Steinle helps his fellow quarter-lifers find answers
By Bill Cissell
December 3, 2005
Editor
After graduating from Minnesota’s Northwest Chiropractic College in 2001,
Sturgis native Jason Steinle found himself in
Evergreen, Colo., a town of more than 40,000 people on the outskirts of Denver.
Steinle was alone, no family or friends nearby, and
with a host of unanswered questions about his future, and life in general.
His first big question was how, as a newly graduated chiropractor, he would
open his own clinic in the affluent community where the average home was
between about $350,000 to almost $500,000.
“Before, I could always go back home or back to school. I always had friends
and family around. I knew what was expected of me n what I had to do to get an
‘A’ or a ‘B,’” Steinle said.
“I was doubting whether I could make it n if I was
going to be able to open this chiropractic clinic I wanted, if I was going to
be able to pay back the debts I owed, pay my rent,” Steinle
said.
Steinle decided to call some successful chiropractors
he had met during the past few years to find out how they got their start.
One of his contacts told him to start doing evening talks about his field.
Through those evening talks, Steinle met a radio talk
show host who had been in the audience.
“He asked me to be a guest on his show, and that launched my own radio show,” Steinle said.
Following a number of these radio shows, and after talking with authors and
professors n guests on his show n Steinle said he
realized that he had a lot of insight into many of the question running through
his mind when he first arrived in Evergreen.
“Then, I wondered, do other quarter-lifers (Steinle’s
name for his peers, people in their late teens to early 30s), have these same
questions,” he said.
Calling back to Sturgis to a couple friends, with whom he had shared thousands
of conversations with over the years but, “suddenly I was asking them the
bigger questions n ‘how do you find your purpose?” ‘How do you know you are in
the right relationship?’ n and they had pretty insightful things to say,” Steinle said.
Following those conversations, Steinle wrote an
e-mail survey that he sent to friends and they sent to friends, who, in turn,
sent it on.
“Pretty soon I was interviewing quarter-lifers from around the nation,” Steinle said. He said he selected the top 30 questions, and
those became the outline of his book.
Steinle released his book, “Upload Experience: Quarterlife Solutions for Teens and Twentysomethings,”
earlier this year through Nasoi Publications. It is
available at Borders and online at www.uploadexperience.com
Steinle said he learned that he was not alone, that
every quarter-lifer he talked to had the same or
similar questions.
“It has opened my eyes to what is possible, out there, as well,” he said.
He said he has received e-mails since the book’s release from people that have
told him his book had a positive impact on their lives.
“That’s pretty fulfilling to realize that, ‘wow, something I created’ has had a
beneficial impact and helped other quarter-lifers as they enter the real
world,” Steinle said.
Asked if these questions about life and the future were not the same as any
past generation, Steinle said many were but there is
substantial difference as well.
“People are competing for jobs on a global scale, communications are more open
because it is cheaper, barriers do not exist, and our generation gathers online
instead of the church basement to plan activities. That’s why the membership of
organizations such as Kiwanis and Rotary are declining,” Steinle
said.
Steinle said that now, after being out of college
five years, he has been around long enough to realize, “You don’t need all of
the answers, today. Quarter-lifers put that additional stress on themselves.”
Steinle said another big difference quarter-lifers
face is the lack of company loyalty.
“They have watched their parents work for the same company for years and then
be laid off a month before retirement,” Steinle said.
He said young people are also waiting longer to be married to make sure they
have the right partner n after watching many parents divorce.
Steinle is a 1994 graduate of
Steinle said, with a laugh, that when he picked up
the first run (1,000 copies) of the book, “I thought, ‘That’s a lot of books.”
I joked with friends that ‘I’m going to be giving these away for Christmas and
birthdays for a long time.’”
Steinle said sales have been going well, and he has
ordered a second run of another 1,000.
His book has won several regional writing awards and he said that every time he
does a book signing or has something published about the book, he sees a spike
in sales.
In addition to maintaining his chiropractic practice and writing, Steinle also continues with his radio show and a television
show.
He is the son of Wayne and Jan Steinle and has two
brothers; Nathan, who is a doctor and doing his residency in