Humans 101
Signs You Are Likely to Make the Most of Your Life
Or, what I learned from 100 people over 50
‘Wisdom comes with age’ is not just an aphorism. Life experience is one of our greatest teachers. As we move through life, we accumulate wisdom about who we are, what’s really important, and how we can live productively and happily.
With this in mind, I recently polled about 100 people, all over the age of 50, for advice on making the most of life. I studied their comments, looking for the particular mental attitude or belief underlying each one. I found common patterns, used some reverse engineering, and distilled them into five signs that you’re making the most of your life.
You know you are a work in progress
As a business coach, I’ve had the privilege of working with some brilliant clients. In 2008, I met Larry Tesler, an iconic figure in computer science. Larry attended Stanford at the age of 16, joined Steve Jobs at Apple in 1980, and eventually worked with Amazon and Yahoo. He contributed significantly to early programming language.
When I met him, Larry was 62, and I was teaching a leadership development course at Yahoo. He was as curious and hungry to learn as the rest of the (much younger) people in the course…
