When Did You Find Out That You Were Not Young Anyway?

Have you ever heard the remark that age is only relevant if you are a cheese? All of my career it seemed I was one of the youngest guys in the room.

Then, overnight, I looked around and was shocked to discover I was the oldest guy in the room. Working on my third career, I don’t know why that should have been a surprise to me.

It was though … a reality check. But why? Who knows, especially since I have no fear about the value I bring and my ability to keep delivering relevance in a young person’s world going through rapid change. Luckily the feeling did not last long.

Here are my top tips on how I focus on keeping ‘one step ahead’ of the cheese:

Do not rest on past successes …

There is nothing more dangerous to life success than a great last result, is there? We are ‘only as good as our next result’. Stay paranoid.

Make yourself a project …

Hairdressing icon Vidal Sassoon was famous for having said: “The only place you’ll find success coming before work is in a dictionary.” We have to work on ourselves. Put pressure on ourselves. Critique our days. Give back to society. Be our own very best coaches and cheering squads. All of this applies as much to our personal lives as to our business lives.