Jamil Hasan
I am a Gen Xer, U.S. citizen, born in New Jersey, in 1971. I am 50 years old today. I grew up during the strong nationalism of Ronald Reagan. I was heavily persuaded by the Cold War with Russia. At one point during my life, I wore parachute pants and showed up to school with Big Hair. My favorite 80s shows were Miami Vice and V, and my favorite movie was Clash of the Titans.
Over the years I became a loyal corporate warrior and spent years “in the trenches” doing all the grunt work no one wanted to touch by building databases, data warehouses and organizations, and contributing mightily to the repayment of the $180 billion bailout of AIG to U.S. taxpayers. I spent 12 years at AIG companies. Overall, I built efficient data intelligence infrastructures for two decades. I thought I was bullet proof as far as my career. I was wrong.
Last decade, many of us Gen Xers were laid off from Corporate America. Many layoffs were not announced in the news, rather, they happened secretly, unannounced, under the radar. While I cover this phenomenon ad-infinitum in my 2020 book “Re-Generation X”, historical evidence can easily be found on www.thelayoff.com.
While many in my generation cohort were laid off and either sidelined for good, or who quickly became members of the gig economy, I have since experienced a triple whammy. I applied for tens of thousands of jobs at companies where I would be able to leverage my hands-on, corporate data skill sets, but received no interviews. At the same time, I witnessed swarms of boomers walk into the C-suite, exclaiming “Data is new!!” and getting amazing C-suite high-paying jobs … without any ounce of data experience. They were only half-right. Data was new. To them. (It actually takes ten years to make qualified business inferences using data insights, so they’re still not qualified to be there, btw.)
Seeing that corporate path was closed to me, I joined the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry in 2017, where I built and quickly lost a consulting practice, and wrote a handful of books that have since resulted in minimal sales and tens of thousands of rejections to speak about them.
I have been able to grind the build of a crypto portfolio. While most of the world is not profitable, I have been to a small extent. Not homerun money. Not even base hit money. Rather, slow, grinding money, filled with amazing lessons along the way. Turning $1 into $1.01, an hour at a time, for example.
And since the beginning of 2021, I have been a freelance podcast host in cryptocurrency industry for an Irish news publication, interviewing founders, entrepreneurs, and artists around the globe. I’ve also interviewed quite a few people from Ukraine where I have investigated the disconnect between the media narratives by mainstream media here and the reality of the relationship between Ukrainians and Russians over there.
One crypto lesson, and probably most important, that I have learned is that Crypto is for the 99%. Not the 1%. It’s for the people. It’s for those who have not been favored, instead of those who have an elite “pedigree”.
Banking the unbanked, (or in the USA, Un-banking the banked). Identity for the unidentified. A voice for the voiceless. That’s where I come in. A voice for the voiceless. Letting my Gen Xers who have been sidelined know that their thoughts of being a Gen Xer don’t have to only be just 1980s nostalgia any longer.
The media, governments, and existing establishments would love for you to believe otherwise. Don’t be fooled. Certain U.S. institutions are not our friends.
There’s a lot of unethical behavior by the existing system against the crypto communities. It’s fear based. The existing system that people are fighting desperately to preserve is fully against those sidelined by corporate greed but who are looking to re-establish their careers. Against artists and collectors who are now making money for the first time. Against those who are looking for a better life and still desire to live the “American Dream”.
But there’s good news. I have this platform and for Gen Xers who have a story to share, you will soon be able to leverage this platform too.
I also have written a few books on Blockchain Ethics. And, I promise that I’m bringing Ethics to Washington. My books are available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle.
