Being Young

I think we are all young to a certain extent. I don’t think it matters how old we are. Although we all equate numerical age with being young, we shouldn’t. Being young is something else. We all start youths and as we gain experience we also seem to start to lose our ability to be young. I think in many instances we do not see these changes in ourselves. I do not think that those that we continue to work with see these changes either, since they too are gaining experience right along with us. I think the loss of being young is a little more insidious than that. When we are young we don’t know what we can’t do, and as a result we are able to do the things that others can’t because they “know better”.

In case you are missing the connection here I am not saying there is a direct connection between your age and being young. I don’t think there is. I think being young in business resides in your head.

I watched a great rant by the comedian Craig Ferguson on the “Deification of Youth” or otherwise titled “Why Everything Sucks”. You can find it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROJKEwYEx8Q. Aside from being very funny he does touch on some of the issues and sources of our obsession with youth. I think they apply equally to business.

Notice again that I am not connecting “Youth” with being “Young”.

We tend to associate being young with the physical attributes of youth and age. As Craig Ferguson points out there are also experiential and state of mind attributes associated with being young. Unfortunately we all seem to focus on the youth aspect of being young. We assume you have to be a youth in order to be young. Hence again according to Craig we seem to be focusing our resources on retaining our youth instead of what I would call being young.

I tell people that I have grown older, but that I have not grown up. My wife does not seem to be entirely happy about my lack of growing up.

I absolutely agree with the preconception that we need young people in business. Young people have energy. They don’t seem to slow down. They have places to be and things to do. They walk fast. They get there early and stay till they are done, not till any specific time. They look at goals as something to be attained and exceeded, not something to be measured against. The young believe that they are responsible for their own attainments, or failures, and act accordingly.

I remember few if any incidents in my youth where I looked for a consensus on just about anything I did. In some instances I might have been better off doing so, but in the long run it was probably those failures that taught me the most.

Young people take on challenges because they have no idea what they are getting into, or if they do they don’t know any better about saying no. When we were young we did not know what we could do, or conversely what we couldn’t do. There were always plenty of people who were ready to tell us what we couldn’t do. There are many of those people still around in business now. When we remain young we retain this don’t know that I can’t do it approach even though we may have gained some of the experience that tells us it may be difficult if not impossible.

Young people ask direct questions and give direct answers. There was an old television show hosted by Art Linkletter called “Kids Say the Darnedest Things”. It consisted of kids (in this case really young people) answering some simple and seemingly innocuous questions and everyone listening to what they said. The kids answered directly without first wondering if they should answer at all, if they would look foolish for their answer, or if they would get the answer wrong. They just answered. I can’t help but believe that approach might help improve business.

Direct questions are usually the simplest ones to ask. Why? How much? What do you do? We seem to have evolved to a point where direct questions are associated with being rude. The young ask direct questions without the consideration of if it is rude or not. It shouldn’t be construed as a question of etiquette. It is merely a request for a desired piece of information.

Young people understand that they can be wrong. They think they know everything (especially my children) but I think deep down they know that they don’t. That doesn’t stop them though. That’s why they went to school. To learn some things that they didn’t know that will help them later. That learning process usually involves getting a few things wrong. They don’t want to be wrong, but they know it happens and hopefully they will learn from it.

The active ingredient here for this aspect of being young is learning. Sometimes it is mandatory and we are forced to go to school and learn something whether we want to or not. On the other hand as we gain and gather experience we should recognize how much we have yet to learn and no so much rely on how much we believe we already know. When we have decided that we either have learned enough, or know enough is when we begin to not be young.

Too often it seems we have a tendency to get defensive in our business posture as a result of feeling that we must defend what we have already achieved or accomplished instead of remembering the risks and behaviors that enabled those accomplishments to occur. We understand the new challenge but may not as fully commit to or embrace it. We are now more conservative in our approach. We feel that we have something to lose and not so much to gain. We are no longer young, and we are acting like it.

I do not wish to sound too utopian in my views. I understand the realities of life and business. At least I hope I do. My objective is to remember my approach to things as a youth and combine it with the knowledge and experience I have gained since then. I may have a little better idea of some of the things that I can do, but I think there are probably vast expanses of things that I can’t do that need exploring, if for no other reason than to prove that there are parts of it that can actually be done.

I think being young in business is about remembering and channeling the energy, excitement and approach we had to proving something when we started out. It’s more about having somewhere to go instead of looking back at where you have been. It’s about continuing to learn new skills and capabilities instead of relying on those that you already have. It is retaining the realization that it still is about the destination and not so much about the path or process that is supposed to get you there.

It is remembering that it is not so much about youth but more about retaining our approach to things in our youth. I think that is the essence and key to being young.

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