How to Be a Grown Up: The 14 Essential Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed (Until Just Now)

A practical guide to adult life’s greatest mysteries that were never taught in school but should have been—including how to launch your career, find your purposes (for right now), invest your money, and much more.

Though twenty- and thirty-somethings are better educated than ever before, essentially none of the topics critical to being a full-fledged adult—such as how to get a new job, create a budget, file your taxes, face rejection, and navigate family dynamics—are covered in lower or higher education. Fortunately, here is a book that does just that.

From entrepreneur Raffi Grinberg, who lived and learned the hard way throughout his twenties, here is a crash course in everything you need to know to be a grown up. Based on his wildly popular “Adulting 101” course at Boston College, Grinberg firmly steers you through the basics of being a grown up using interactive chapters, bite-size nuggets of wisdom, humor, and stories from his twenties, including nearly going broke, having bad credit, disappointing his parents, and much more. As Raffi tells his students, “I want you to have a quarter-life crisis now so that you won’t have a mid-life crisis later.”

A MUCH-NEEDED BOOK FOR YOUNG Creator and teacher of the undergraduate college course Adulting 101, Raffi Grinberg crafted a foolproof curriculum that became one of the department’s most in-demand and highest-rated classes. Like his course, this book answers a need for young people who will inevitably discover that most of what they learned in school does not apply to their lives and that the things they need to know most were never taught to them.

TIMELY ADVICE FROM A TRUSTED This is not advice from your parents’ generation. Grinberg, now in his thirties, has recently faced some of the present concerns of people in their twenties. This life skills book helps readers unlearn outdated, unrealistic advice with guidance that reflects life’s current realities and opportunities.

OUTSTANDING GRADUATION The United States is facing a loneliness crisis, a mental health crisis, a debt crisis, and a crisis of meaning. This guide proactively teaches young adults fourteen essential skills to avoid these crises in their lives and make the most of their twenties. An indispensable resource and entertaining read, How to Be a Grown Up makes an excellent self-purchase or thoughtful present for birthday, graduation, college or grad school kickoff, or job-seeking encouragement.

Perfect high school and college graduatesParents with adult childrenFans of self-help and life skills booksAnyone looking to better manage their personal finances and career opportunitiesReaders of The Defining Decade, The Alchemist, What Color Is Your Parachute?, The New Psychology of Success, The Last Lecture, and The Unspoken Rules View Less