All tagged The value of experience
Getting older is something all of us have to deal with. And, especially in today's hyper-competitive, social media driven environment, it comes with its own challenges.
But, as I discuss in today's episode, the reality isn't quiet so black and white, which is heartening, because life is full of nuances. As are each of us.
Our lives and ideas and perceptions are made up of all of our collective experiences, pieced together in different ways, sometimes elegantly, often not.
As such, how we view ourselves is, in many ways, an aggregation of these stories. It's important, then, that we focus on and interpret these stories carefully, as I discuss in today's episode.
Experience is a great educator. Over time, it teaches us and provides us with a reasoned view of life and all that makes us who we are.
However, as I discuss in today's episode, this isn't an automatic process. It's one that requires a strong sense of perspective, as well as the right mindset.
So what’s the average age of successful entrepreneurs in the US? Not just entrepreneurs in general, but the founders at the fastest growing new ventures?
45.
That’s right. The average successful, high growth entrepreneur is, at founding, far older than conventional wisdom and the mainstream media would have us believe.
Perspective is the ability to sit back and (more objectively) assess what a particular situation really means for your relationships, your work and your life. And it’s usually a very difficult thing to have when you’re right in the heat of the moment.
When you’re in the midst of it, things can seem like they’re do or die. Sometimes that may be the case but, more often than not, what’s happening is that we’re not actually processing all inputs effectively (or at all) so as to make an appropriate judgement, just the ones that are the most prominent to us at the time.
In my post on Monday (Are You Too Old?), I argued that, as an experienced professional, you had to lean into your age and experience instead of trying to downplay or avoid it. As such, you either look for those who value your experience and work with them, or take matters into your own hands, and do something for yourself. In other words, take it as a Call To Action and do what you want.
The interesting thing is that in trying to do what we want, many of us are hounded - constrained - by the same conventional wisdom that drove us to this point in the first place.
I recently came across a survey of US Tech Start-Up Founders by the venture-capital firm, First Round Capital, that yielded an insight that I think most of us, explicitly or implicitly, know to be the case:
37% said age is the strongest investor bias against founders, while 28% cited gender and 26% cited race.
Age is the strongest investor bias. No surprise there. And while the survey was focused on Tech, I don’t think it would be a stretch to envision this to be the case across start ups in other sectors as well.
Process helps. For so many aspects of our lives that we grapple with, someone, somewhere has defined a process, and it's one that works. Especially when it comes to routine, straightforward activities.
But for many other decision areas, from making the sale to conducting an analysis to hiring an employee, processes exist, and they help, but only to a certain extent.
