this in the first place.

• 9:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so you write about a phenomenon called the slow life strategy. What is that?

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it explains so much about how things have changed over the generations. So, when you have a society that's just more technologically complex, people live longer, because we have better medical care. And then, education takes longer to finish. So, it slows down the whole life cycle. Like, not day to day, but in terms of years, that people take longer to grow up and longer to grow old. So, in childhood, kids are less independent. Teenagers are now much less likely, than say, Gen X was at the same age, to have a driver's license or to have a paid job.

• 10:14Oprah Winfrey?

  They're less likely.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yes, much less likely.

• 10:16Oprah Winfrey?

  And why is that, that they're less likely? That's what I hear. The teenagers now don't have driver's licenses.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Nor care about driving.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:23Oprah Winfrey?

  And why is that?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Well, there's a couple of reasons. So, one is the parties on Snapchat or Instagram. But that's, that's one element.

• 10:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  But it is also this slow life strategy. They just are not as eager to do adult things in the way that Gen Xers or even millennials were at the same age. They look at having a driver's license, and they're like, mm, you know.

• 10:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, see, I thought it was because of Uber.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Well, until really recently, you couldn't take Uber until you were 18. Plus, we see the decline in driver's licenses, even in rural areas where Uber isn't around. Uber is expensive, too. So, and it's also not just a driver's license. They're less likely to have a paid job. They're less likely to go out on dates. They're less likely to drink alcohol.

• 11:06Oprah Winfrey?

  So, nobody's getting jobs at 15 and 16 anymore?

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Not as much.

• 11:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Not as much. It's much less common. So, all of those adult things, those happen later. So, they're just taking longer to do those things.

• 11:18Oprah Winfrey?

  That's why it's called the slow life strategy.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. And then it shows up in young adulthood, too. There's this reluctance to become an adult. You know, it's now a verb. It's adulting.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Right? And that's, and nobody ever says adulting for all the fun things about being an adult, like being independent. It's things like doing laundry and paying your bills.

• 11:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  I guess that focus on, oh, that's no fun. But just on the practical matter, young adults take longer to settle into a career, to get married, to have children. But it goes on because middle-aged people look and feel younger than their parents or grandparents did at the same age.

• 11:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank God for hair color.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's actually biomarkers, too. They've looked at it.

• 11:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Is it?

• 11:58Speaker 02

  And we actually are younger than a few decades ago.

• 12:00Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not just hair color.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it isn't.

• 12:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Nora Ephron once said that hair color is the greatest gift ever given to women.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  It is pretty cool.

• 12:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. It is, it made a huge difference because, you know, it just did.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:15Oprah Winfrey?

  And I will always color my hair. I will be in the casket colored. So, so, go ahead.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  So, that's middle age. And then, just as people get older, they enjoy more years of health and more years of life.

• 12:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And so, all of that has contributed to the slow life strategy.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Everything I do begins with intention. You become exactly what you believe is possible. Especially, the Oprah Podcast. You're doing good, Aiden. I believe when people share their personal journeys with authenticity.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Never thought of it like that.

• 12:54Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that. You've never thought of it that way before. And with intention, something beautiful happens. We recognize pieces of our own lives in theirs. We realize. That actually helps, right? We are not alone.

• 13:09Oprah Winfrey?

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• 13:50Oprah Winfrey?

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• 14:24Oprah Winfrey?

  So, Amanda Schneider is a researcher and writer, and her upcoming book is called, Work for What's Next: Why Workplace Culture is Failing and How the Next Generation Can Fix It. Welcome, Amanda.

• 14:37Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 14:38Oprah Winfrey?

  So, I'm so happy that we're having this conversation because I hear all the time the, you know, differences between the generations in the workplace. And you say, work is broken. How so?

• 14:53Speaker 05

  So, I think we are actually changing the vernacular when we think about work. And I think unfortunately, right now, we're focused on the wrong problem. When we hear people talk about work today, in the media especially, it's around return to office. But we can't fix a how problem with a where solution. Bringing them back won't matter if there's a problem with how we're working. So, the next generations, who are naturally digital first, meaning they see the world through a digital mindset, can really help us figure out how to evolve work for this digital era, meaning blending physical and digital work.

• 15:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Right. And so, I know that some Gen Z'ers say that they've gotten a bad rap. Do you think Gen Z'ers have gotten a bad rap in the workplace?

• 15:33Speaker 05

  Definitely, definitely.

• 15:35Oprah Winfrey?

  People say they don't want to work as hard as their parents.

• 15:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:39Oprah Winfrey?

  They demand work-life balance.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:43Oprah Winfrey?

  And believe in, don't really believe in loyalty to the company. Are those generalizations true?

• 15:49Speaker 05

  They're true, but there's another perspective there.

• 15:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, what is it?

• 15:53Speaker 05

  So, if we want to look at their perspective, we have to understand how they think. And I think that we have to do more to bring these generations together. So, if I had to summarize kind of what's shifting, work used to be a noun, and I think some older generations think about work as a physical place, meaning when my dad said he was going to work, it meant he was physically taking his bag and he was going to an office, right?

• 16:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  When these younger generations think, I'm going to work, if you look at how my kids hear me when I say I'm going to work, it means I'm going to open my laptop somewhere. Might be at an office, might be at home, might be somewhere in between.

• 16:26Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a fundamental difference in the way we perceive the languaging of it.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  I think it's a fundamental difference in how these different generations see the world.

• 16:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  And so, to fix work, we're going to have to really understand and fix the systems that are evolving from a noun to a verb.

• 16:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Jean, you even write that Gen Z is skeptical for the need for hierarchy in the workplace. You call this flattening. Explain what that is.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it goes along with individualism, just more focused on the self and less on others. It's been another big change in the culture over the years that shaped generations. So, in the workplace, it just means a lot less hierarchy. And we've seen this across many decades, that it used to be people would call their boss by their last name, you know, Mr. Jones, Ms. Patel, right? And now, it's, it's Mike or Priya, you call them by their first name. Sometimes you might even call them bro, if you're, if you're in Gen Z.

• 17:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, really?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Just much more casual. And we see this in dress.

• 17:27Oprah Winfrey?

  You call your boss bro?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 17:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. But you would call, some people call their bosses.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  My kids probably will. My kids call me bro.

• 17:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, all right.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  I am from San Diego.

• 17:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Explains some of it.

• 17:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it comes out in dress, too, that it used to be people would wear suits to work and really dress up to work. And then it was, oh, in the 90s, we had casual Friday, and now every day is casual Friday.

• 17:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  And again, for my kids, maybe people looking at them, I'm kind of wondering if in the future, people will end up at work wearing pajama pants. Maybe we're already there.

• 18:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I think we are already there.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And it also just comes in how people relate to each other, that it used to be much more common for bosses just to tell employees, okay, this is what you're going to do, and they would go and do it. And now, it's much more of a team mentality and much more of the manager working with people rather than ordering them around and talking more about why we're doing what we're doing and why it's important, rather than just, go do this because that's what I told you to do.

• 18:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, the baby boomers are pushing off retirement. And, you know, Congress is even considering raising the retirement age from 67, I hear, to 70. And today's college graduates have been described as trying to merge on a freeway and nobody is letting you in. So, I would like both of your reactions to that. What do you say?

• 18:54Speaker 05

  I think it's definitely a challenge today. We need to think about new systems, meaning more consulting options, you know, gig economy is actually growing. That's very attractive to Gen Z. I think it's also very attractive to, you know, maybe boomers that are ready to retire but don't want to step totally out of the workforce. So, I think there's a real opportunity to relook at some of these systems around this evolving perception of what work needs to look like for the future.

• 19:18Oprah Winfrey?

  So, how do you think this is impacting the younger generations?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, there's, there's some good news here. As boomers are a very large generation, many of them are retiring. That opens up a lot of opportunities for young workers. I mean, I think we really saw that a few years ago, right after the pandemic. It opened up a lot of those opportunities. It's just now the, at least, perception is AI is taking a lot of those opportunities away. So, there's a real reconsideration.

• 19:45Oprah Winfrey?

  There was a time when everybody was talking about quiet quitting their jobs. And now, I think the thing is job hugging.

• 19:54Oprah Winfrey?

  What changed?

• 19:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it's this era of risk aversion. You talk about the slow life. I think we're shifting from an era of kind of slow life, lots of friction, to a fast life with not much friction at all. I think it's why we're hearing about this, not a lot of grit from younger generations, maybe because they haven't had to develop it kind of in the same way. That is really going to have us rethink how we're looking at all of our systems.

• 20:20Oprah Winfrey?

  And so, all of the stereotypes about generations, we've had this for years, have we not, Jean? Everybody stereotypes generations.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Yes. But, I mean, that's one of the reasons I got into the field in the first place, looking at surveys where you look at what young people have to say about themselves, because then you're not stereotyping, you're listening.

• 20:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm. And what have you learned the most about the Gen Z'ers?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Oh, so many things. But if we're going to focus on work, some of those ideas around work ethic, that is what they say themselves. They are less willing to work over time. They're less likely to say that, that work is a central part of their life. They also are more likely to say that they want a job where they can help others.

• 21:02Oprah Winfrey?

  More likely to say?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yeah. And then that's because of what Amanda was saying, work doesn't mean to them what it meant to our generation or to the Gen X generation. It actually doesn't mean the same.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe not.

• 21:17Oprah Winfrey?

  We should ask them.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Jodi is Gen Z and moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion, and she works for a luxury brand and says, work-life balance is very important. Jodi, tell us why.

• 21:28Speaker 06

  Yes, so, work-life balance is very important to me because of the way that I grew up. So, I grew up in a Filipino immigrant family. So, they worked to survive and to support the family. So, work-life balance wasn't a priority for them. So, for me, when it came to my career, I had a dreamer mentality. I took a different career path than them. I moved from California to New York to pursue fashion and styling. Worked multiple jobs, including retail. Worked my way up the corporate ladder in luxury fashion. And it gave me stability to continue to build my business, but also still have that stable income. So work-life balance is really important.

• 22:11Speaker 06

  I set hard deadlines and hard boundaries between myself and work. And sometimes that may be perceived as like, I'm not working as hard, but I am.

• 22:23Oprah Winfrey?

  But come 5 o'clock, you're out.

• 22:25Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 22:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So I think this is so interesting because I have mentored a lot of girls from South Africa who were at my school. And now, I think, I don't know what generation they are. But anyway, I had one of my girls who started working as an architect, tried very hard to get a job as an architect right out of USC and got a job with an architectural firm here in New York. Really prominent architectural firm. Started working. Four months in, she's calling me about work-life balance. And I'm like, what the hell?

• 22:59Oprah Winfrey?

  What the hell? You got the job. There's no such, I mean, my generation, there was no such thing as work-life balance. And I think it's, we, this pendulum was way over on the other side and we swung too far. But the idea that you're supposed to have work-life balance when you first start a job is just a foreign concept to our generation. But you believe that is your right.

• 23:24Speaker 06

  I believe it's my right. I know there are certain times, like I'm not afraid to go ahead and stay later during busy times. But normal times where work is manageable, I'm off the clock.

• 23:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And don't call me on the weekends and don't call me past. All that.

• 23:39Speaker 06

  But I also do work in a.

• 23:41Oprah Winfrey?

  And how's that working for you?

• 23:43Speaker 06

  It's great. I love it. I'm very fortunate to work in a company that has good work-life balance. And most of us don't work on the weekends.

• 23:55Oprah Winfrey?

  That's great.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this is by far the biggest generational difference in work attitudes. When you take age and career stage out of the equation. So that work-life balance piece. So this is one of the biggest generational divides because there's a lot of baby boomer and sometimes even Gen Xer managers who look at this and say, that didn't exist when I was starting up. And when I was coming up in this job, it just wasn't there. And they see that, they see it as a lack of work ethic. Yet, Gen Z says, look, I want to have a life. I want to get enough sleep. I want to have mental health and wellness. And they have a point.

• 24:35Oprah Winfrey?

  They do have a point.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  You get that, you get that divide. And one place where the divide really ends up coming up a lot is the idea of a mental health day. So there's a lot of older managers who are like, you want a mental health what?

• 24:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Really? But then there's Gen Z who says, no, of course, of course, that should be completely acceptable, just as it's acceptable to take a day off when you're physically sick.

• 24:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah, yeah, I know. I had somebody who told me that someone in the Gen Z generation had said that to them. And they said, as the employer, the weekend is your mental health day. Yeah, which is the way we all grew up. So is, the reason why we have this divide is because there needs to be a shift in the way we, the older generation, thinks about the younger generation.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  That could be one way to think about it. Or it could be that both have a point and we have to meet somewhere in the middle.

• 25:29Oprah Winfrey?

  If one generation has expectations, the other generation doesn't care or thinks that your expectations are completely unreasonable, how do we ever find middle ground?

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we can find things that are the win-win solutions for giving the generation what they want in the short term. That's also good for them in the long term and for the organization in the long term. And there are, there are some of those solutions. Like more coverage for mental health care might be one of those examples.

• 25:58Oprah Winfrey?

  I know, but then I would be wary of the, you know, lots of people talk about mental health days. And mental health days for a lot of people is, I don't feel so good.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Right. And that's why, that's why those are hard. The mental health day piece is difficult.

• 26:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Bringing more attention to, so like, some companies are doing this cool thing where they give starting employees a wellness grant and they can spend it however they want. They can spend it for therapy. They can spend it to buy a better mattress or an expensive pillow or whatever will make their life better.

• 26:27Oprah Winfrey?

  So Susan is Gen X and was an elementary school teacher for 20 years. And she wrote to us saying, if you want to know what the generational divide is like, come sit in a public school staff meeting.

• 26:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, boy, I can only imagine what that's like. Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 06

  Well, you can tell the generations without even having conversation yet. The Gen X and the boomers will be in their corner with the stack of papers grading, heads down. And there was a lot of the millennials that collaborated and talked. And then at the end of the meeting, you know, the younger generation would have their hands in the air asking why we're doing this. And then you see like the glares like,

• 27:14Speaker 06

  because we're going to do this. You know, that was our way is you were told kind of what to do and we did it. And the younger generations of teachers are coming in and talking about it, talking about how we're going to fix the problems, especially with mental health. After COVID is where I saw the largest generational divide happen. Kids came in, the alpha came into my classroom and they are so used to being behind screens that normally when you say, let's get a partner, the kids want to get partners. And I was seeing 10 kids not wanting to have that peer interaction. They couldn't, they didn't know how. But the most interesting part to me

• 27:58Speaker 06

  was the adults don't know how to teach that. We were never taught to talk about our feelings or emotions. We pushed on. I'm just fine, I'm fine. When you're crumbling. And now these kids are in front of you and they're talking through body language, through reactions, through anger. And the older generations, we, and I told my students, I don't know how to help you, but I'm going to find a way. I told my daughter Madeline one day, I don't know how to mom you through this. I'm going to Google it. She said, did you just say you're going to Google it?

• 28:43Speaker 06

  I didn't know how to help her. That never happened to me. But I think that was so wonderful in my classroom was I gave them transparency and vulnerability. And they want that, but there's so many adults, we all know. We didn't learn how to parent. We didn't learn how to get through conflict.

• 29:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, one of the things I gathered from reading generations, generations, there is, there are distinct differences. And we, as the older generation, aren't prepared for a generation that actually grew up in this technological age of being on their phones and that. We just aren't prepared.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  No.

• 29:23Oprah Winfrey?

  We just aren't prepared. And so what are you suggesting?

• 29:26Speaker 06

  I really think there are some great social and emotional curriculum coming out. Teachers kind of white knuckle the book because when they're trying to teach these ways to communicate, they aren't used to doing it. So teachers are kind of famous for, if we don't know how, we're not going to do it.

• 29:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So we have to teach them. Haven't you found in those staff meetings or in general too? And certainly you have Gene in your, your writing that every generation is resistant to change.

• 29:57Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely. But in schools right now, it's crumbling. Schools are our future. And they're wanting to have a connection. They don't know how to make it.

• 30:11Oprah Winfrey?

  You mean the older generation with the younger generation?

• 30:14Speaker 06

  I even mean just the younger generation with their peers. Because they're behind.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Always on their iPad.

• 30:20Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:21Oprah Winfrey?

  And so they don't know how to connect.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  They don't know, they don't know how because they don't have as much experience. I mean, building social skills takes thousands and thousands of hours. And so the children are just, they're not having that experience growing up. They're not out playing with their friends outside in the way that previous generations grew up. They're not solving problems on their own, developing that resilience and toughness that came up earlier. It's just, it's not happening as much. And then it's not happening when they're teenagers because instead of the iPad, then they have the phone. And so again, and we know this from tons of data, they're not just hanging out with their friends, going to parties, going to the mall, any of these things, but just getting together with friends in person. Those rates have been cut in half.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  They're just not doing that as much as previous generations did.

• 31:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Because they're just on their phones.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  That's primarily what it's replaced. Yeah.

• 31:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Thank you, Susan. Well, last summer, you all might recall that the term Gen Z stare took off on social media. Who here has experienced a Gen Z stare? Okay. Okay. You want to explain to us what it is? I've never, I had never experienced it. I didn't know what they were talking about, but go ahead.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  The basic idea is often, you know, in some sort of like service interaction with someone, the employee will just do like this, kind of a blank expression as if, you know, we don't even, I don't know. I don't think the rest of us can really figure it out about what's going on with it. But that's what it usually looks like.

• 31:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So 18-year-old Demetrius posted this response on TikTok to the older generations.

• 31:57Speaker 06

  We have the Gen Z stare because most of y'all are just clueless. Can I have a cheeseburger with no cheese? Some customers make you question, how are these real people? It says, "Remove my card." Um, do I remove my card? Most of the time, it's us trying to figure out if you're being for real or not. Item says that it's out of stock. Um, do you have any more in the back? But they're somehow weirder than me ones.

• 32:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Demetrius, is it really that bad?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:27Oprah Winfrey?

  It's that bad?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, okay. What do you want the older generation to know about your generation?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  We didn't choose to grow up in such a digital, like, social media-based society. You know, this is what we were grown and raised into. So something that maybe the older generations might call insensitive, or even sensitive in some cases, is just a natural result of how we're experiencing our environments and whatnot.

• 32:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And so when you have those kind of encounters, what is the reason for the stare?

• 33:05Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm not saying for you specifically, but the reason that's become a thing is why?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  In social media, everything's fast-paced. We're, you know, we're so used to instant gratification, instantly getting scrolls, text messages. So we're used to fast-paced whatever. So when we're doing this stare, when something's slow or maybe confusing in real life, it's, it takes us a back a little bit. And so it takes us a second to kind of maybe buffer and kind of, and kind of figure out what is, what is going on.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Like, your brain is doing this, it's the little circle.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Literally, loading, yes.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Loading, yes.

• 33:44Oprah Winfrey?

  That is funny.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:45Oprah Winfrey?

  That is funny, you're taking a second to buffer.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 33:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Is it because you think the, is it, you think we're stupid? Is that, do you really think we're stupid? Or you're irritated, or what? The stare is like?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  A little bit of both, kind of.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Maybe not stupid, but a lot of the times, we're just...

• 34:10Speaker 01

  When we view work, we don't see work as something that's enjoyable. Especially with, now with social media, there's content creators, influencers, where they're making tons of money just doing whatever. That plays a really big role in how we view work as well.

• 34:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because the new aspiration is to become a TikTok influencer.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Right. Which is kind of like back in the day, you know, you played middle school basketball and you said, "Okay, then I'm gonna be in the NBA and make millions." And that, that's the problem with that dream. Only a very few can do that and really make a living off of it.

• 34:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  But that, that's kind of that, that new dream. And it, but it's true. It's like, it feels like it's winning the lottery and that you can just make all that money doing that. And there's data to back up that, too, that Gen Z is a lot less likely to say at the age of 18, they're less likely to say that they expect their chosen work to be satisfying. Because that had actually been going up from boomers to Gen Xers to millennials. Like, there's a lot of optimism. And then it just plummets. A lot more pessimism in general with Gen Z, but especially around work.

• 35:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you feel that?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:18Oprah Winfrey?

  You do? So your goal isn't to find a job that fills you with meaning and purpose? Or is it your, your, your goal?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  I think the issue is that the older generations, they maybe view work as working in a physical place, eight hours a day.

• 35:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Or as for us, we see work as something that's fun and enjoyable.

• 35:38Oprah Winfrey?

  That's exactly what Amanda was saying in her book, Work, yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  And content creating or influencing is probably the closest thing to that in terms of having a job that's both financially stable and also personally satisfying.

• 35:50Oprah Winfrey?

  But I'm like, if you're gonna live in a world where everybody's an influencer, who's left to be influenced?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 35:57Oprah Winfrey?

  After a while, right? I don't know.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true, yeah.

• 36:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Demetrius. Thanks, that was, that was a cute video. Let's talk about love and relationships. When the silent generation was in their twenties, seven in 10 women were married. So the silent generation, what, what generation is that?

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Born 1925 to 1945, so they were young in the 50s.

• 36:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, they were young in the 50s, and so seven in 10 were married. For Gen Z, that number has dropped down to one in 10. Elizabeth Wimpy is a self-proclaimed dating journalist and interviews singles in her hometown of Dallas. Let's watch these short clips.

• 36:38Speaker 05

  When was the last time a guy approached you? I literally can't remember. That's how long it's been. When was the last time you approached a girl?

• 36:43Speaker 07

  Honestly, never in my life.

• 36:45Speaker 05

  Normally, I, I do not approach men. I will smile and do like a little finger wave, and then that's, that's my approach. So you're not into boss babe?

• 36:53Speaker 07

  No, I just think that bossing a man around is outside of woman's nature.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  Are you on the dating apps?

• 36:58Speaker 07

  Reluctantly.

• 36:59Speaker 05

  How is that working for you?

• 37:00Speaker 07

  It's not great.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  It's just becoming too much of a slot machine. The gamification of dating, I was like, ah, this isn't going anywhere.

• 37:06Speaker 07

  If she's open to coming back on the first night, for me, that's a...

• 37:10Speaker 05

  Oh, that's a red flag.

• 37:10Speaker 07

  That's a red flag. I'm not close to it, it's just, it's not gonna be a long term for me.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Have you ever ghosted someone before? I have. Have you been broken up with? I've not, I've never been in a relationship. How's it dealing with 20-year-old men? Oh, it's rough out here. The bar's in hell. Terrible.

• 37:28Oprah Winfrey?

  The bar's in hell. Welcome, Elizabeth.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  Hi.

• 37:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, what is, why is Gen Z not dating, do you think?

• 37:35Speaker 05

  I feel like we're having an identity crisis. A lot of people don't know who they are. The comparison culture is rampant, and the dating apps is creating a really competitive...

• 37:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And the comparison culture is rampant because you're comparing yourself to everybody else on your screens?

• 37:49Speaker 05

  On the dating apps, yes.

• 37:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  And average-looking men are virgins later in life, like, till they're 30, because they're getting rejected all the time.

• 38:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the confidence is just not there.

• 38:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Is not there. And so when did you start to notice this happening?

• 38:09Speaker 05

  I, so I started, Elizabeth's on the streets, May of 2025. And as I've interviewed so many people, and that's the thing that's come up, is people just don't know who they are anymore.

• 38:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, well, how, how are people gonna know if they're on their phones all the time?

• 38:23Speaker 05

  No, exactly. It's just they don't know how to communicate, like you said previously. The, you said it takes hours for...

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Thousands of hours.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  Thousands of hours to develop social interaction. No one knows how to do that anymore. Like, approaching a woman is just weird now.

• 38:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And, and, and many, the, the guys that you were asking on there are saying they'd never had a date before. That's shocking to me. Was that shocking to you also?

• 38:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 38:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, a recent poll asked 100,000 college students about their sex lives, and 35% said they scrolled on their phones during sex. How's that working for you? And some even admitted to stopping sex to text their moms.

• 39:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Gene, what is going on?

• 39:10Oprah Winfrey?

  What is going on, bra?

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Addiction? I mean, that's what that feels like. I mean, that, that's so often the narrative that I hear when I talk. I gave a lot of talks at school, so from middle school students, high school students, even, you know, college students, even a lot of older adults say, you know, "I just can't, I can't, I can't put it down. I can't put the phone down. I can't close, I can't delete the social media apps." Because they're designed, they're designed to be that way. That's how they make the most money. And so they're gonna have that element of, "I don't really want to be on this thing, but I feel like I have to." It's very much an addict's narrative.

• 39:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. On the flip side of Gen Z, there's the boomers. And I hear that the boomers are partying. There's a, there, there's a reported rise in drinking, not with the Gen Z'ers, but with the boomers. And, and boomers are drinking, they're having sex, and they're having...

• 40:09Speaker 02

  They're smoking pot?

• 40:09Oprah Winfrey?

  They're smoking a lot of pot, and they're having sexually transmitted diseases, like gonorrhea has increased more than six times with boomers since 2010. So what's going on with the boomers?

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, the boomers had free love in the 1960s, and now they have free love in their 60s.

• 40:29Oprah Winfrey?

  That's what's happening with the boomers.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:35Oprah Winfrey?

  But, but how does that fit into the slow-life strategy theory? What, what's actually happening?

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I, I do think a lot of it is generational, that that's what boomers really pioneered. You know, they were the first generation to, to, to smoke pot at such a high level. They did drink a lot when they were younger. They did pioneer, in many ways, the idea of, yeah, let's have sex outside of marriage, and that's cool. So that has continued as they've gotten older, and they just, many of these things, they've seen no reason to give it up, just because they're getting older.

• 41:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, and we just recently did a podcast on gray divorce, how the greatest number of people who are getting divorced in this country are not people under 40, or people 40 or under 50 even, it's people over 65.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 41:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Because people are recognizing that you're living longer, "I've been in this marriage, not doing it for me, and I'm gonna go smoke some pot and have a good time." You know? Right?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  And hopefully not scroll on their phone while they're having sex.

• 41:34Oprah Winfrey?

  And not scrolling on their phone while they're... So for women of a certain age, I'm talking about boomers, Gen X, and now the elder millennials. I know you've seen the explosion on TikTok of the "We Do Not Care" club. Here it is.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Hello and welcome to our new and existing members of the "We Do Not Care" club. We do not care if our hair is thinning on our head and thickening on our chin.

• 41:58Speaker 06

  We do not care that we clean our cellphone screen by rubbing it on our boobs. It works. We do not care if you hear us talking to ourselves and occasionally answering ourselves, too. We are having a staff meeting. Leave us the hell alone.

• 42:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, Melanie.

• 42:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome, Melanie, head of the "We Do Not Care" club, Melanie Sanders. When did you realize you didn't care anymore?

• 42:31Speaker 03

  You know, I was sitting in my car one day, I had a hysterectomy. And with that hysterectomy came perimenopause.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  I was sitting in my car one day, and I was looking in the rearview mirror, and I just, I was, I was putting so much pressure on myself. And I, you know, you gotta go clean, you gotta go... You gotta go do this. And I just said, you know what, Melanie?

• 42:54Speaker 03

  You do not care much anymore. You gotta stop it. I am at capacity. That was the moment. I said, we do not care.

• 43:02Oprah Winfrey?

  And then, did you realize, once you posted that, that there are a lot of other people in that club?

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Oh, boy. I had no idea.

• 43:09Oprah Winfrey?

  I see the back row going. Members of the "we do not care" club. Really? Okay.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. Being at capacity, you know, is the pressures of, especially in the perimenopause, menopause space. Like, we're tired. And, Demetrius, you were saying, buffering? We call it brain fog.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  We can stand there. So while you're buffering and a little confused, we're standing there and we're just as confused. So that, you know, we're different. Our bodies are changing, you know? And we have to reprioritize our level of cares.

• 43:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And how has this declaration or affirmation of attitude, has it helped you? Is it working for you?

• 43:53Speaker 03

  It is. It really is because the pressure's gone. No more pressure. You know, I think we, all of us, you know, especially like with social media and all the different, you know, things, the comparisons and the judging ourselves, judging others. But when you just say, you know, I just don't care. You know, I, not in a bad way. Not in a bad way where you're being a mean girl or anything, but just really understanding that I am not the same girl I used to be. I don't move the same. I don't think the same. You know, things are different. And I'm not gonna put that pressure on myself anymore.

• 44:22Oprah Winfrey?

  I see everybody nodding behind you. So it looks like you spoke for a whole generation.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  She's being herself and being authentic, which is something that resonates a lot across generations now.

• 44:32Oprah Winfrey?

  So let's talk about family life. Pamela Liebman is the president of a real estate firm here in New York City. What are you seeing among the generations? I mean, most generations can't, I mean, younger Gen Z's can't even afford to buy their own homes.

• 44:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's a real bummer. And I think Gen Z gets a really bad rap as to why they can't buy. And it's so interesting. I've learned a lot today, just even hearing this. But, you know, back in 2007, 21% of home purchasers were first-time home buyers, right? I'm sorry, the average age was like 20, 27, okay? It was 21% of the market. Now, the average age is 40. 40 years old before you can afford to buy a house. And Gen Z, I mean, they're just coming out of a different situation. They're loaded with student debt. Prices are so high, so it's so hard to save money. There was a survey done. They said, if you could have one thing given to you, what would it be?

• 45:28Speaker 05

  And they said a 20% down payment for a home. So you just can't afford it. The rents just came out today in New York. $5,000 average rent. Median home price in the United States, almost $420,000. It's not a level playing field from where it was.

• 45:44Oprah Winfrey?

  So you have seen a trend, even in your working, of older versus younger people being able to afford homes?

• 45:53Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I've been in the business for a long time. And I remember someone could come out of school. They didn't have a ton of student debt. And they would be able to buy a house. Maybe they had a little help from their parents, but maybe they were spending $200,000 or, you know, a minimal amount of money. Today, to buy a studio, if you're living in one of these really expensive cities, for $1 million, you're buying a studio apartment. One of the saddest things for me, having seen this, is the American dream, a lot of wealth, is built on homeownership. And if you can't buy that first place and then sell it to get another bigger place and another one, you just never get to build that. And we've seen historically what's happened when people are blocked from doing that.

• 46:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Thank you, Pamela. Thank you so much. The Census Bureau has tracked a rise in three or more generations living under one roof. That's up since the 1970s. And this video went viral when a woman surprised four generations of her family with a home for all of them. Take a look at this. It's so great.

• 47:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome home!

• 47:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Alexis, that's great.

• 47:23Oprah Winfrey?

  So tell us, what made you decide to do that, first of all?

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, as a young person, I grew up living in the same apartment complex as my family. So we all had multiple units in the same building. And we would bounce around, having family meals every night, watching, you know, the big games and sharing holidays together. And so, you know, it was all fun during the day. But then, when it was nighttime, then it was time to retreat back to our individual units. And I just kind of felt, even as a young person, why are we not just all in one house doing this? And so, I made it a life goal of mine.

• 48:01Oprah Winfrey?

  I love surprising people. So how did you do it? What'd you tell them? Where were they going? Where did they think they were going?

• 48:06Speaker 03

  So my cousin, who was the one leading them into the house, told them that he was thinking about buying something that was a fixer-upper. Told them not to touch anything when they went in there. He kind of just scooped them up and asked them to come visit and see this property he was interested in. And so reluctantly, they were like...

• 48:25Oprah Winfrey?

  What?

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I guess, sure, we can go see it. But little did they know, they were literally on the way to their forever home.

• 48:32Oprah Winfrey?

  So how are all the different generations?

• 48:36Speaker 03

  It honestly is very great. And I think it, you know, is a bit different than most people would expect. I'm sure I'm in the minority of someone who's able to live and exist in one house with my family. But we have a close-knit family structure. Everyone kind of knows their place. Everyone has their own respective areas that they kind of own in the home, which is why it's important to have a larger home for these purposes. And everyone kind of has their own responsibilities that they manage.

• 49:01Oprah Winfrey?

  And how has everybody living together, has it helped everybody financially? Has it helped?

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think that, you know, the big thing for me, just the older that I got. At first, you know, as a young person, it was more so just, why are we doing this? Why are we all separate? But as I got older, I saw the financial opportunity that there was of like, okay, there's not multiple sets of utilities being paid. When you consolidate, you know, everyone wins on the back end financially.

• 49:28Oprah Winfrey?

  And everybody gets along and it's going along.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  And everyone gets along surprisingly. My brother's out there right now, grilling.

• 49:33Oprah Winfrey?

  That's great.

• 49:37Oprah Winfrey?

  So, all right, how do we make it better in the workplace? Amanda?

• 49:41Speaker 06

  In the workplace, I think we have to treat generations as prototypes, not stereotypes. That means trying to bring these groups together. They communicate fundamentally differently, right? One group is analog first. Another group is digital first. We have to get them talking together. When you prototype something, you keep what works and you help them iterate on what doesn't. Because I think a big problem right now is...

• 50:01Oprah Winfrey?

  But how would we, how do you physically do that? It's one thing to say, let's bring the two generations together.

• 50:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 50:07Oprah Winfrey?

  So as a Gen X'er, does she invite the Gen Z'er to lunch? Or does she, how does that actually happen in real life?

• 50:18Speaker 06

  I think it's about getting them to talk about norms in a new way. Because we expect Gen Z to just know these norms that we've all grown up with. But they don't always know what they don't know. So as we shift from this work as a noun to work as a verb, really giving them space to kind of talk about what normal looks like to them, what better could look like for all of us?

• 50:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so is it important for people of the older generation, the Gen Xers and the Boomers, and even now, the Millennials, y'all are getting older, to understand that the noun-verbal analogy is real for Gen Z'ers?

• 50:51Speaker 06

  I think it's important for everyone to understand. I think it's important for the Gen Z'ers to understand that noun-verbal analogy, so they understand their predecessors. And it's important for us to understand them so that we can have more dialogue.

• 51:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so how do you get along when you have expectations for the generation? And as Brenda was saying in the beginning, as an educator, those expectations are just not met. You don't follow the rules. You don't show up on time. You don't turn in your papers. You don't, so how are we gonna bridge that divide?

• 51:28Speaker 06

  I think we gotta name it to tame it. So we gotta call it out and make sure everyone understands how each generation see it. And then, I also think we have to kind of ask all of ourselves the question, do you want to be right? Or do you want to make change?

• 51:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 51:42Speaker 06

  And I think that's especially important for older generations. I gave a presentation earlier in the week. And I had a gentleman come up to me afterwards and say, where is the presentation for the Gen Z'ers? Like, this is all these ideas from the Gen Z'ers for us, but who's telling them what to do? And my response to him was, do you want to be right? Or do you want to make change?

• 52:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Got it. I like that. Jean, you end your book, writing about the future of the economy, religion, race, politics, family, and work. What's your hope for future generations, generations, generations, generations?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  I would say a couple of things. So first, I do have a lot of hope for Gen Z remaking the workplace in some ways that are really good, that should have happened decades ago.

• 52:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Like what?

• 52:27Speaker 02

  The mental health and wellness piece. I think especially bringing awareness to that. Bringing awareness to, hey, you know, we probably shouldn't be killing ourselves to work. We should have some more of that balance. We do need to preserve that mental health and wellness. And maybe we should also cover care for mental health, just like we cover healthcare for physical health, to bring those equal. The other thing that gives me hope is a lot of my fellow Gen X moms and others bringing attention to these issues around screens and phones for kids. So bringing forward the idea of no phones during the school day, bell to bell, which has really started to sweep the country.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  And then, the next avenue after that is...

• 53:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Even Demetrius is shaking his head.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. When it's instituted, even a lot of high school students say, this is great. Sometimes they're reluctant at first, but then they're talking to each other at lunch. And they're doing all things, they're playing cards. There, I went to one school where they were bedazzling things together at lunch. I was like, you gotta tell me what that is. That would sound really cool. But they're interacting face to face, developing those social skills, which they need to have.

• 53:41Oprah Winfrey?

  I think we have Jonathan Haidt to thank for a lot of that and the anxious generation. And also, what's happening, what happened in Australia?

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:47Oprah Winfrey?

  With the banning of social media for kids under 16.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And then, the next frontier is maybe we should not be handing kindergarteners iPads.

• 53:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Ain't that the truth?

• 54:02Oprah Winfrey?

  iPads is babysitters.

• 54:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Jean's book is called Generations and Amanda Schneider's book is Work for What's Next. And all three are available now wherever you buy your books. Melanie has a new book now called The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook and coloring book. Oh, there's a coloring book, too.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  It's coming.

• 54:24Oprah Winfrey?

  It's coming.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  I want to have coloring book parties all around the US. Then we just color and talk and forget what we're talking about and talk about something else.

• 54:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Thanks to all my guests. I'll see you next time. Go well. Thank you. If you are interested in learning more about how all the generations compare, compete, and connect with one another, get a copy of Jean Twenge's book Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers in Silence, and What They Mean for America's Future. Her research helps us understand how technology is the driving force between generations and explains what we can expect of each other in the future. Scan the QR code right there on your screen to buy the book. You may be surprised what you'll learn about the different generations in your own life. Amanda Schneider's book, Work for What's Next: Why Workplace Culture is Failing and How the Next Generation Can Fix It,

• 55:20Oprah Winfrey?

  explains how America's outdated norms in the workplace are holding us back and how to move past generational stereotypes. To buy a copy of her book, scan the QR code on your screen now. Melanie Sanders, New York Times bestseller, The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook: A Hot Mess Guide for Women in Perimenopause, Menopause, and Beyond Who Are Over It. It's available now. Scan the QR code on the screen to buy Melanie's book. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast.

• 56:04Oprah Winfrey?

  It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.