Older Workers: Your Advice Would Be What?

You’ve seen I suppose those great movies where somebody needs great advice and wisdom in order to achieve something important? You know, there’s usually some big trip involved, (sometimes referred to as a quest) and eventually the audience gets their first glimpse of the person with all that wisdom. And who does it usually turn out to be? Some old dude.

It makes sense after all, because the older one is, the more likely they’ve got some insight into how to handle a problem because they have been around long enough to have gone through it themselves, or know others who have. And so, they are sought out for advice by those who have yet to experience the solution, who are currently going through the problem.

Luckily, there aren’t many problems that require you or I to travel around the world scaling mountains, traversing seas or even having to leave our towns and cities. No, there are people you probably know with a great deal of wisdom in your own neighbourhood, and in fact, you can now reach a large number of those people from the relative comfort of your own home where you can seek them out on-line.

In the movies or the story books, after the heroine or hero had gone immense distances and survived all kinds of obstacles to reach the wise one, they often never got a straight answer, but some cryptic message they had to then decipher for themselves. Yes, it made for great stories and movies when the lead character or protagonist had to then use their own wisdom to figure things out on their own with the new advice.

In our current day though, the wisdom is usually passed along in this cryptic way. And just as some cultures revere their elders and consult them for advice, I want to give the more mature and older workers out there the opportunity to pass on their wisdom. The key difference is that there is no single person sitting or standing before you who has come with a specific problem to present. No, this is a different situation and requires you to use your imagination to view a different scenario. This would be more like tens of thousands of people gathered in one spot to hear whatever wisdom you think worthy of passing on. It’s more like, “What’s on your mind old one?”

So let’s see if this goes anywhere. My challenge or request to you is to add a comment and reply passing on you own advice to those younger than you with the only limitation that it be related to employment. You can pass on your best advice for getting a job in the first place, keeping the job someone has now, or how to get ahead. Yours can be a philosophy you’ve found works for you, a single line or several paragraphs. Think of this like a, “Best of” collection of thoughts and advice.

So what do you know wish someone had told you or shared with you when you were a younger person with respect to the world of work? What would have made things easier, or maybe making things easier isn’t what’s important at all. Okay, so what would you have appreciated knowing to make your work life more rewarding, more meaningful, or got you where you are now, only faster?

What topic you choose to add to the thread I hope ensues could be about different stages in one’s life too. Are you directing your words to a teenager, someone in their 20′s, their mid-life years or maybe only a few years away from retirement if you yourself are already comfortably in your twilight years? It could be that someone reading this shares this with their own mom or dad who has little to no computer skills, and therefore acts as the recorder, taking their advice and adding it on the elder person’s behalf. That would be a useful exercise on many levels.

Just imagine…a string of thoughts on the web in this thread, stumbled upon by browsers in months and years to come, or shared and passed round by regular readers of this blog, or members of a discussion group. And what if there were already a group out there, or we came to find a plethora of groups out there, where a whole bunch of old dudes hang out who in addition to any words of advice shared here, invite us to sit in their audience there? Wouldn’t that be one of those, “good for you and good for us” moments?

Matured or older workers aren’t automatically smarter or more intelligent. Age alone doesn’t guarantee wisdom. However, older and more mature workers do have a wealth of experiences that when shared can be learned from. By sharing our stories, our experiences and the outcomes, other readers can benefit from seeing what you thought at the time, what went into your decisions of the past and how those decisions affected you in the present day. No matter where you are in your own life, there’s a mixture perhaps of satisfaction, regrets, opportunities seized and lost – passed over altogether or challenges accepted and conquered.

So, now it’s your turn. Add a story that shows something learned or to learn by. Give some advice, do this alone or sit down with someone now you respect and make it an activity between you two. What’s on your mind?

Written By Kelly Mitchell

Older Workers: Your Advice Would Be What? was originally published @ myjobadvice and has been syndicated with permission.