It seems like these days millennials are making things up as they go along. What is a millennial, you say? Well that would be the next generation. The generation of kids born and raised in the 90’s and 2000’s who are now in their early 20’s to early 30’s; that generation. That generation is 80 million strong and will make up half of the workforce in the US in 2020. While it is easy to have a critical eye for younger generations, we forget that just 6 years ago we were in a down spiraling recession and 20-somethings began to stay home, and guess what, they still haven’t left.

This is the kind of post-9/11 world that these kids grew up in and have known and they may not save like their supposed to or go off and leave the nest and get married like their parents. No, this generation is more likely to go to college, forego the credit card debt phase and stay at home to save money. They saw what their parents and older siblings went through during the Great Recession and the effect is that the next generation is frugal and doesn’t spend like their parents. They try not to live outside of their financial means and while that is great for them personally, it doesn’t help the economy very much. It is these slight differences that show how millennials are making headway into their careers all on their own; by making money not with a “12-step career” but with ideas. There are several examples of millennials making lots of money from this website or that product but here are some examples that might hit home for you and give you inspiration to forge your own path like a twenty-something entrepreneur.

This Buzzfeed article talks about the twenty-something “twitter Illuminati” that will tweet promotions/recommendations for companies’ products or services “for several hundred to thousands of dollars per tweet.” It all started out with fake or “niche” accounts geared toward amassing followers and retweets. Finally companies started noticing the popularity of these accounts and their holders and utilizing this marketing technique has paid off for both sides. In this Forbes interview, a college graduate wants to avoid the 9 to 5 grind so he taught himself something about a new, difficult app-building platform in a week and made $66,000 in one month by selling online courses on how to use the program at www.udemy.com. Want to know how you can earn tons of money and play games while you do it? Some people earn $10,000 per month or more playing video games by streaming game play as explained in this Market Watch article. Of course these examples are extreme and probably not the norm but they are examples of inspiring ideas and great execution and those are two things that should inspire greatness.

For more on millennials in the workforce and what can be called “the future of employment in the United States”, check out this 2014 Millennial Impact Report summary that was based on a four-year study of the next generation. Also, this report by Bentley University (carried out by Equation Research in September 2014) on millennials in the workplace states that millennials prize independence, not the bottom dollar or that corner office with a view and prime parking spot. Unlike previous generations, only 13% of millennials that responded to the survey included climbing the corporate ladder in their career goals. Fred Truffile, director of Bentley’s Entrepreneur Studies program, says that millennials are cautious of traditional career paths and skeptical of the success such pathways can bring. “Millennials see chaos, distrust of management, breaking of contracts and bad news associated with business. They’ve watched their relatives get fired and their peers sit in cubicles and they think, ‘There has to be a better way’.” The best part about that recognition is they are resolving their problems with traditional careers in inventive ways with creative ideas. That will keep them going; that will change the game. Maybe it already has.