“Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you're a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Your forties, you grow a little pot belly you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery. Your sixties you have a major surgery, the music is still loud but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering "how come the kids don't call?" By your eighties, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand but who you call mama. Any questions?”
Name that movie: one of my favorite scenes from City Slickers—Billy Crystal speaking to his son’s elementary-age school class.
If you are in school right now, there is no better time to be there. There is so much to learn from what is happening around you.
If you are new to a job, everyday is a lesson in leadership. You can be learning so much watching what the senior people do in response to the crises around them.
Politics have never been more interesting, due to change and uncertainty.
People’s quest for spiritual fulfillment is growing, as economic freedoms diminish.
American Idol and 24 are having their best seasons yet.
Carpe Diem. Now is the time to brush off your Personal Career Plan, dig into your Life Themes, reconnect with your self-assessments, and pursue a career about which you are passionate. Don’t blame the markets, the politics, or the idiots pursuing Jack Bauer instead of the real bad guy—make something happen in your job search today.
I spoke with a senior leader in Microsoft’s Talent Development organization last night at dinner—his biggest challenge: finding leaders who can run businesses. He’s not alone: every senior HR manager, every headhunter I meet, expresses the same sentiment.
Value this time in your life—don’t let your twenties be a blur, so that your wake up in your eighties babbling “to some Jamaican nurse.” Start living now, while living has never been better.
I’m feeling preachy today…