FEATURE
“Lessons to my younger self ”
by Airbnb’s Chip Conley
This summer I spent a week in Mexico
with my two young sons, who occasionally
want to tap into my wisdom. While there,
I received an email from a friend who is
a generation younger than me, asking for
advice I wish I’d been given as a 42-year-old.
Knowing my advice might be valuable gave
me a renewed sense of purpose, but I was
all too aware that many of us in our fifties
and above feel increasingly invisible in
today’s world.
When I surveyed nearly 200 middle-aged
people about their life and career in
preparation for writing my new book,
Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern
Elder, my number one surprise was how
often the word “irrelevant” came up in
conversations.
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One person described feeling like an old
carton of milk, with an expiration date
stamped on their wrinkled forehead.
Others felt obsolescent. One of the biggest
paradoxes of our time is that we enjoy
better health much later into life, meaning
we can remain in the workplace for longer
and be more vibrant. Yet it seems we feel
less and less relevant.
These feelings of irrelevance saddened me
as, in my opinion, older people have a wealth
of experience and wisdom to pass down to
their young counterparts. So in a bid to get
everyone to appreciate their own wisdom,
I devised a very simple exercise.
What advice would you give to a 10-year-old
who was mature enough to take it? Or to
yourself if you could time-travel back to the
end of your very first decade? Then give your
20-year-old self a couple of pieces of sage
advice. Keep going until you reach your
current age.
I spent less than an hour reflecting and
writing what follows, so don’t be put off by
the time commitment. You will soon be the
proud owner of your very own ‘wisdom book’
that you can keep on your bedside table
and add a few meaningful observations to
every week.