A Quarterlifer Making A Difference

“We answered the phone and they said, ‘Hello, this is the White House.’”
Sean Lafferty, 30

Not even Sean, a 1993 graduate of Evergreen High School, would have guessed that his company would get a call from the White House. But then again, Blue Sun Biodiesel is the exclusive fuel supplier to ten cities including San Francisco, Denver and Santa Fe.

It’s big business. True. It’s also environmentally conscious business.

Sean’s company doesn’t supply typical diesel. It supplies biodiesel.

What is biodiesel? Good question. It’s a plant based fuel that can be used in diesel engines without modification. It burns cleaner, increases power, and improves fuel efficiency. Plus it costs about the same as regular diesel.

Blue Sun also provides farmers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming with a guaranteed crop price and partial ownership in the company.

There is no doubt that Sean is a quarterlifer—person in his teens, twenties, and thirties—who is making a difference.

Have you ever wondered, “What difference can I make?” Whether it’s taking the bus or reusing your grocery bags there is always the question. “Is this really helping?”

Sean had the same questions. Long before the White House contacted Blue Sun to learn about renewable sources of energy, Sean was simply a guy who enjoyed the outdoors and wanted to preserve it. “Growing up in Evergreen with its progressive attitude and beautiful setting had an impact,” he told me.

After graduating from CSU, Sean took a job as an electrical engineer, but continued experimenting with alternative fuel sources in his spare time.

“Together with a friend we made a 55 gallon backyard biodiesel processor,” Sean told me. “It started as a fun project and then within the next year we had incorporated and launched the company.”

Today Sean lives in Evergreen with his wife and young daughter. He skis Mary Jane most weekends and works full time at his company during the week. Recently Sean helped open several retail gas stations including a new one in Golden.

Want to make a difference? Want to have an impact? Try starting out each day by asking yourself a simple question. “What can I do today to make the world a better place?” It may be as simple as recycling your cereal boxes or taking shorter showers. Remember all great causes start out as little projects. It happened to Sean and it can happen to you.

Upload Experience
All Rights Reserved 2006 Nasoj Publications, LLC

Jason C. Steinle the host of The Steinle Show talk radio and television programs, and author of Upload Experience: Quarterlife Solutions which is available at HearthFire Books and http://www.amazon.com/.

A Shotgun Start

Have you ever heard of a "shotgun start"?

It's a golf term. Instead of each player starting at hole number one, players spread out and start from different holes.

For quarterlifers--people 16-39-- life can be a shotgun start.

What do I mean?

Few of us start out in the job, town and position that we ultimately want to be in.

Right?

Instead we spread out and start in different positions and unknown towns.

It's understandable. We don't have the years of experience or extensive networks that open up job positions in our favorite cities and dream companies.

Instead we start where we can get our footing.

Usually this means that we either start with a entry level position in a top company or we take on a position of more reponsibility in a lesser known area and company.

In her article, Twentysomethings May Have To Move Away to Get Ahead, Emily Meehan discusses this. She interviewed several quarterlifers who moved from the comfort of their homes to new cities and companies in hopes that they will gain valuable experience that they could not find back home.

For some the experience they had helped them narrow down what they did not want to do in life. For others they gained practicle experience that never would have been learned had they not been willing to step into the unknown.

One trend that I've seen over and over is that quarterlifers who move away from home learn to trust their own abilities quicker. They learn how to stand on their own two feet.

It makes sense. When we move to a new area with no family or friends we begin making decisions that we never had to make by ourselves before. From renting an apartment to buying a car to cooking meals it becomes very clear that we must take responsibility for our lives or nothing will happen.

The negative side is that there is no safety net to fall back into.

The positive side is that we begin to experience first hand that we are capable of making decisions and living our lives. We begin to trust our own experience and don't feel the need to look outside of our selves for every answer.

This self-reliance builds self-esteem which in turns gives us the confidence to step further into the unknown and take on new job, relationship, and travel opportunities.

We all visualized a textbook lives for ourselves. We thought we would start one place and travel systematically towards our dream life. In reality life is a shotgun start. We may end up far from the place we thought we would be...but exactly where we need to be.

Send me an email and let me know if you are living, working or in a relationship that is not what you expected from yourself. What has been the good, bad and the ugly?

Send emails to jason@uploadexperience.com