Host (Jeyan): Work hard. Get a promotion, work harder, get another promotion and climb that corporate ladder. That's the script a lot of us grew up with. But according to a 2025 study from Deloitte, that's not what some younger workers are interested in doing. The study found only 6% of Gen Z workers want to move into a leadership position. Instead, they want things like work-life balance, flexibility and mental health. They want to make money and find professional satisfaction. Sure, they just don't want to get burned out getting there. So what happens when ambition isn't the main character anymore? This is The Rundown.

At the Grammys this year, musician and producer Pharrell Williams told the audience, never stop grinding and never stop working. Stop doing anything else but working. And we're used to hearing that ambition is a good thing, that you should never be satisfied. But in life after ambition, a good enough memoir writer and broadcaster, Amil Niaz challenges us to look at our lives and accomplishments in a whole new way. Mièle joins us in studio. How are you doing?

Mièle (Amil Niaz): I'm good. How are you?

Host (Jeyan): I'm doing well. Congratulations on the memoir.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Thank you.

Host (Jeyan): From one millennial to another, I have to ask, how did the promise and the responsibilities of the millennial generation sort of shaped the ideas of ambition?

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Well, I mean, I'm so glad you brought up the Pharrell quote. I remember him saying that and me just thinking, no, no, this is exactly what I don't want to hear anymore. I mean, it's messages like that that I think, you know, you may recall having heard a lot as a kid, work hard, you know, sacrifice anything in your life in order to achieve your dream, even though only a handful of us are ever going to get that dream. But never stop grinding, never stop hustling, never stop working. And that's what I grew up with. That was the idea was that no matter your circumstance, no matter if you grew up in poverty, no matter if you were an immigrant, you know, no matter whatever life handed you, if you were willing to work really hard, sacrifice everything, hustle, grind, then you could have the American dream, you know, you could have it.

Host (Jeyan): All off is.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): The house. You could have a family. You could have two cars. You could have a cottage. You could go on vacations every year. I'm 43. I you know, I don't know how many of those things you have. I don't have many. I mean, I have a wonderful family and I have a great life, but I didn't get it following those steps. Right. And so I think that idea of ambition, as we were promised and very much interlaced with this idea of meritocracy that we were promised, I think has really exploded in our generation's lifetime. You know, we've lived through multiple financial crises. 9/11, I think, really culturally shifted how we looked at a lot of different things. So, yeah, I think the millennial dream went bust a long time ago.

Host (Jeyan): Well, let's talk a little bit about sort of I want to take it back to when with your family, we talk about the promise, but I want to talk about a little bit more of the realities being specific from an immigrant family. How did how did some of that make it difficult, you know, in terms of, I would call it the inside where you're at home versus what you were facing in the reality of your classroom, school, work and all of that stuff that you document in your memoir.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Yeah, I mean, I my I'm first generation to this country. So my family came from Pakistan. They didn't speak the language. They had very, very little money to their name when they came to this country. You know, a couple of my uncles were here, so they had the just the most bare bones of support. They left everything behind to come and have a better life. And that also meant that they were really spending most of their time trying to get set up right, trying to get a place to live, trying to get jobs, trying to figure out this very, very different bureaucratic system. They didn't really have that same energy to spend on helping us figure it out. Right. Like the kids of of immigrants often are just thrown to the wolves. And so we're many times not speaking the language either. But we, you know, kids, kids are not as welcoming as you would think to outsiders. As much as we we want to believe otherwise, you know? So I remember just feeling very lost, very confused and not really knowing where to turn to for guidance and for help. My parents were busy figuring it out for themselves, and I, as the eldest daughter was was kind of also the one to figure it out for my siblings. So I felt a lot of pressure. Sometimes I would have to help my parents navigate paperwork, of course, right?

Host (Jeyan): Yes.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Citizenship tests. I was helping them study. I was teaching them English while I was trying to learn it myself. And so when you're already taking on all of that stuff, it's really hard to then try and concentrate on your studies or yourself and figure out what is it that I really want, because I'm so busy trying to make sure that this vision that my parents had does not crumble once we're in this new country.

Host (Jeyan): Alright. Early in the book you write, ambition becomes a funny thing when it is blunted by inequality or used against you. It takes on a jagged shape, one that seems designed to maim anyone still hoping to grasp it. Yet for years, I still tried to grab on, inching my way up and across different companies, I took strategic pay cuts and job titles that included a lot more work with no extra salary, in the hope that ambition would somehow set me free. Let's talk about the workplace. How is the workplace on the way up the ladder, not aligned with what you were experiencing in life?

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Yeah. You know, I mean, I, I studied journalism in the hopes that.

Host (Jeyan): You didn't pick an easy.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): No, I did not. It was not the wisest. I mean, could could I have predicted that the entire industry would essentially collapse in on itself? No. I also picked it because it was sort of adjacent to my dream. Right. It was the like, kind of parental approved version of what I really wanted to do, which was right. Right. And I was in Vancouver. It was a very, very difficult time to be trying to find the kind of work that I was looking for. I could not get a job to save my life in the industry. I moved to Toronto and I finally did find something, and I was so excited. And I took that. That idea work really hard, put your head down, don't make a lot of noise, and just do a good job and you will climb up the ladder. Unfortunately, that's not the reality for a lot of, I think women, young women, women of colour, there are invisible barriers and we've started to talk about it as a society. You know, people had expectations of how much I could accomplish, and there was a sort of an invisible ceiling that where I just couldn't progress beyond it.

Host (Jeyan): I want to talk about something that must have been very hard to detail. In your book. You describe a horrific assault and then also developing an addiction. How did those instances derail what you were ultimately aiming for?

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Yeah. You know, it it was one of those moments in life where you I really felt I was like split into two. There was the version of me that had no idea that, you know, something that terrible could happen to a person. And then there's the version of me that has lived through it, and I have to decide if I'm going to come out the other side and how. And at the time, the only thing, the only constant, the only stable thing in my life that I could turn to was work. And so I just felt it was so important that I find a way to navigate something so tragic and and awful and life changing, while still doing a great job at work. I was terrified to let what had happened to me affect my career. I put it in the book because I think a lot of people go through that. A lot of people have these these tragedies. Someone I know, her husband just died and I'm all I could think about was, what is she going to do about work? You know, can she afford to take time off in, in this environment like, it's it's so sad. And I think you saw it in the pandemic. It was a life or death situation for so many people. And yet the biggest conversation a lot of us were having was about work. Could we keep our jobs? Could we keep going? Like, how do we keep making widgets? Even though many of us are afraid for our whole families?

Host (Jeyan): As you bring up the pandemic, I want to talk about what you were writing during that time. Tell me a little bit about how, during that pandemic, talking about the pain points, how that kind of work gave you purpose.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): In that moment in the pandemic. Pregnant with my second, having a toddler at home, my husband and I had just moved back from London. We didn't have jobs or or we were looking for jobs, and I was trying to work and parent and and take care of my like my mom was in the house as well and do it all in this super tiny space. And I felt like I was like my brain was on fire. And I did the only thing I knew how to do, really, in a time like this. And I wrote and I and I was out there first on just on social media, sharing what other parents were sharing. And editors started reaching out and saying, you know, this is very relatable. Will you write this for us? And so that it really became this, like cry for help. That resonated with a lot of people and that it did spawn. Ultimately, my column in The Cut, which continues now called The Hard Part, and it's spawned a lot of other viral pieces about just like what we were all going through as parents, as working parents, as new moms, because, you know, parenthood was so different. If you just had a baby in the pandemic, you couldn't really relate to anyone else because you weren't going to like drop ins. You weren't maybe even going to the park, right? You couldn't meet up with other people. You had no support system. And so, you know, I was going through that myself. And yes, I found a community of people. I found my voice, I think, in many ways. And it did it did create a kind of the book in itself, because that was where I finally figured out, like, this is what I have to do, this is what I want to do. And I finally, there's nothing to lose. Let's go for it.

Host (Jeyan): Let's talk about it in our last couple of minutes that we have here. In your book's epilogue, you write, so many times in my life I tried to run away from myself to be someone better. I pushed away the past and denied so many parts of myself to try and attract a type of success that I was told was the only one worth pursuing. I let poverty shape my desires. I let violence threaten my career. I let other people's idea of motherhood change my focus. Once I learned to embrace every single part of me, I found a story worth telling. Your story subtitle is a good enough memoir. How is Good Enough? A New Idea of ambition?

Mièle (Amil Niaz): You know, I think truthfully, for a long time it was something that I felt was very external, like, are you good enough to be here? Are you good enough to be a mom? And it was something that was being defined for you. And now I choose it as something I define for myself. I am good enough to be here. I am good enough as a mother because I love my kids and they're fed and they're happy and they're loved. And I think that that can be very empowering. You know, a lot of times this idea of mediocrity, it's it's shunned upon. And I think if we reframe it as contentment and satisfaction and like I said, redefine good enough for yourself. It can be very freeing. I feel the happiest I've ever felt the most satisfied in my career that I've ever felt, saying no and walking away when I feel like something's not right and and defining good for myself.

Host (Jeyan): That was beautiful. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Congratulations on the book.

Mièle (Amil Niaz): Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Host (Jeyan): Okay. We've heard all the expressions. Give it 110%. Put your nose to the grindstone. Go the extra mile. But what if you want a more well-balanced life? What if you're more focused on learning and development than career advancement? Those are the kinds of things a lot of younger workers are asking.

Tricia Williams: I just went through the biggest change in my life, which was leaving my corporate job with really no backup plan. I decided that life is too short to do something that isn't filling my cup, and to really take a risk and bet on myself.

Host (Jeyan): It just became a lot. I was burnt out. I was really burnt out and I was feeling very sad sometimes.

Tricia Williams: So after a lot of deliberation and a lot of back and forth with the HR and the company, I finally decided that it was time for me to move on and look for other opportunities, even though that meant that I will have to go through a period of uncertainty about what I wanted to do next.

Host (Jeyan): Tricia Williams is the Director of Research, Evaluation and Knowledge Mobilisation at TMU Future Skills Centre, and she joins me in the studio. How are you doing?

Tricia Williams: Thank you so much. I'm great. How are you?

Host (Jeyan): I'm doing well. I want to get your thoughts on that video that we just watched. We heard burnout. We heard the phrase bet on yourself. Uncertainty. Tell me, what are your thoughts when you see those videos?

Tricia Williams: Oh, when I see this, I see young people who are saying I want something different for myself and I'm going to pursue some opportunities. So I think they're they're saying that they want a better future for themselves. However they define that. And we know that young people, by and large, like I'm making broad generalizations here, generally tend to value quality of work very highly now, more so than previous generations. And that involves having flexibility, having pathways forward, and really saying, I want to create those kinds of opportunities for myself.

Host (Jeyan): The Deloitte survey, which looked at 23,000 Gen Z's and millennials and found that young professionals are looking for more authenticity at work, help us understand what are we talking about when we talk about the concept of authenticity?

Tricia Williams: The Deloitte study really parallels a lot of work that we've done at the Future Skills Centre, which was looking at quality of work, and we did a few papers that specifically looked at young people. And one of the things we find is that young people don't want to have value mismatch between their personal lives and their work lives. It's really so the word authenticity you said, I think, sums it up very well. It's looking for those opportunities to both make a living, but also make a life. And that involves things that like mental health supports or work life balance or being able to take time off. That's not just, you know, so many days off, but really feeling supported to do those things. And I think we saw those kinds of things come through really loud and clear when we did this research with young people that, you know, they were looking for ways to have that life that wouldn't just be, you know, putting in the time clock, punching their card in and getting a paycheque.

Host (Jeyan): Okay. With that being said, with how established workplaces are right now, how can they support those goals, those lofty what seem like for maybe for some companies or organizations that might be, I don't want to say stuck in the past, but how do they support their goals?

Tricia Williams: Yeah. No, it's really easy to say, oh my gosh, young people these days, they don't want to work hard, they don't want to do what we did. And you know, I'm guilty sometimes as a manager you're thinking, I want you to work, right? I want you to do these things. And yes, we can do all that. And so it's not either or. It's. And so I'd say, you know, one of the things I think we're in the midst of right now is a whole transition from a world in which, you know, we had a scarcity of jobs to one in which we have a scarcity of skills. And so I think, you know, more and more employers who want to access the skills that they really need to drive their business improvement, to drive their program delivery, to drive excellence. They're going to need to compete for those skills among the labour market. And young people have a lot of those skills. They have incredible creativity. They have ideas. They are AI natives. They are the highest group that is adopting artificial intelligence among any of the different groups we've surveyed. And I think businesses and companies that want to harness that will need to look at making some changes to entice young people. It doesn't always have to be difficult or expensive. So I mentioned flexibility whenever possible. So I know we're in an era of return to office mandates, but is there any flexibility around that? Maybe 1 or 2 days a week or even just say occasionally, we know you're going to need to work from home? If is there any kinds of flexibility on start times or end times, those sort of things like finding that flexibility and dynamism where you can.

Host (Jeyan): Okay. I want to have a better understanding of I'm going to quote a Toronto rapper, Drake, YOLO, you only live once. He popularized that phrase in the early 2010s. How much does quitting because of that sort of concept play into some of the decisions for people to quit?

Tricia Williams: Yeah, it's something you know, I've thought a lot about because, you know, like many people, I have young people in my life. I wish I was one of them. Sometimes I can't say that I am anymore, but I, I do see, you know, people talk about this with young people. Oh, they're just doing this YOLO life. What are the things I think young people are doing is saying we want a better social contract. Right. So yes, I will work. I will put time in to make my career. But I want to know, can I buy a house right when I do all that work? Or am I not even going to be able to afford a condo? Can I afford to go out to eat on the weekends? Like affordability is a key part of this. So I think, you know, if sometimes people are saying, look, I can't save, I can't buy a house, I am just going to live in the moment. I mean, can we blame them? You know, if you're going to do all of that saving and work so hard and you still can't get the life that you have dreamt of and that your parents have dreamt of for you.

Host (Jeyan): I want to talk about the job market is also different in that when we look at the options, the alternatives. Do we think that the younger generation perceive that they have more options available? I'm thinking, in comparison to you put that analogy of kind of putting in your punch card. Yeah.

Tricia Williams: Yeah. You know, it's it's funny because, you know, I would never want to be a content creator. I can barely post to my family and friends, but a lot of people do aspire to this. And I think, you know, the same way. Like it was hard to imagine 30 years ago that you could have a fully online business. Right? So new jobs get created with any kind of technology or, you know, era of development the same way some disappear, right? We might administrative assistants now can use AI tools and their role is changing. So when we say like is it a problem if young people want to be content creators? No. I think, you know, this is the new economy we live in. Do we think there's value there now? The extent to which it's a viable lifestyle, viable career, I should say not lifestyle. Is it a viable livelihood for young people in Canada? Well, I'd say that's a little bit less than other places. So you might be looking at young people in the US that have a much different monetization structure. Right here. You can't earn money the same way from views and clicks and so forth. So it is less of an option.

Host (Jeyan): All right. I want to bring back the survey. The survey found that Gen Z's are more focused on work life balance than climbing that corporate ladder. How can companies turn that attitude around?

Tricia Williams: Well, you know what? We did research on the quality of work. We really found that people were unanimously clear and that they want opportunities to learn and grow. Right. And this is great. We need that as Canada. We need people to be continually learning, not just early in their career, but throughout their careers, because, you know, technology is changing so fast and the skills we need. So when we say, do young people want to go into leadership? I'd say they might, but under the right conditions. So what are the conditions? Maybe you want to make sure your middle managers aren't burned out and aren't so overworked. Maybe they need to be supported more. This is famously something that middle management struggles with, right? And having been a middle manager myself, I know it's true. You get your squeezed in the middle. So I think, you know, young people are saying we don't necessarily want the deal that previous generations have accepted. And I think more than anything, that's a challenge to all of us to adjust.

Host (Jeyan): In a recent Maclean's article, you wrote, coming of age during an economic downturn can hinder a person's growth from a long time, even after the economy has stabilized. What does that mean for people starting out? And it's not necessarily just an economic downturn. If we look at where we are right now, I mean, we are a few years removed from Covid, but Covid had a lot to do with it. Climate is a big thing. A lot of people are very scared of that. When you package all of the things that are facing young people, how do how do you even start out?

Tricia Williams: Well, we did some research that looked at the long term labour market scarring effect that we called. And it really it's built on data from the early '90s, when I was a young person in the early '90s and people who graduated into a recession, you can actually empirically link a higher level of unemployment for youth with a lower wage level, even up to ten years later. So we're saying that there was a long impact of that when you graduated and the economic conditions in your longer term earnings, it took them ten years to recover from that. So what I think that does is, well, for one, I don't say that to discourage any young person now or their parents or family members who are concerned about them. But I do think it points to the need for some social policy interventions.

Host (Jeyan): Okay. Well, let's talk, well, let's talk about you've talked about this, what workplaces can do, but also governments. What can they do as well.

Tricia Williams: Yeah. And I mean this is where you know, we're in a in we're making generational investments, to use the government's words and the infrastructure of our country the same way. I think we need to be thinking about generational investments in the social infrastructure. So young people are absolutely critical. They are our future doctors and lawyers and nurses and and the people who are going to be taking care of me when I'm old and.

Host (Jeyan): Grey, you and I.

Tricia Williams: Both of us. So we need to make sure that we are facilitating their education, right? Their transitions to the labour market, and to make sure all of those things happen a little more smoothly than they do right now. So that involves, you know, making sure they have really good guidance and information to help make choices at that critical stage in post-secondary and secondary school about whether and how to go forward in post-secondary to make sure there's a variety of pathways available, whether it's the skilled trades, whether it's university, whether it's some other sort of program, and to make sure that they have, you know, appropriate tuition support, financial aid, all of those things. That's good for young people. But it's really important for us to to make those investments, to make sure that we have the workforce we need in the future.

Host (Jeyan): You make the sort of comparison to the old age security program to sort of what we can do is that when we're trying to think innovatively here. Yeah. How does that program, sort of what do you see from the benefits of that program to how it can help young people?

Tricia Williams: Well, if I think about when, you know, the Canada pension plan and the old age security programs were developed, they they came of age in the middle of the prior century when there was a real issue with senior poverty. And we still have issues with poverty. Right. But like, there's still a lot of retirees who face a, you know, a core plank of their retirement plan is making sure they don't get an OAS clawback. Right. And if people in my family who are in that situation and, you know, I think we we invest a significant portion of our assets as a country into supporting this group. Right. And I think we absolutely need to make sure it goes to where it's needed. But at the same time, I think there's a there's a group that we're not thinking of in terms of an economic imperative to support and invest in them. We think, oh, young people, they're not working hard enough. They just want to play video games. And by the way, video games is very good training.

Host (Jeyan): That is.

Tricia Williams: Very true. Very true. You know, the manual dexterity. So I do think we need to think creatively about the ways and how and which groups we invest in and see it as, as a moral imperative. And the same way in the post-war period, we, you know, senior poverty was a huge issue of concern for us. I think young people and their support needs to be a critical issue for us.

Host (Jeyan): We talked about Covid. We talked about, you know, generational investments in this country. From your research, what does the future of work look like?

Tricia Williams: I think the future of work is more human. To be honest. I think a lot of times we focus on the technology aspect, and I think we're going to learn how to get computers and machines to be really good at the automated things that machines and computers are going to be really good at. But the future of our work is this it's talking to people. It's engaging with them. It's a pharmacist explaining the medication to a patient. It's a doctor talking to somebody about their mental health or therapy supports. And so I think the future of work is going to be much more human and augmented by tools and supports and automation.

Host (Jeyan): Sounds like the future is bright for all generations.

Tricia Williams: I hope so, I mean, I have a nine year old daughter and I think, you know, what's her future going to look like? She, you know, and I think most young people, maybe their jobs have not even been created yet. And but I do think the future can be bright. But I also think we have to make sure we create those pathways.

Host (Jeyan): And we're going to have to leave it there. Tricia, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for your insights.

Tricia Williams: Thank you so much.

Host (Jeyan): I'm Jeyan thanks for spending some time with us on The Rundown. We want our show to reflect you and what you care about. What issues would you like to see us cover? What makes you tune in? Let us know! Go to TVO.org/rundownfeedback or leave us a comment on YouTube. Until then, see you tomorrow.