#UrbanYoungProfessional - Street Smart * Book Smarts * Common Sense

#UrbanYoungProfessional

Street Smart | Book Smart | Common Sense

What is a Urban Young Professional?

Urban Young Professionsals are emerging all over the country. We are individuals who started off in a deficit, individuals who come from humble beginnings. Urban Young Professionals are the individuals often thought to be dead or in jail by a certain age but instead broke the cycle. Urban Young Professionals are no different than the individuals who make up the majority of the prisons around the country.........except, we made a few better choices and avoided some close calls. We call it God's Grace.

Characteristics of a Urban Young Professional

Urban Young Professionals are if nothing else, Men and Women of God. And......Not only am I a Man of God, I am Street Smart, Book Smart and have Common Sense. I have yet to meet an individual in the workplace that possess all three, which is why I coined the term years ago after earning advanced degrees at a very young age. Like my days at Michigan State University when I was one of few African American Males in the classroom of 300 students and sometimes the only African American Male period, I developed great Patience-Persistence-and-Intellegence. Unlike our counterparts, the Urban Young Professional lacks connects (nepotism), people of influence to pull strings for them, so all we know is GRIND. These attributes are why we often scream Self-Made as Young Professionals...but like I said before, I am a Man of God and I know better than that. Ironically, God was preparing me for something. See, just like college, the workplace is much of the same. Typically I am one of few males, let-a-lone African American Males that has a professional job. And probably, the most difficult thing about being "urban" is that they don't understand my dialect, nor do they understand my experiences, which in turn makes them unable to make a connection to sound advice and/or suggestions given. But....(as they stare from a far)You present so well and carry yourself in such a way that, they can't help but be intrigued, if by nothing else, "How you ended up at the table with us." And it is during that moment, you let your light shine.

Urban Young Professionals can't fit in a box

If you have ever been to any of my speaking engagements, heard me speak or follow me on social media, then you may be familiar with my story: Product of my Expectations...not my Environment and how society expected and predicted I'd be dead or in jail by 25 but instead I had a Master's Degree by 24....Yea Yea...I get paid a couple of dollars to tell this story right now (which I am one of a very small group of speakers on the speaking circuit, that is actually paid to speak), mainly to colleges and high schools all over, but check this out...

Urban Young Professionals are too ambitious, self-motivated, driven and self-determined for the regular work place. God has given us too much to do to just work a "normal job" and thats why when I jumped of the stage with a Master's Degree, I founded my own faith based community driven nonprofit, Grand C.I.T.Y. Sports, Inc. I began to consult, mentor youth and other Young Professionals (mainly because I had no one to do the same for me) as well as speak. Typically Urban Professionals come from Urban Communities, so most guys I know are in Prison. So, in addition to the above mentioned, instead of getting t-shirts made with "Free So-n-So" I just go to the actual jail and talk with guys, pouring into them and making sure to instill hope. The moral of the story is Urban Young Professionals are here...Its a new day America.

* If you are a Urban Young Professional I would love to hear your story. Please share your story here and let it be a blessing to somebody who needs to hear it.

For more about Chris Sain and what he did to defy the odds visit his new Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/chris.sain.14?ref=hl

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