While there's no magic formula, young Chicagoans in high places say good mentors, positive attitude, willingness to work every waking hour and humility are among the secrets to their success.

 

That's not exactly groundbreaking insight, but it bears repeating as job dissatisfaction rates sit at 35 percent, according to a survey published this year by salary.com, with Millennials reporting the most job dissatisfaction (65 percent).

Jeremy Ulmer, a Chicago career coach, said he gets a range of clients, from recent college graduates to CEOs, who are seeking support or looking for a sounding board in order to be more effective, attain higher leadership roles or get a lift out of the quicksand of their stagnant careers.

Sometimes, he said, it's hard for clients to answer the most important question of all: What is it that you really want?

"If you can find what you love to do, it doesn't even feel like work," said Ulmer, 32. "When you're that passionate about it, the likelihood of success is 10 times greater."

Talking to young Chicagoans with impressive career paths, passion is the common ingredient.

"It's about love," said Eboo Patel, 33, who recently was appointed to the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Patel founded the Interfaith Youth Core when he was 22 and continues to spend "every spare moment" working on the nonprofit, which brings together young people of different faiths for community service projects to highlight the goodness of religion.

Patel ran the organization with no budget for four years, working as a professor to make a living, before he got his first grants for the Youth Core, totaling $100,000. This year, he said, his budget is $4 million.

Of course, love isn't all you need. In Patel's case, a prestigious Rhodes scholarship and substantive knowledge of religion and foreign affairs helped win him supporters and funding because they allowed him to smartly and seriously convey his vision.

Mentors also are key.

Alexi Giannoulias said his decision to run for Illinois state treasurer at 29 was cemented after he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of President Obama, an old basketball buddy of his.

"It was seeing his ability to inspire people and bring ideas to the table, and just the fact that an incredibly intelligent person could overcome the odds and become a U.S. senator," Giannoulias, now 33, said. Giannoulias announced this year that he is running for Obama's Senate seat.

Though some people at first expressed skepticism about his age, Giannoulias said, ultimately what voters cared about was what fresh ideas he could bring to the table.

"They're more interested in how you can make their lives easier and better," Giannoulias said.

Aaron Schock, a 28-year-old U.S. Republican congressman from Peoria, raised eyebrows when he made his first foray into politics at age 19. Dissatisfied with some of the decisions that the Peoria School Board was making, including a rule prohibiting students from graduating early, Schock campaigned to be a school board member.

He encountered resistance. Several board members successfully challenged his petition signatures in court and had him thrown off the ballot. In response, Schock knocked on all 13,000 doors in the district, campaigning as a write-in candidate, and won.

Schock said his age hasn't been much of an issue since then because, with eight years of experience under his belt, he's proven himself to be serious, hard-working and effective--though TMZ did make him famous for his six-pack abs when it posted a photo of him in his bathing suit, and GQ features a photo spread of Schock in its October issue.

He says it's important to stay humble. "If you're willing to stop and say, 'I don't have all the answers, what do you think of this,' you can get a lot of advice and save yourself some headaches," Schock said.

Janice K. Jackson knew she didn't have all the answers when, at 26, she was named principal of Al Raby, a small public high school she helped found on the West Side.

Originally intending to be a college history professor, Jackson was teaching at Chicago Public Schools while getting her master's degree when she grew disheartened by how the school was run, and, at 24, assembled a group to apply for a grant to found the new school.

Though some district administrators initially resisted her appointment as principal, saying she was too young and inexperienced, supporters impressed with her leadership during the grant process lobbied on her behalf, Jackson said.

"If you get complacent doing one thing, and one thing well, then you're not going to progress," said Jackson, 32, who lives in the South Loop and recently started a job as principal of the new Westinghouse High School, a hybrid of a selective enrollment college prep program and a college and careers program that at capacity will have 1,200 students.

Being young in a leadership role has its advantages: more energy, fresh ideas, an ease with technology, and, for those without a spouse and kids, the ability to commit long hours. But Jackson said there's also more pressure to do well.

"You have been given a lot," Jackson said, "but a lot is expected of you."