As a lover of old things (is that weird to say??) something that has been clawing in the back of my brain for a while is how much more I appreciate older people in my life than before. Maybe this is because I am turning 40 this year.

40?!?!

I know and trust me I’m all sorts of weird existential thoughts nowadays. Or maybe this is in combination of my becoming a parent and some family members passing away… I just value what older people have to say way more than I ever have before.

Case in point: when I was in my twenties, I was audacious. Almost to the point of crazy. First of all, after graduating high school, I did not attend college or university, but I joined a now defunct NGO and taught conversation English all across the world. Then in my early twenties I decided I wanted to start my formal education and returned to my home country and started at a local community college. I did four years straight, but during this time I was also married, and we started our business together, a franchise from his father’s business. So, when I’m like 23 I started my first business, and it did really well. I don’t want to brag, but we took it from 3k dollars a month for the first month to 20k a month about eight years later.

Anyone really in my life at that time who was a part of my family said I was crazy. Said that I would amount to nothing because I didn’t go to university right away. And I was so audacious that I didn’t care. It also helped that my FIL believed in us to start our business and helped us out along the way. So my audacious was backed by my husband at the time and his family. And frankly with them, things were good (until they weren’t). But that’s not the topic of this post, the topic is that now… now that I have a kid of my own, I’m much more likely to listen to someone older than me when they give out life advice.

Take for example my business coach, her name is Iffy and she owns this site and talks about what a business coach actually entails. She’s of the older generation than me, but she’s also a parent. Man, if I tell you that I think that she’s right about most business-related things. But more importantly… she’s right about mindset dilemmas and getting out of old troublesome thought-habits that hinder us in our endeavors. One of the reasons why I think she’s right about most things is because she’s put in the time to learn, study, and grow herself. Something we can’t do when we’re in our twenties. Also, she’s not the person to tell you can’t do something. Originally, I had one business idea that I shared with her, but what I wanted to do was something entirely different. Not for one moment did she ever poo-poo my idea or make me feel like I can’t do it. If anything, she pushed me to be better than I ever thought possible. I will always be grateful to her.

Old people are cool.