'The Daily Show' Writer Returns to MMS for Career Day

The best thing about Middle School is that you grow out of it.

And someday, if you come back on Career Day to talk about your cool job, standing in front of an auditorium full of 8th graders won't even faze you.

"I don't care as much about what 8th graders think of me now as I did back when I was one," said Elliott Kalan, a Emmy-award winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, after giving the keynote address at Millburn Middle School's Career Day on Friday.

Kalan, now 30, married and working at his dream job, had good advice for the room full of 13-year-olds: Figure out what you love to do and then figure out a way to get paid doing it.

He also gave them some of the real secrets to success, including working hard, dressing a little better than your boss and being friendly to people.

"Most people are super lazy so when you give 100 percent, it looks like you're giving 1,000 percent," he said.

When Kalan was in High School, he said, he watched the The Daily Show and loved it, never thinking he might actually get to write for it one day.

As it turns out, a lot of the unofficial things he did in high school, like writing comic strips, watching TV and telling jokes got him where he is today, he said.

"It probably looked like I was wasting a lot of time, but I was preparing for my future without even knowing it," he said.

But getting the job you want and deserve takes a lot of hard work and persistence, he said. "No one hands it to you," he said.

He reminded the students that whatever they do will be unique because it will never have been done by anyone exactly as they will do it.

"It's your own life, your own adventure," he said.

For an idea of Kalan's sense of humor, check out the YouTube video attatched here of a piece he did when Andy Rooney was alive, pitching why he should be Rooney's successor.