Make Room for Generations
Recently I had the chance to meet Chip Conley through my work with Velocity Coaching. Chip is now the founder of the Modern Elder Academy, the world's first midlife wisdom school. He shared his journey with us from hotelier to Airbnb in-house mentor to the founder of MEA. He told us about the work that attendees of MEA are doing and its impact on their world when they return. We spoke about metastasizing knowledge into wisdom and making sure it seeps throughout your organization. We spoke about ageism being the only "ism" that is still allowed in corporate America.
And then he shared that 54 is the midway point of your adult life. From 18 to 90, 54 is the middle. And that instead of thinking that 54 is 11 years until retirement, you've got another half of adulthood ahead of you to take the wisdom you've learned in the first half and make sure it is shared with and leveraged by all those that are coming behind you.
It hit me square between the eyes as I've been on a writing and sharing kick with my YouTube channel. Historically, life has come down to the transfer of knowledge to those in your immediate circle, maybe one degree further through their intellectual generosity. Even with books and universities amplifying knowledge, distilled wisdom was a precious gift from one person to another. But the opportunity that exists for all of us now to earn our wisdom and share it more broadly is only going to be more possible as the near future unfolds.
And with 10,000 Boomers retiring per day, who is capturing their wisdom?
What wisdom does that generation have that we need, but it is currently locked up tight because no one has asked for it?
Instead of OK BOOMER, what if there was a place where it was okay to be a boomer and that wisdom created a collective knowledge for the next generation stepping up to take their place in the annals of history? There is a shift happening faster than any of us can see in our day-to-day, minute-by-minute lives. But when we stop to think in terms of generational wisdom, we gain perspective for the road ahead.
