Tell me a little about yourself.

My name's Cleavon, but everyone calls me Clay. I'm 29 and turning 30 in 3 days. I'm currently living in Queens. I spent seven years in Syracuse, NY for school (undergrad and grad). I was born in Brooklyn, so I'm a NY kid through and through. I lived in Brooklyn till I was 10, and then my parents moved to Queens after they bought a house. My parents moved to the US from Guyana in '83. I'm the fourth out of five kids. All of my older siblings were born in Guyana; I was the first one born in the states.

Do you feel like a there's a cultural gap between yourself and your older siblings?

There is a gap in that they share memories of Guyana that I don't have. Also, my sister is 7 years older than me so there's a bit of an age gap. If you were to group my siblings, there would be the 3 older siblings, and then my brother and I. I was the first American citizen in my extended family.

You mostly grew up in an urban environment, then?

Yep, I grew up riding buses and falling asleep to fire engines. After I met Carmen (my wife) in college, the first time I went to her house in Ohio, I couldn't sleep. I was used to the sounds of the city, and getting rocked to bed by a fire engine. Where I lived in Queens was more residential, but it wasn't like I was ever secluded from the city. I went to high school in Jamaica, Queens so I was never separated from big city life.

What do you do right now, and how did you get there?

I'm a manager at a large technology consulting company. After getting my MBA after college, I just wanted to get any job to get going. I went to a career fair and interviewed with the company. After a few months, I got an offer. I've been with the company since. I've also interned for TJ Maxx company as a distribution center supervisor during my MBA. I managed a team of 20-30 people in Pitston, PA. It was in the middle of nowhere with tons of warehouses and a lot of open space.

What made you want to go into business?

I was interested in tech since I first went to college, which is why I have my undergrad degree in Comp Sci. I tend to have grand ideas that sometimes don't come into fruition. I wanted to build video games or make an OS — I realize how ridiculous that sounds now. I was really good at engineering in high school; math and science came naturally to me. I just kept going with it in college. Funnily enough, I failed Computing 101 in college. Somehow I work for a tech company now and got a degree in Comp Sci. (That C programming!) After that, I decided tech was cool but I didn't love it, so I wanted to try something else. I wanted to try marketing because I was good with people, so that interested me and made me want to apply for an MBA right after. Everyone says that having an MBA with a tech degree is so money, everything will fall into your lap. I studied entrepreneurship and marketing, and I ended up really liking it. It helps me think outside the box for every solution, allows me to be more of a thinker.

Did anyone influence these decisions?

Not in particular — I just did whatever I decided to do. I always had support from my mother and from Carmen, obviously. I'm a person who believes in going with what you're passionate about. I'm a firm believer that if you do what you're passionate about, work isn't work. If you're in it for the money, you won't feel fulfilled. But obviously, there's a sensible side of it. I went into school with a lot of student loans, so I knew that I couldn't do something that was unemployable. I had to find the next best thing that paid the bills but kept me sane. Tech consulting was the perfect blend for me. On a side note, having the tech side helps me on these calls even though I'm a business lead.

Tell me a bit about your family and how you grew up.

I have a big family. I grew up with 4 siblings, which was amazing. They're dreamers, doers — they're a great group to have around as support. We have a bit of an age discrepancy in that my oldest brother is 15 years older than me. He turned 45 today, but doesn't look a day older than 30. He's 18 years older than my youngest brother. They're very supportive and fun to be around. We have our typical sibling relationship where we pick on each other, but when all 5 of us get together, it's like a different feeling I don't get from anyone else. They change hats between being role models and friends when necessary. There have been times when they've had to sit me down to make sure that I don't do something stupid, or let me know they support me. And then next thing you know, we're just kickin' it and playing video games together.

My sister and one of my older brothers both lives in Queens where my dad lives now, but my oldest brother lives in San Francisco. My youngest brother lives in Boston. We're not a big communication family. All of our conversations are pretty short, usually because we need something, so we don't really chat just to check in. It's not bad - it's just now we work. Every once in a while, we'll hop on a Google hangout. With siblings, catching up feels almost like maintenance, whereas catching up with friends feels more like catching up with what's going on in their lives. When we're together for the holidays though, we're always chatting it up.

I have never had the desire to be a single child. In fact, I've had to tame my estimates for how many kids I want myself. When Carmen and I first got together, I said that I wanted 5 kids. We've compromised to 2, maybe 3 right now. I'm not a typical "younger brother"; we're all different in our own ways, based on our experiences. My oldest brother is a bit of the brain behind everything. He got good grades and is working for a hard drive company in San Jose. He wanted to start his own consulting company and now he works at Dell. He's very knowledgeable about the world. He's the "older brother" older brother, if anything, and he plays that typical role. My second brother is more of a visionary and a creative. He went to engineering school for practicality but decided he wanted to go into fashion. He wanted to start his company and did a few runway shows, and is really into entrepreneurship now. My sister is definitely more practical and is business-savvy. She works for the city of NY at the moment. She's got a daughter. Then there's me. I don't typically play the big brother role, maybe sometimes to my younger brother.

So, everyone knows you're a humongous climbing fan. How'd you get into climbing?

2 years ago, it was a Valentine's date with Carmen. It's crazy that I'm obsessed with it, since it's the most recent thing in my life, more recent than my marriage or my job. The only more recent thing than that is my promotion. We were on a cruise ship to Bermuda with her family. I got on the climbing wall, scaled the thing, and thought it was awesome. Carmen got up the wall barely, freaked out, and then came down. That was 3 years ago.

2 years ago, I said, hey, want to conquer that fear? Let's go try it out in Brooklyn as a date. We both really liked it. We took a lesson, and learned how to belay each other the first day. Then I got bit by the bug. It started out as "This was cool, once a week is fun," but one thing led to another and now I'm addicted.

I climb on average twice a week, but I'd like to climb three times. I probably spend 9-10 hours a week, 3 hours per session. I could easily spend all day at the gym. I've done days where I got in there at noon and hung out till 7pm. I don't ever notice the time, and it's become a big passion of mine. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and problem solving. I look at it on a different level. It's not just a physical activity; it's so mental and community focused. Your friends are there, and you make friends so easily when you're climbing, since people are cheering you on. If I see a person working on a problem, we talk and then I end up cheering them on. When they stick the move, we become climbing buddies. I'm actually going to the climbing gym after this interview.

Tell me a little bit about how you met your wife. You may have seen some articles recently about college being more of a "hook up" scene. Was Syracuse a school where relationships were common?

After high school, I joined this pre-college summer program that let us get credits early before school started. You get to understand the campus a bit, live in a dorm, and get the whole college experience without all of the college kids. I met her in July of 2001, a couple months after I graduated. We were back and forth — she was cool, we liked all the same things, we were both really into track and field (she was captain of her team; I was on the team). We became really good friends at that program, and started dating in October. I don't think Syracuse had a rep either way in terms of relationships, but we just stuck it out.

Was it smooth sailing the whole time?

No, we argued all the time. We broke up a few times, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. During those times, of course I thought about it but ultimately she was always the one I wanted to talk to. We got engaged in May of 2006 - I just finished my first year of my MBA. She was graduating in her degree in communications that year.

Did you make a conscious decision to marry early in your twenties, or did it just happen naturally?

I was with her for 7 years, so it kind of just happened naturally. When I went into relationships, my thought was "I'm going to try to make this work". I'm not going to invest energy and emotions in anyone I didn't see a future with. My perspective happened to align with hers. We couldn't get engaged any sooner, so the second I had some money I bought a ring.

Do you think our generation tends to push back marriage to the detriment of relationships with other people?

New Yorkers think we got married too early, but Ohioans think we got married too late. I was 22 when I was engaged. All I needed was the money to buy her a ring.

What advice would you give to people in their twenties about marriage?

The advice that I got from my dad was that I'll pass on to my kids is that love is a choice. I don't believe that love is an emotion; it's not an extra thing that you feel. It's a decision you make to choose to love that person. When you make that decision and trust them to make that decision for you, then everything falls into place. Carmen and I tend to operate on a principle that states that if you take care of me and I take care of you, then everything will fall into place. It comes with a lot of trust. That's how we've operated as a Christian marriage, and that's what I think has contributed to the success of us so far. We just hit 5 years.

What's the best thing about marriage?

You always have a date. Weddings, parties, no stress! And if you marry your best friend, it's cool because you have a ton of fun and have silly conversations. We were best friends first before we started dating, and we're still best friends. It's always good to have someone who you know have your back.

How did you get out of the Friendzone?

From the beginning, I thought that I could date Carmen. The Friendzone is a tricky thing — navigating it is like flying through an asteroid belt. I was pretty persistent about us being friends and hanging out. We were good friends and just kept hanging out, so why not date? She's the wholesome Ohio girl and I'm the New York guy. We still celebrate the day that we started dating.

What's the biggest difficulty you've faced in marriage?

There will be times when you won't see eye to eye. You have to decide whether to try to fight the issue and get them to see, or let it go. That's one of the hardest things for me, because it's hard to just let it go. In the end, you have to decide, is it worth it? We care about each other's feelings, so we need to compromise out of respect and love for the other person. We're both kind of stubborn.

A big problem for our generation and especially in New York is the pervasiveness of options — do you think it takes a certain mindset to settle down, or a certain person to be better than any possible option?

The planets need to align on both of those. It does take a certain person — you won't want to settle down with just anyone. You want to settle down with someone who can understand you on a whole other level. At the same time, you have to be mature enough to realize what you want for yourself. A lot of relationships don't work because there's a disconnect between the two in what they want, even if they're compatible.

Were your parents together growing up, and do you think that impacted your views?

It did. I wanted what my parents had. They had a loving Christian marriage with 5 kids and I wanted to have that. It contributed to exactly what I think a family should be. No one in my family is estranged, and it strongly contributed to my views on marriage and family. The two parties have to agree on how they view a family is. They can even be more excited because this is something they have control over, whereas as a kid they had less control on how their family was shaped.

Looking back to when you just turned twenty, what did you expect out of this decade?

I entered into freshman year as a 17 year old, since my birthday is late in the year. Junior year in college, I turned 20. Heck, I was just trying to get through college. In junior year, I think I knew I wanted to go into grad school. I wanted to stay with my girlfriend, get through school, and didn't have any big goals. I was honestly taking college one day at a time, soaking it in. I was very active. I was a radio station DJ, I was an RA, worked in Security, was a big part of ORL (resident life), and just wanted to stay active. Junior year, I started to turn around my education. I was definitely lazier freshman and sophomore year, but I really focused as an upperclassmen. I didn't really have a rebellious streak; I wanted things like a house and kids. I wasn't thinking as creatively as I do now about how to get to those things. Back then, it was just graduate, get a job, etc. I'm not as fixated about doing things in a particular order.

How did you define this notion of success/"making it"?

Since leaving college, my notion has changed. Before, I used to think in college that success was about the end goal. It's interesting because I think a lot of people have the opposite view. Now I think success is whatever you want to make out of it, whether that's a job, travel, or something else.

Did you ever have a "now what" feeling?

Nope, never had that. I went straight to grad school. In grad school, I knew I'd work for a consulting company because I didn't want to do the same things over and over again. I went in with the mindset of wanting to travel and work with different companies. I never had a moment to really think of what I wanted to do with my life. Maybe now I feel more that way. I might not want to stay in consulting forever. My wife and I were saying that I know I want a piece of something that I can own.

A lot of people in their twenties struggle with life direction. Do you feel like you found it? If so, how did you?

I didn't struggle with life direction at all. I never had parents that said I had to have a specific direction, which might be why I never struggled with it. It's a little counterintuitive. They would've supported me no matter what decision I made. I could've moved to California, Ohio, etc. I didn't have an issue with direction because I had a lot of options and had their support to do whatever. I never had an end goal, I just saw where it went. My philosophy in everything is make a decision and stick with it, so I haven't yet had to think "what if" for anything. I believe that you have to make a decision. Before I got this current job offer, I had another interview with Microsoft scheduled. I'm pretty sure Microsoft would've taken me, but I made a decision because I knew that Carmen wanted to stay closer to her family and Seattle is far. Carmen is also very family oriented. The "other choices" have never really kept me up at night. I don't have any need to know what it was like.

What do you think is the best and worst part of this decade?

The best part is that you have a lot of options. Starting from your early twenties, you have so many options like picking your major, how well you do, etc. Those things start getting set in stone once you get into your work life.

The worst part is that you have a lot of options. Some of those decisions can make or break future decisions. If I had known not to take out as many student loans, then maybe I'd have a different situation now. At the same time, my religious beliefs help me believe that there's a reason that I did the things I did, regardless of how expensive or what choices I've made. For example, Syracuse was expensive but I met my wife. It's a pro and a con. At 20, you can make a lot of decisions that can go in so many ways.

Was the biggest obstacle you were worried about that never happened?

I had everything lined up for me at the end of every significant event, actually. I had grad school after undergrad, and I was engaged and had a job offer after MBA. There's the natural fear of the unknown, of course. I didn't know where my marriage would be at a certain point. I wasn't worried about my job. I think my perspective in life kind of helps this. It's not that I let life happen to me, but I go into it with the belief that everything happens for a reason. I've learned to accept whatever circumstances come up.

What are you looking forward to most about your thirties?

I'm looking for another ten years of "what's going to happen?!" My thirties are going to be filled with kids. It'll be so cool to have kids! I don't know where my career will take me. Climbing has been a big part of my life, and who knows where I'll go with that. My relationship with my wife will hopefully grow that much more. I'm super excited for thirty. A lot of people have the fear of the unknown, but I have excitement of the unknown. I have no idea what's going to happen and I'm excited to see what comes my way.

I know it's a little weird but I'm so excited for kids. At some point, I was just like, "I'm ready for kids!" I'm really looking forward to this blob that's going to start forming thoughts and opinions. I know a lot of people in their twenties are like, "Oh no, I'm thirty" but I'm super excited to be thirty. Some people just tend to feel old when they're thirty and feel like their past is behind them, but I'm personally looking forward to the next thing. I can make thirty so awesome. In ten years when we have this interview again, I'm going to be like, "Thirty was amazing!" ■