Millennials are cool. I want to be one, based on the two I met. I can also say I had a parenting epiphany at the same time. We can learn a lot from these hipsters.

I connected with two very bright ladies through my high school friend, an exchange student from Sweden from way back in the 80s. She came for a visit where I fully expected to show her the GREAT Northern California. I did. However, she showed me an entirely new world going on right in my own backyard, beyond the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz tourist sights.

With years in the hotel business, my friend Charlie was looking for new ways to sell her product. We visited hotels for the experience a patron might have and not just a room with a bed. What does it feel like to be there? Am I hanging out at a port at the Hotel Zephyr with wall coverings made of shipping containers? Or do I feel sustainably hip at the Hotel Zetta with chandeliers made of hundreds of pairs of repurposed eyeglasses?

Repurposing.

The hotel industry is reinventing itself and we met up with two very, very bright ladies turning the business upside down—millennials!

The first incredibly hospitable hotelier on our adventure is part of a secret hotel you must be in the know about to stay, like a speakeasy. I couldn’t even tell you the name. Generally, it is run like a dormitory where the most talented people in the world are invited to solve a problem for an old, stodgy company who is fresh out of ideas. The “talent” lives at the hotel where every need met so all of their energy goes to solving the problem—no mundane decisions to make such as, “What’s for dinner?”

Take a comfy, cool music break.

Sheesh! I’ve always daydreamed of being Jackie Kennedy where all my responsibilities are managed so I could write without interruption. Forget finding my Onassis, I just need a great contact and a smaller bunch of cash so I can stay at this innovation house.

Experts told her the secret hotel wouldn’t work. She took the higher road, “There is always someone to tell you a path is too hard and I don’t believe them.” I admire her positivity and can-do attitude. She believes in a sliding pricing scale to make the innovation house accessible to all.  Wow, a soft spot for humanity in a business. I love her.

The next millennial we met is at airbnb.com, a reasonably priced “hotel” service. Not everyone can afford to stay at a traditional hotel while visiting Paris or New York but staying in an apartment through airbnb.com makes it possible. To our new friend, she wanted a job where she can make an impact; she found it.

Hipster ideas form here.

I felt so hip chatting with her in the “eat anything you want and it’s free” cafeteria. I had a glass of aranciata, fizzy grapefruit juice since I ate before the meeting. Because it was a Friday when we visited, employees were dressed up in suits and fancy dresses, a flip on casual Fridays for us old folks. Long tables with monitors and keyboards make for some chummy workspace, no cubicles. I hope garlic lunches are not trending: #nogarlicbreathplease.

I told her how much I admired her time to start a career, the creative environment and people surrounding her.

Her response, “I don’t know what you do but why don’t you get a job here?”

Wow! She is like the other millennial, if you see something just go for it. I’m sure my mom skills are transferrable or something from my volunteer board positions. I can make an outstanding citrus bread for morning meetings. My corporate skills are kind of rusty. If I take a millennial attitude, I will find a way to realize my dreams.

Did their college degree lead them to this path? No. One had a history degree and the other, after several changes finished as an art curator. The founders of airbnb.com didn’t major in the hotel business either. They were design majors. As a parent worried about what my own soon-to-be college student will major in, I felt relief. Who knows what the future holds my kids or myself.

As I poured out my whoas to one of them regarding my oldest son and his major, her advice, “He will self-select.”

I know this new generation of twenty and thirty-somethings are getting a bad rap these days. Never having been close to any in the work place since we are in different “industries,” I couldn’t confirm or deny this assessment until now.

I think millennials have their heart and their heads in the right place, judging on the ones I met. I want to be one in my next life and my kids to follow in their footsteps.