Diversity

Not too long ago, I sat in the hot seat with famed podcaster and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk, a guy who doesn’t hold back his F-bombs. I was a little nervous going into this interview but immediately realized that Gary looooves the concept of the “Modern Elder” and MEA.

Forget about retirement! Consider reinspirement. Based upon my past three years, mostly in Mexico, I heartily recommend an international destination as a new habitat for re-inspiration. It allows you to start fresh with a beginner’s mind, learn a new culture and a new language. Maybe even save some money. Here are my top ten spots for you to consider:

Speaker Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” In mathematical terms, you’d say you are the “mean” of these people, which appropriately leads to my two pieces of wisdom on the subject: 1) don’t hang out with mean people or those who don’t appreciate the human spirit; and (2) choose good friends who are wholly different than you.

Steve Jobs and I share one thing in common beyond our round glasses. We’re both big fans of Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog. One of my guiding lessons, when I was an entrepreneur in my mid-twenties, came from Stewart. He suggested a key tenet in starting a business is to “keep it cheap, small, and local” because it allows you to reduce the size of your mistakes and learn from them.

The meme of the moment was accelerated by this New York Times article marking the end of friendly generational relations. Beyond the fact that the old cranky dude preaching in the TikTok video doesn’t vaguely resemble a Modern Elder who is as curious as they are wise, let’s accept that it was Boomers who created the original “generation gap” in the 1960s.