intergenerational-collaboration, mentoring

What are the 5 Pieces of Wisdom You’d Offer Someone Younger?

July 20, 2023

One of the beauties of getting older is making sense of our experiences. Our painful lessons of the past become the raw material for our future wisdom. And not just our wisdom but the insight we pass on to those in our lives. After all, wisdom is not taught, it’s shared. So, how might you package up your metabolized experience and deliver it as distilled compassion to someone younger than you?

One of our MEA alums (and the former CMO of Airbnb), Jonathan Mildenhall sent me this Upworthy article about advice that older people might give to younger people, which reminds me of an exercise we do at MEA: Think back to some of your key lessons you learned the hard way. What did you learn from those experiences? What are five pieces of hard-won wisdom you might offer to others?

And, for those of you who are younger and reading this, how might you tap into the wisdom of your modern elders by asking them, “What are some things you know now that you wish you’d known at my age?”

Or, if you want to learn something specific from a potential mentor, your icebreaker line might be, “I’m really curious about __________ and feel like you’re an expert on this topic. Could I spend 15-30 minutes tapping into your wisdom?”